Data & methodology
Three layers, not one government dependency.
Firmso is built on official open data, licensed sources, and our own analysis layer. We do not scrape competitor aggregators, and we do not architect the business around a single API approval.
Architecture
Government facts, licensed records, and our own judgement
Keeping these three separate is what lets us tell you honestly which part of a report is the state's record and which part is our opinion.
Layer 1
Official and government-authorized sources
Open government data (data.gov.in) for registry master data, and government-authorized APIs where we are eligible to consume them.
This layer supplies facts the state already holds: registration identity, status, incorporation, capital, registered office and industry classification.
Facts held by the state
Layer 2
Licensed and official sources
Where a record is not published as open data — filed financial statements, charge documents, litigation, ratings — we use sources we are contractually permitted to use, and obtain documents per order where that is the lawful route.
We do not scrape competitor aggregators, and we do not build our business on a single API approval.
Facts we are licensed to hold
Layer 3
Firmso's own intelligence layer
This is where our work actually is: entity resolution, evidence and provenance, historical change, risk indicators, monitoring and plain-English analysis.
Government and licensed sources supply facts. Firmso turns those facts into a decision product — and marks clearly which parts are our interpretation rather than the record.
Our analysis — and the reason to use us
Sources
What we use, and what each one gives us
Every source is named on this page and on the records it produces. Nothing in a Firmso report comes from an unnamed place.
| Source | Accessed via | What it supplies | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCA company master data | data.gov.in open government data | CIN, legal name, status, class and category, incorporation date, RoC, authorised and paid-up capital, registered office, NIC industry code, listing status | Bulk datasets carry a known vintage, which we state on the record rather than presenting as current. |
| LLP master data | data.gov.in open government data | LLPIN, name, status, incorporation, RoC, obligation of contribution, designated partners | Same provenance rules as company master data. |
| Director records | Registry filings | DIN, name, current and past directorships, appointment dates, designation | We key people on DIN, never on name, because names collide. |
| GST registration | Government-authorized route where held | Legal and trade name, registration status, registration date, taxpayer type, jurisdiction, principal place of business | Public registration view only. Return data is not used. |
| IEC / DGFT | Official verification endpoints | Importer-exporter code status and linked identity | Post-2017 the IEC is derived from PAN, which makes it a useful join key. |
| IP India | Official publication and licensed providers | Trademark and patent application status, classes, dates | No official API is available for these registers, so coverage is partial and labelled. |
| Courts and tribunals | Official case-status sources | Cases filed by and against a party, court, status, hearings | Party-name matching is imperfect and is reported as a match, not an assertion. |
| Credit rating disclosures | Agency public disclosures | Rating, outlook, rating action | Shown as publicly disclosed. Firmso issues no ratings of its own. |
Coverage
What we hold, and what we do not.
Coverage is not uniform, and pretending otherwise is how verification products lose the trust of the people using them. Where a source is shallow, we say so on the record.
- Registry identity
- Broad. Company and LLP master data covers the registered entity population, with the dataset vintage stated per record.
- Directors and people
- Partial. Keyed on DIN. Personal contact details are not exposed, and personal data is minimised on principle.
- Financial statements
- Narrower. Filed statements depend on the company having filed, and on our contractual right to hold them. Obtained per order where required.
- Litigation
- Partial and match-based. Party-name matching produces suggestions, not certainties, and is labelled as such.
- Trademarks and patents
- Partial. No official API exists for these registers; coverage depends on publication and licensed providers.
- Analyst-grade opinions
- Not offered. Firmso does not issue credit ratings, valuations or legal opinions, and says so on every derived indicator.
Provenance
A number without a source cannot be defended.
In a credit committee, an audit or a courtroom, the first question about any fact is where it came from. Firmso attaches the answer to the field itself.
Field status vocabulary
- fetched
- Obtained from the named source, with the date it was read.
- not found
- The source was checked and does not hold this. Not the same as a negative finding.
- needs resolution
- The entity could not be tied to a registry record with confidence.
- needs manual
- The source requires a manual step. Stated rather than guessed.
- needs licence
- We do not hold the right to this yet. Stated rather than scraped.
- failed
- The source was unavailable. Retried, and reported if it stays down.
Requesting access
Our position on authorized APIs.
We are building a business-verification and due-diligence platform for Indian SMEs. We seek access and integration with government-authorized business verification APIs available to eligible private entities through API Setu or other approved mechanisms, to support supplier verification, customer and counterparty verification, SME due diligence and fraud prevention, and to make authoritative business information easier to reach.
We apply for the APIs that fit our use case directly, and integrate them as a consumer. Where an API is not available to a private entity, we do not build around receiving it — we use a licensed source instead, and say so.
Verification is per-record and consent-aware. Bulk discovery comes from open data, not from the verification endpoints.
Limits
What Firmso is not
Stating this plainly is part of the product, not a footnote to it.
- Not a credit rating agency
- Our indicators are explainable signals derived from records. They are not ratings, and no regulated use should treat them as one.
- Not legal advice
- Firmso is a research and verification tool. It does not create a lawyer-client relationship and does not replace professional judgement.
- Not a live feed of everything
- Coverage depends on what registries publish and what we are licensed to hold. Gaps are labelled on the record.
- Not a substitute for filings
- Where a decision depends on the underlying document, obtain the document. We will help you get it, and we will not paraphrase it for you.