The data comes from review of proxy statements and financial filings by publicly traded companies.

Not generally. When privately held companies file a prospectus, that allows us to review their executive compensation data, but we do not include the data our annual pay report unless the company actually goes public.

No. The data is aggregated from publicly available filings, and is available to anyone who needs high quality, industry-specific executive pay data.

The information supplied is identical in both versions. The Adobe Acrobat ('pdf') version contains every page of the book version. Users can print sections of the report as needed, and can use the search capabilities of the Acrobat reader (not supplied) to find data or incumbents of interest.

Yes. We can send you a set of customized reports (in both pdf and Excel format) that covers just your peer companies. When you order a custom report, you are also assured that your data reflects the latest filings by each peer company. Contact us at reports@top5.com or call us at 510-745-8675 for more information

Yes. We can provide you with a comprehensive report on peer company pay practices for independent board members. Typically, we do this in conjunction with a custom executive pay report, but it can also be ordered separately.

Third party survey vendors generally require you to submit data in order to get access to reports annually. Our reports are immediately available and have no participation requirement. Our reports also represent a far larger number of companies in the specific industry covered than any general industry survey. Since the data is public, we are also able to identify each executive incumbent and company in the report.

The entire dataset for the 2009 edition of the annual report is available in spreadsheet format from Top 5. This is furnished when you order the electronic version of the report. The electronic report also includes an Adobe Acrobat version of the full printed report.

We continually update our database as companies release new financial reports and proxies. Our annual executive pay reports are created in early summer (June and July) once the major wave of new proxy filings is released for the year.

The proxy data disclose each company's last full year executive compensation for each named executive. Proxies released in the spring cover pay results for the prior fiscal year. Each annual executive pay report gives you data for the last complete fiscal year. We never include data older than March of the prior year.

Each report has an extensive "Methods" section that gives definitions for each field of data and the calculations used in our statistical analysis. If you have questions not covered in the Methods section, we are available to assist you on the phone or via email.

We exclude any executives who were not at full pay for the entire year, and any executives who are not paid in U.S. dollars. If an executive was employed for the entire year but changed job duties, we cite it in the comments section for that incumbent.