The legislation establishing the Financial Reporting System (FRS) requires the reporting of individual company financial and operating data to be on a "uniform and standardized basis" so that the data can be aggregated and comparisons can be made across companies and groups of companies.

The legislation also required the EIA to consult with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to be consistent with other Federal financial accounting practices.

Accordingly, the FRS reporting form (Form EIA-28) necessarily incorporates a number of specific energy financial accounting principles and conventions. Details on these financial accounting concepts and principles can be found in About the Financial Reporting System (FRS) survey in the data and analysis report, Performance Profiles of Major Energy Producers. Further, the interested reader is referred to the FRS filing instructions, in particular part 1 "General Instructions " and part 2 "FRS Overview."