The NASPP Blog

During the Section 16 Q&A webcast in January, Alan Dye discussed the new procedures for resetting an EDGAR passphrase. The passphrase is used if you need to generate new EDGAR codes (CCC, password, and PMAC) for you or your insiders in the event that you’ve forgotten the password or it has expired.

Linda Epstein from Hewlett Packard Enterprise emailed to tell us that there is an easier way to update an insider’s expired password, assuming the following:

• You know the insider’s EDGAR codes (CIK, CCC, expired password, and PMAC—you don’t need the passphrase for this), and
• Have your own access to EDGAR.

The Easier Way

Rather than logging into the insider’s account, you can simply log into the main EDGAR website (or the EDGAR Online Forms Management website) under your account and select the Retrieve/Edit Data function. EDGAR will ask you to enter the CIK and CCC for the account you want to edit. Turns out, you can enter any account here (so long as you have the access codes for that account)—it doesn’t have to be your own account.

Once you enter the CIK and CCC code, you then have the ability to change the password for the account, provided you know the old password and the Password Modification Authorization Code (PMAC). This is easier than generating all new EDGAR codes, especially if the individual is an insider at more than one company (which would require you to notify all the other companies of his/her new CCC).

Update Contact Info Too

You can also use the Retrieve/Edit Data function to update an insider’s contact info, including email address, and you don’t need the insider’s password or PMAC to do this.

Given the ability to do this, I’m not sure you’d even need to update the insider’s password (you can still submit filings for an insider whose password has expired). But if you did need to do so, without the insider’s password or PMAC, you’d be stuck generating new EDGAR codes. Here again, this feature could be handy. Because, let’s face it, if you don’t know those two things, you also probably don’t know the insider’s passphrase and you’re going to have to generate a new passphrase. This feature would at least allow you to ensure that the insider’s email is correct (or change it to an email address that you can access), since, under the new passphrase procedures, you have to provide the “electronic security token” that is emailed to the insider when the new passphrase is requested.

It also means that instead of the nightmare I went through to update my passphrase, I could have had one of my friends who does Section 16 filings update my expired password for me (ironically, I knew my old password and PMAC, I just didn’t know my passphrase). I’m sure one of you would have come through for me. Good to know for the future (not that I am ever going to forget my passphrase or let my password expire again).

This Explains a Lot

Well, maybe not a lot, but it does at least explain why you have to enter your CIK and CCC to change your password after logging into EDGAR, something that, until now, seemed like a useless extra step to me.  I’m not sure it explains the need for the PMAC, however (if you already know the insider’s old password, how much more authorization do you need).

If anyone else has any handy EDGAR tips, I’m all ears.

– Barbara