Hints for using the Excel table of the Top500

Congratulation! You have bought a pack of the best companies with the most actual data.
In this document, you will find 
•	a description of the fields (columns)  in the table and
•	some hints for handling the table.

The addresses
Here is a more detailed description of the single columns:

1)	Id: This is our internal Id-number for this company. If you have any question regarding a specific company, please include this number for a better identification.
2)	Company: Company name (main part) **)
3)	Office: Mostly the usual national name of the head office. Sometimes the extension of very long company names or  on large company sites the name of the building. **)
4)	Street: Street and number in the national order (some countries prefer Number, Street). Attention: In some countries, this field can be left blank. The Zip Code holds already all information. **)
5)	Street2: Some addresses are holding more information about the street or using company internal information to route the mail within the company building(s). This field can left blank. **)
6)	CountryCode: The official country code (mostly identical with the plate number of the cars). Still mostly used in most European countries but no more recommended for general use. Especially, when countries have a Zip/code consisting of letters (like the UK, the Netherlands or Ireland), it is NOT recommended to use a CountryCode
7)	ZipCode: The national Zip code (postcode) or the city. When writing addresses of most countries, you should connect CountryCode and ZipCode with a minus (”-”). But countries which have letters in their ZIP Code don’t like this. 
8)	Town: The national form of the City. (We write ”München” and not ”Munich” because the local postman is the most important person who must understand the city name). The ZipCode holds already all information about the city, but for better readability, we do not recommend to skip this field. With the spelling we follow exactly the way, in which the official city council use the city’s name. This may be different from the company’s published address but we are sure the company and us are meaning the same city.  **)
9)	Town2: This is the English form of the city. We do not recommend to use this field, but sometimes it might be useful to identify the city, when the local name of the city is not known in your country. (Who knows, that the city ‘s Gravenhage is the same as Den Haag/The Hague? And did you know, that the local name of Helsinki is Helsingfors ?
10)	SubDiv: Sub-Division (in some countries not or additional integrated into the ZIP-Code. Should be printed after the town in the same line. In the UK and Russia, in many addresses the county name is given but obsolete, because it is already included into the ZipCode. So we used this field for storing the county but do not recommend to print it.
11)	ZipCodeBox: The ZipCode for the post-box. Should be used together with the country code.
12)	Postbox: The number or code for the post-box.. Attention: In some countries, this field can be left blank. The Zip Code holds already all information.
13)	CountryName: The international (English) long form of the country. *) **)
14)	CountryName_local: The local form of the country. We do not recommend to use this in the address, but it could be nice to include it into a letter.
15)	Homepage/ Homepage2: The URL(s) of the main page (starting page). In some cases, this URL leads you to a sub directory of the web site of the company's owner.
16)	E-Mail: The published Email-address of the company for general requests. Some companies don't publish any Email-address but have a contact form. In these cases, we list the URL of the contact form. Some companies have earlier published their Email-address, but our recent check leads to an error. If the domain of the address is still valid, we removed only the name field. This type of email-address (starting with an @ ) means, that we have not been able to get the new address of the company. Instead of removing the whole address, we indicate with this format, that the domain and the company still exist.
But off course we do not treat this as a valid address. So if you have ordered the list complete with Email addresses, this entry is not counted for the invoice.
17)	Telephone/Telefax: The communication numbers. of the company. Mostly this is the switch board of the head office, sometimes the sales department.
18)	Industry Code (in selected lists on special order). The activities of this company defined by the NACE Code. The NACE code is very popular in the European countries and mostly used by the government in the EU. The definition of the NACE you can find on
English: http://www.top500.de/nace4-e.htm
German: http://www.top500.de/nace4-d.htm
You can find there also links to other national compatible versions of the NACE. Our list contains the NACE code with the following changes:
•	We removed the dot after the 2nd digit
•	We do not use the given letter codes, because there is always a numerical replacement.
•	We use a dash ("-") to indicate a "Don't care". So, the code "30---" means the company has activities coded with 301, 302, etc., but NOT 31, 32, etc.
•	We always expand the code with dashes to 5 characters.
•	The code 00000 means "not yet classified".
•	The codes from 00100 to 00199 are reserved for companies, which are not final classified but it is already clear, that they belong to one major NACE group. Examples
•	00120 Manufacturers
•	00165 Banks
•	00166 Insurances
19.	NACEtext: Regarding the definition of the NACE codes, you should always refer to the official definitions of the European Community. But for your convenience we list here a rough explanation of the code. These definitions are based on the NACE code in 2002. In 2003 Germany published a new mostly compatible code called WZ2003, which might have influence of the further coding of the NACE. The language is mostly of the official English version, but in some cases, when Germany has a more detailed or newer definition, the German definition is given.
20.	LastChange: Date of last change of at least one field. This does not necessary mean that all fields have been re-checked at that date.
21.	Sales class: (available by special order). We do not publish the sales of the companies. For the standard lists, you can get the entry levels (the lowest sales necessary to be put on the list) in the internet under
http://www.top500.de/g0030902.htm
For your purchased lists, we can send you for free the entry level by email. 
On special order, you can get the "sales class" for each company as follows
- =	unknown
0 =	below 1 million
1 =	1 to 10 millions of Euro
2 =	10 to 100 millions of Euro
3 =	100 to 1,000 millions of Euro
4 =	1,000 to 10,000 millions of Euro
5 =	10,000 to 100,000 millions of Euro
6 =	100,000 to 1,000,000 millions of Euro
This may give you an idea about the priority to address the companies. 
To make the sales comparable between the companies, we
•	count only the own external turnover (not the sales of daughter companies)
•	for banks, we count the assets and adjust it
•	for insurances , we count the net premium income and adjust it
22.	RankingBase (Included since May 2004) (available by special order together with the power field).
If you have banks, insurances and industrial companies in one table and you want to rank them, the field ”Power” is not the right one. These industries are normally not comparable. We have made a try to divide the ”power” by a factor, so that the industries are more comparable. This is a non-scientific ”thumb-rule” without any obligation. The factors are
•	for banks 20
•	for insurances 4
•	for all other companies 1
The figures in this column are in million Euro.
23.	Power  (of the company) : (available by special order).
The Power in million Euro is the annual sales/turnover of the company. For banks / insurances it is defined as the value of the assets / the premium income.
24.	Content
This is a flag for describing the content of the ” Power”-field. 
s = sales
a = assets
p = premiums
i = income/profit
The values in the ”Power”-field and ”Content”-field are used to make the companies and their power comparable.
25.	Reliability
Not all companies are publishing their output. In these cases, we use reliable second sources. This field flags the source:
Company sources:
cr = company report
ch = homepage
cf = form sent back by the company
c- = other company sources
Our estimations and second sources
ee = estimated on employees
ey = estimated on last year’s output
ei = estimated on income/profit
em = estimated percentage from mother’s sales
et = estimation using third party’s internet sources
e- = other estimations

26.	Employees class: (available by special order). 
You can get the "employees class" for each company as follows
- =	unknown
1 =	1 to 10 employees
2 =	10 to 100 employees
3 =	100 to 1,000 employees 
4 =	1,000 to 10,000 employees
5 =	10,000 to 100,000 employees
6 =  100,000 to 1,000,000 employees
This may give you an idea about the priority to address the companies.
27.	TopManagement: (available by special order) We publish the names (each name in one line) in the form:
•	Function (mostly given in the language of the company)
•	Colon ( : )
•	Title (optional). Please expect in some (not all) entries a "Ms.", "Mr."
•	First Name
•	Middle Name 
•	Family Name
•	Comment in round brackets (optional)
•	New Line
The complete line from the first colon to the end can be used in the address field after the company's name.
The first line is reserved for the CEO. If unknown, this line can be empty.
Please note, that in general we do not publish the gender of the managers.
Please note also, that in some European names a colon can be a normal letter within a name.
28.	If you have bought the previous information (top management) the following information fields will also be given:
•	TMnames: All published members of the top management. The order in this field is 1) CEO, 2) other top executive managers 3) supervisory managers
•	CEOname: Name of the highest person of the executive managers (CEO=chief executive officer). If more than one exist in the company only one is given here. If no one is published, the chairman of the supervisor board may be given.
•	TM2name: One member of the second level. If not available, the CEO is given.
29.	The field CEOname (or TM2name on special request) is split for your convenience into the following fields
•	Function: The Job title mostly in the company’s published description (everything left from the colon)
•	Gender (Ms for females or Mr for males). We have a big database of European first names and their gender. We guarantee an error rate below 0.2  percent (two of thousand).
•	Title0 (Primary Job Title): Name of your primary job. If  a member of the top management  have a function, which is not his/her primary job, sometimes the primary job is put to the name. Examples: Mayor,  General Director  (This field is planned and will be implemented soon)
•	Title1 (academic or other titles which are part of the name of the owner) This should be used while personal addressing the owner at the start of your letter.
•	Title2 (academic or other titles, which are not part of the owner's name). These titles should be used together with Title1 in the address fields.
•	FirstName (includes also the second or middle name). Nick names, sometimes listed in the main field are suppressed here. Some Asian countries have two words (separated by a space) as a family name. The first is listed here, the second is listed in the FamilyName field. 
•	FamilyName: The last/main name of a person. Ancient signs of aristocrats (von, van, de) are also listed here. If the FamilyName consist of two names connected in the European way by a dash ("-") they are both listed in this field. If a ”jun.” , ”sen.” or a trailing title (KBE) is attached to the name, it is also listed here.

Example (Excel, German Version) for the personal address assuming, that each column has the name of the field.

="Sehr geehrte"&WENN(Gender="Mr";"r Herr";" Frau")&WENN(Title1<>"";" "&_
    Title1;"")&" "&FamilyName&","

In Excel97 you can assign the field names given above to each column by marking the columns from Gender to FamilyName and then you click on
	Einfügen/Namen/Erstellen/Check ”Aus oberster Zeile”
30.	Mother: On special request, you will find here the Id , name and country of the two major owner(s).  The fields are named Mother1Id , Mother1Name, Mother1country, Mother2Id, Mother2Name and Mother2country. 
The Id 0 means ”unknown”, the Id 1 means ”spreaded”. If the mother itself does not fit to the description of the table, it will not appear in the list. In this case, the Id can become useful if you order later a list, where the mother may appear. 
The explantion of teh Country Codes can be found in the information base at
http://www.top500.de/infobase.htm
31.	Counted: This entry is counted for the size of the list. Not counted (but mostly delivered) are entries with incomplete address, observed companies (see below), non-operative companies (see below), branches and duplicates (see below). Not counted entries are at the end of the list.
Depending on the format in your Excel, this value can be displayed as "yes" or "true" or "-1" if the entry is counted and "no" or "false" or "0" otherwise. 
32.	Observed: This company is under our special observation because it may be no longer part of the top500.  We are still listing and counting this company, because the company still exist and even in case of a bankrupt, there might be a follower under the same address.
33.	Operative: This company is operational (in opposite to a holding or a group).  Sometimes only the parent company is publishing reliable data, so we are still publishing a holding or group, if we have no better data about its large daughters. A non-operational company is only included and counted if none of its daughters is listed. But in general, non-operational companies are not included in the list.
34.	Branch: Sometimes, we found two different addresses without an indication, where the head office has its place. We will list both and mark the assumed smaller site as a branch but will count only one. 
35.	Duplicate:  Duplicates are neither published in the internet nor counted in our lists. But sometimes, we only assume, one company might be a duplicate of another one but we have still no reliable information. In this case, we mark the company which is probably the duplicate and include it in the list.
36.	Robinson: This company does not like to get unsolicited Faxes and/or Mails. We deleted the mail address and fax number. Here we recommend to use the postal address. This entry is counted.

Recommended address format for direct mailing
The complete address (most countries) should have the form
1)
2)
3)
4)
5) – 6) 7) 8)
11) or Country of receiver in your language. Capital letters are recommended *)

The UK likes the form
1)
2)
3)
4)
7)
6)
UNITED KINGDOM

*) We recommend to 
•	repeat the CountryCode in the long form and capital letters directly below the city. 
•	use the language of your country because for this line, it is important, that the postman in your country understand this line
•	leave this line blank if you are writing letters within your country.

**) These fields holds language dependent information. All language dependent information are given in Latin characters (even for Greece, Iceland and Russia). If different, the local (national) form of the information is listed. This is because the most important person who must read and understand the address is the local postman who brings your letter to the companies. 
For the different purposes which you may plan, we have listed every language dependent information in 4 different formats. 
•	The Excel-Format, which should be correct on every Window based PC  with a West-European character set
•	The HTML-Format and 
•	The ASCII-Format. 
•	The international/English Name (city field only)
This ASCII format contains no national characters and should be used only if your printer does not understand the national characters of the addressed countries. The resulting addresses should always be readable but because of the replaced national characters they are looking different from the "official" addresses. For example: München is called in other countries mostly "Munich". We are listing this city as 
•	Excel-Format: München 
•	HTML: M&uuml;nchen 
•	ASCII: Muenchen 
•	English: Munich

Because the local form of the city is sometimes not well known in the rest of the world, we have added the international/english form (Fieldname: Town2). This field should not be used in mailings, but are helpful for identifying the city

The completeness of the addresses
Every line holds the data of exactly one company. If an information is unknown, the field is left empty, with the following exceptions:
•	If the Zipcode of the post-box is given and the field for the post-box is empty, it means the number of the post-box is not necessary
•	If the Zipcode of the City is given and the field for the street is empty, it means the street is not necessary
•	If the Web-address (Homepage) is given, but the field ”bestaetigt”/”WebAcknowledged” is empty, it means, the company has reserved this address but there is no content. The web-site is not active under this address.
•	In some cases, we wrote a minus (”-”) to indicate that the field is intentionally left blank.  This can mean "not necessary", "not known", or "not existent". To avoid confusions we use the minus in 
•	The street field, when a street name is not necessary or not existent. So you can simply print all address fields.
•	In all other address fields, we do not use the minus, because the field is either unimportant (office, street2, sub-division) or so important, that we would not sell this address to you without a content (like the field "company name")
•	All other non-address fields we mostly use a phrase always starting with "no " (like "no URL" or "no Email") if it is not existent. Otherwise we left the field blank.
The name ”top500” (top1000, top2000)  refers to the number of complete addresses in the list. But sometimes, we know, that a company is larger than other companies in the list but we have not its address. So we publish the company in the list, but do not count it. The result is, that your list may have more companies than the title of the list indicates.
Some few (less than 2 per thousand) companies have not allowed us to include them in our lists. The reason is mostly, that for all communication the "mother" (or group) is responsible. We followed this wish by either removing the company from the list or listing the "mother" (or group) instead.

Telephone and Fax numbers

The communication numbers are provided by the companies in very different formats. We provide
•	the original form
•	(and planned) our interpretation how the international form should look like

Our international form looks (according to the DIN 5008 )  like
+ ICC rest
where ”+” (Plus) is a symbol for the access code to get an international line from your telephone company,
ICC 	is the international telephone access code 
(for example: 33 for France, 44 for the United Kingdom,  49 for Germany) ,  and
rest	is given by the company or other sources

Example: +49 40 403480

If a ”,” (comma) is listed in the original number field, it means, the following might be interesting for a human dialler (for example: alternate extension lines if the first line is busy, or conversion of the number into a vanity number), but is not necessary for an automatic dialling. So we did not transfer these information into the international form.

The Actuality of the Data

We are checking all data every year. Our procedure is to research the internet for new data and to send out a form to the companies. We are doing this for about 5% of the whole database every two weeks. So we have no specific deadline. The advantage is that whenever you buy a table from us you will get the most actual data. But the disadvantage is, that you cannot compare the annual turnover if it is reported for different fiscal years.. 
Because of delays , miscommunication, duplicates and other  reasons (especially dead companies are never answering) there may be errors in the list which can raise up to 5%. We appreciate it very much, when you give us all information, which are wrong (e.g. returned envelopes). If the number of wrong data will reach a significant level, we will provide you with a free update after about three months or a refund of 200% of the price of all paid but wrong addresses. So, if you have bought 500 addresses, we will refund you if you have got less than 475 correct addresses. E.g.: You paid 250.00 Euro and got 470 correct addresses. You will send us the wrong addresses and we pay you for the 5 unacceptable errors 5.00 Euro (200% of the paid 0.50 per address).
This paragraph shows that we are trusting the delivered data. And so far, we are right and in the last four years we never got a request for a refund.

Errors in the Data

Sometimes, it happens, that the given data are wrong. But we expect very few errors, because every sold list is another test of the addresses in the list. So we ask you to report any error to us. Our customers previous to you have checked the addresses during their use and our next customers will be thankful, if you tell us the errors, so that we can correct our data. If you want to report errors, please send the Id-Number (can be found in the Excel table), the company name and a short sentence describing the error to sales@top500.de
If you want to send us a letter, write to

Quality Datenbank Klaus Gebhardt e.K.
Z. Hd. Klaus Gebhardt
Kielmannseggstr. 34
D-22043 Hamburg
GERMANY

Hints for using the table
First you should make a backup of the table. 
Just in case, something happens with the table before you made a backup, you can ask us for a second delivery. Mostly we store delivered tables for some months. But there is no guarantee.

If you want to print the data, try the following:
1)	Remove all unwanted columns of the table
2)	Choose ”Format” and ”Cells” and then select, that the content should be wrapped (full shown within the cell).
3)	Now, you can start a preview. 
4)	Choose the paper format with the largest width
5)	Choose that all data should fit on one page in width
6)	Arrange the borders so that all data will fit on one page.
7)	Check, if the data still can be read.
8)	Print the first page and check, if its ok
9)	Correct parameters or print the rest of the pages

Legal use of these data

The use of these data is sold ”as is”. You are allowed to use the data as often as you want within your company and all subsidiaries. 
You are not allowed 
•	to transfer, 
•	copy, 
•	re-sell or 
•	publish 
the list or parts of it to other parties. 

About the bill

Normally, the bill should show the agreed items and the price listed in our price list published on 
http://www.top500.de/top500pl.htm

Unless you reside in Germany, you will get a bill without VAT (Value added tax). It is your responsibility to pay the VAT to your local tax authorities. Our Id number for tax purposes is
DE163709325

When paying, please be sure to avoid further delay, that no one of the transferring banks will not deduct any charge and the full price will be paid to our account. If you cannot grant this (and in some European countries, it seems to be not possible), please add the following charges to your payment:
	Germany 				€ (Euro)		  0
	Countries with the Euro as currency	€ (Euro)		  5.00
	West Europe				€ (Euro)		10.00
East Europe				€ (Euro)		15.00
USA, Asia, Australia			€ (Euro)		20.00

About this document

We have written this document as a rtf-file, which can be opened with many editors including MS-Word. Rtf (rich text format) is designed to display text in a nice form but does not include any executable text like macros. Today most computer viruses are reaching us in an attachment of an e-mail. The attachment is either the program of the virus itself or a macro within a word document. So sending rtf files reduces the chance of distributing viruses and when you plan to use our lists for sending eMails with attachements, you should consider this.

Other Services and products

•	We are selling standardised lists of the biggest companies in Europe, its countries and regions. 
See http://www.top500.de/top500pl.htm
•	We are preparing every list selected by country, region, industry and of any size. Just select the activity, which the wanted companies should have. Select here: http://www.top500.de/nace4-e.htm
•	We are researching the net for any purpose
•	Because of our large database, we are one of the few companies in Europe who can publish a list of the most important cities in Europe. And as far as we know, we are the only company who is doing this. We are ordering the cities by the number of its big companies. The list has some surprises and is at least good for a small talk. Have a look at the most important cities in Europe at (ordered by number of its biggest companies):
http://www.top500.de/cities/ranks/
Have a look at the most important cities in Europe at (ordered by the summarised sales of its biggest companies):
http://www.top500.de/g0030906.htm

About us

Quality Datenbank Klaus Gebhardt was founded in 1993 and is owned by the consultant Klaus Gebhardt. It is registered in Hamburg/Germany in the public register under the number HRA 96 224.
Our other products can be seen in the internet at
http://www.quality.de
http://www.umweltdatenbank.de
http://www.industrie-lexikon.de
http://www.information-lexikon.de
http://www.finanzen-lexikon.de