Form 10-Q

Form 10-Q is the quarterly report a US-listed company such as Upwork Inc. files with the Securities and Exchange Commission for each of its first three fiscal quarters, with unaudited financial statements and key business metrics.

Upwork Inc. files three 10-Qs a year, for the quarters ending in March, June and September; the fourth quarter has no 10-Q and is covered by the annual Form 10-K instead. Each one carries the quarter's income statement, balance sheet and cash-flow statement, reviewed but not audited, the notes to them, including the split of revenue into Marketplace and Enterprise, and a section called Management's Discussion and Analysis. Inside that section is the table that matters most for reading the marketplace, Key Financial and Operational Metrics, where Upwork states gross services volume, active clients, GSV per active client, marketplace revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, the same quarter a year earlier and the year to date. Those are the key business metrics that never reach the GAAP statements; the 10-Q is the formal source for them.

The 10-Q lands some weeks after the earnings release that announced the same numbers in a Form 8-K. The release is faster; the 10-Q is the one to cite, because its tables have kept the same shape since the 2018 IPO while press releases change layout and rounding. Its financial statements are also tagged in XBRL, so revenue and net income can be read by machine.

A 10-Q restates the prior-year comparison column when definitions change, which is why a figure for an old quarter is best taken from the newest filing that shows it.