How the Evidence Score works

Every number on this site comes from a written record: a page on the firm's own website, a state board entry, a business registry record, an IRS preparer record or a software directory listing. Each record carries its source link, the date we looked, and whether the firm said it about itself or someone else confirmed it. If we don't have a record for something, the site says "Not verified". We never fill a gap with a guess.

Where the evidence comes from

The firm's own website. We read up to 12 pages of each firm's site, such as services, pricing, about, team, contact and privacy, at a slow rate and only where the site's robots.txt allows it. Anything taken from here is labelled self-reported. It still counts toward services and transparency, because a firm that writes down what it does is easier to hold to it.

Pleiades Consultancy's own clients are read and scored from their own websites by these same rules. We build or maintain some of those sites, so the disclosures page sets out the one extra rule we hold ourselves to.

State accountancy boards. A CPA license or CPA firm permit counts only when the board's own register shows it as active. We check whether a license is active. We don't report disciplinary history for any firm; where a board publishes it, the board's own lookup is the place to read it. Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia publish their license records in a form we can match, so firms in those states are checked against them automatically. Illinois license data comes from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and is used under the Open Database License (ODbL). California license data comes from the California Board of Accountancy's licensee file, published through the Department of Consumer Affairs. Michigan license data comes from the license list published by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, which carries active licenses only. A Michigan match means we found the license on that list, not that the State of Michigan approves the firm. Elsewhere the field stays "Not verified" until a check is logged, and each profile links to that state board's own search so you can look the firm up yourself. An individual's license is shown as an individual's license. It never verifies the whole firm.

State business registries. We look for the firm's legal entity on the state record, note its status, and take its formation date where the record gives one. A registration that the state lists as forfeited, dissolving or not in good standing counts as checked but earns no points, for the entity or for its years operating. Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia publish their registers in a form we can match, and we match firms against them only on an exact legal name in the same city. A near match is left unlogged rather than guessed. District of Columbia records come from the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection through Open Data DC, and Iowa records come from the Iowa Secretary of State through the Iowa Data Hub. Both are used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Iowa's file lists active entities only. Virginia records come from the Virginia State Corporation Commission's entity tables on data.virginia.gov. They're a 2024 snapshot, so a Virginia entity formed after late 2024 won't appear in them yet.

IRS preparer records. The IRS publishes a file of everyone who holds an active preparer tax identification number (PTIN), released under the Freedom of Information Act and updated twice a year. We match a firm on its exact business name plus its office city and state, and we log one person's record. When several preparers share that name and city, the firm's named contact decides which one. If we can't tell, we log nothing. So a profile says "IRS preparer record for" the named person. It's never a license for the firm, and it isn't a directory listing. The credential on the record is what the preparer reported to the IRS, so a CPA entry there is never a state CPA license. A record showing CPA, enrolled agent, attorney, enrolled retirement plan agent or the IRS's Annual Filing Season Program earns the item we score for a bookkeeping designation or IRS credential. A record without one of those, or no record, counts as checked and not found. IRS records are left out of the share of firms holding a third-party-verified credential.

Software directories. We check whether the firm appears in the Xero advisor directory. A listing shows Xero-trained staff. It isn't a license.

A check we ran ourselves. When a firm publishes an email address on its own domain, we confirm that the domain accepts mail.

Map and search tools help us find firms in the first place. Nothing from them is published or scored.

Found, not found, and not checked

Each item in the score sits in one of three states. Found means a source confirms it, and it earns its points. Not found means we checked a named source and it didn't show the item, so it earns nothing but still counts as checked. Not checked means we couldn't look, so it earns nothing and doesn't count as checked either. A directory or registry search that comes back empty is never read as a negative. The profile says "Not verified" and names what we searched.

Credentials always need a third party. A firm writing "CPA" on its own homepage doesn't earn the credential points. The state board's register does. An IRS preparer record earns only that one item, because the IRS publishes the record but the credential on it comes from the preparer.

Coverage, and when a firm is ranked

Coverage is the share of the 100 points we could check. A firm is ranked only at 70% coverage or more, and coverage sits next to every score. The weights never move. When an item couldn't be checked, its points aren't handed to another item to make the total look complete.

A firm gets a number on a ranked list only when it also documents at least 6 of the items we score, the same bar that gives it a profile page. Coverage counts an item we checked and didn't find, so a firm can pass 70% with very little on record. Scored firms below that bar sit under the numbered list as Also scored, with their score and no number. We call a list a Top list only when it numbers at least 3 firms; with fewer, the page is a scored comparison.

A market page gets a ranked list only when at least 8 firms clear the listing bar and at least 8 of them reach 70% coverage. With fewer, the page shows an unranked comparison table in alphabetical order. We don't lower the bar to produce a ranking.

To be listed at all, a firm has to offer bookkeeping on its own website, publish a working way to reach it, name an office location or say it serves clients remotely, and be confirmed by at least two kinds of source.

What we never publish

No star ratings, no review counts, and nothing that works like one. Map-listing ratings can't be copied into a directory, and a review count mostly measures how often a firm asks. Where we have verified a firm's Google profile, its page links to it, so you can read the reviews at the source. We also don't copy a directory's profile, badges or logos. We write a short dated statement of what the record showed and link to it.

How often it's refreshed, and who approves a change

Every listed firm, Featured firms included, is rechecked every 7 days. We read its website again and look only at pages whose text changed. Firms we reviewed but don't list are rechecked every 90 days. State records behind a license or registration are rechecked every 7 days, and a license within 14 days of its expiry date is checked again every day. IRS preparer records are re-read every week, a firm with no IRS record is searched again every 3 months, and the IRS releases a new file twice a year.

Most changes are accepted by the software, not a person. A change goes through on its own when every new quote appears word for word on the firm's page, nothing was matched only in a menu or footer, no name, town or quote fails our sense checks (a site builder's default name, a place that isn't a town, template filler text), the score moves by less than 5 points and no firm's place in any top 5 changes. Everything else waits for a person: a bigger score move, a change in a top 5, a changed license or registration status, facts that contradict each other, a firm that would drop off a list, or a site that now sends visitors somewhere else. Until someone decides, the page keeps showing the older record.

A firm is added to a list, scored or given a profile page only after a person confirms it. That rule started on 26 September 2026, and firms listed before then went through the automatic checks alone. The first time we read a new firm's site, an item that fails those checks is dropped instead of held, and the rest is kept on file without a person while the firm stays off the site. The first read of a Featured client's site always waits for a person. A claim or a correction always goes to a person. Older scores stay on record.

The weights and gate numbers below come straight from the scoring code.