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 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.

State accountancy boards. A CPA license or CPA firm permit counts only when the board's own register shows it as active. Connecticut publishes its licenses as open data, so every Connecticut firm is checked against it. For other states we look firms up one at a time on the board's public search and log the result with the date. Where a board's search can't be used, the field stays "Not verified". 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.

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.

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 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. Each profile links to the firm's own Google profile so you can read 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

Featured and ranked firms get rechecked monthly, other listed firms every quarter, and credentials when they're due to expire. A firm that claims its listing or sends a correction is reviewed as soon as the evidence arrives. A score changes only after a person has reviewed the difference, and older scores stay on record.

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