Materiality.

Editorial standards.

Independence is a process, not a claim. This is the bar every issue must clear.

Last updated: 2026-04-25 · v1.0

The eight rules every issue must clear

1. Every claim has a source.

Tool feature claims link to the vendor's documentation as of the publish date. Pricing claims link to the pricing page with retrieval date. Industry statistics cite the original report — not a derivative blog summary. We don't invent numbers.

2. We cover what mainstream accounting media won't touch.

Karbon Magazine covers the Karbon ecosystem; AICPA covers the profession at large; Going Concern covers Big-4. We cover the competitor tools and edge-of-stack software those publications structurally can't. The angle isn't "we're unbiased" — it's "we cover what others can't."

3. Sponsor placements are clearly disclosed.

Every sponsored placement carries a visible SPONSORED label and a distinguishing visual border. Sponsor copy is sponsor-written. Editorial coverage and sponsorship are decoupled — sponsoring Materiality buys placement, not editorial favour.

4. Useful, not hype.

Every issue must contain at least one specific, actionable insight — not just description. "AI is transforming accounting" is not a claim we'll make. "Tool X works for these two scenarios but breaks on this third one" is.

5. Honest about limits.

When a tool falls short, we say so — with sourced evidence. When AI doesn't help, we say so. When something we recommended later disappoints, we update. The reader-correction loop catches what we miss.

6. Original testing — at least one piece per month.

At least one piece per month involves us testing a tool on real workflows, with the tool's free trial or our paid access. Synthesised reviews are valuable; tested reviews are the moat.

7. Reader corrections are a feature, not a flaw.

Every issue ends with "Spot something we got wrong? Reply and we'll publish the correction next issue." Corrections are not buried — they go at the top of the next issue, prominently. The reader-correction loop is the mechanism by which an editorial newsletter stays honest.

8. Technical claims escalate.

Any claim about a tool's pricing, feature behaviour, or accounting workflow specifics is checked against the vendor's docs as of the publish date — with a cited URL. From Month 4 onwards, accounting-specific technical content may route through a credentialed reviewer (CPA / CA / ACA). We don't pretend to be CPAs ourselves.

Affiliate disclosure

Some pages and issues contain affiliate links. We may earn a commission when readers sign up for a tool through our links — at no extra cost to the reader. Affiliate relationships do not influence editorial coverage. When we cover a tool we have an affiliate relationship with, the relationship is disclosed at the top of the piece in addition to per-link disclosure.

Affiliate programs we currently participate in (or have applied for):

Updated as relationships are established or end.

How we use AI

Materiality is built using Claude (Anthropic) for research synthesis, drafting, and verification — alongside human editorial supervision. The publisher reads and approves every issue before send. From Month 4 onwards, our masthead may include a fractional credentialed reviewer (CPA, CA, or ACA) who provides technical sign-off on accounting-specific content.

We don't pretend Claude isn't involved. We also don't pretend the system runs without human judgement. The honest framing: AI does the synthesis-heavy lifting, the publisher does the editorial-judgement work, and the result is reviewed for accuracy before send.

This is the pattern most professional B2B publications now use. The trust-deficit research suggests transparency about it earns more trust than hiding it. We agree.

Corrections policy

If you find a factual error in any issue:

What gets corrected: factual errors, mis-stated pricing or features, mis-attributed quotes, outdated info presented as current.

What doesn't get a correction (just a clarification): editorial judgement someone disagrees with — we'll publish counter-views if substantive, but a difference of opinion isn't an error.

Sponsorship and editorial separation

Sponsorship does not buy editorial coverage. When we cover a sponsor's tool, the relationship is disclosed at the top of the review.

We will decline a sponsorship if we're actively running a critical review of the sponsor's tool that issue. We will pause a sponsorship if a sponsor's behaviour makes the relationship reputationally untenable.

Full sponsorship terms, including the founding-sponsor program, are at /sponsor.

The bar isn't perfection. It's transparency.

We will get things wrong. The standards above don't promise we won't — they promise that when we do, the correction is visible, prompt, and structural. That's the only sustainable answer to the AI-content trust problem in B2B media: be wrong sometimes, be honest about it always, and let readers see the process.

If something here ever fails — if you spot a buried correction, an undisclosed sponsorship, a claim without sourcing — that's a process failure. Email us.