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Editorial Guidelines

Last Updated: March 01, 2024

At Business News Daily, we connect small business owners with the products and services needed to operate successful businesses. We know reliable and efficient software and tools are the backbone of your business and that identifying the best options can be a time-intensive, confusing process. We’ve streamlined the decision-making journey for you by conducting hands-on research that can guide you to exactly the right solution for your needs.

At the core of this endeavor is our team of expert reviewers who spend countless hours studying the small business landscape, testing products and services, analyzing performance and comparing competing tools. Below, find out exactly how our review process works.

What you can expect from Business News Daily reviews and buyers guides

When you turn to a Business News Daily review or buyers guide, you can count on recommendations that are accurate, fair, informative and well-rounded. Specifically, we promise to deliver the following:

Small business expertise

Our small business experts have decades of experience as entrepreneurs, product specialists and business operations consultants. They infuse every product or service investigation with their personal knowledge of what it’s like to use a given software or tool. Their institutional knowledge, combined with hands-on testing and up-to-date research, allows them to guide small business owners to the best of the best.

Direct comparisons

It can be overwhelming to realize there are dozens of products competing for your dollars. We make the buying decision easier by narrowing down the vast range of options and comparing them to one another. You can find out, for example, not only how straightforward QuickBooks is to use but also how its user-friendliness rates against rivals like Xero and FreshBooks. Through clear comparison charts and alternative suggestions, we take away the mystery and let business owners quickly see how various services stack up against each other.

Overall editor’s rating and individual criteria ratings

Before diving deep into a review, we know it can be helpful to get a sense of a product’s assets and flaws at a glance. That’s why, right at the top, we rate every solution on a number of factors. This ranges from general areas, like pricing and feature set, to specific uses, such as invoicing and bill pay for accounting software. You can take a look at our scoring chart and let the numbers speak for themselves — we even include an overall editor’s rating so you can compare and contrast product scores across a category.

Here’s how our ratings break down:

Individual criteria rating

1-3: This area is a significant shortcoming in the product’s appeal.

4-6: While the product may be limited in this area, it can get the job done.

7-10: The product provides near — or top-of-the-line — quality in this area.

Overall editor’s score

1-3: We cannot confidently recommend this product or service to business owners.

4-6: This product can meet basic needs but is far from the best in its category.

7-10: The product is among the top offerings available for small business owners.

Suffice it to say, we only recommend services with an overall score of 7 or higher. After all, if a product doesn’t rate well in a majority of areas, it has no business being used in your business.

Specific use cases

While Business News Daily provides product recommendations for small businesses in general, we recognize that needs vary across industries, company size and budget. That’s why we cater our guidance to specific audiences. You’ll notice unique use cases in our reviews, such as “best for restaurants” or “best for growing businesses” or even, in the case of accounting software, “best for invoicing.” This way, you know exactly which products service which companies best and, therefore, what will serve you best.

Meticulous and exhaustive analysis

Our multistep review process is not left to one, two or even five people. The extended Business News Daily editorial staff and our team of small business experts join efforts to ensure each and every review is fact-checked, verified and copy edited to meet our standards for accuracy and quality. Through multiple rounds of researching, testing, drafting and editing, our product recommendations and buyers guides must adhere to our core principles of trustworthiness, accuracy and objectivity so that small business owners receive unrivaled guidance on the things that matter most.