Methodology & Editorial Policy

Publication workflow

1. Inspect existing routes, metadata, canonicals, schemas, sitemaps, redirects, calculators, and internal links.
2. Check whether the search intent already has a stronger UseCOS page and avoid creating a duplicate.
3. Research current primary sources and record the verification date.
4. Define the direct answer, unique interactive value, worked example, assumptions, and exclusions.
5. Implement the page and calculation or organizer without unsupported claims or professional credentials.
6. Add regression tests for formulas, canonicals, indexability, schema accuracy, sitemaps, source dates, and privacy-sensitive behaviour.
7. Run the production build before deployment and provide a correction channel.

Primary-source standard

Financial facts are checked against regulators, legislation, central banks, tax authorities, and government sources. BC legal procedure is checked against current BC legislation, court rules, official court information packages, registry guidance, and government enforcement information. Primary-source links are placed beside important claims and repeated in the verification section of each legal tool.

• Interest Act, section 6
• OSFI minimum qualifying rate
• OSFI Guideline B-20
• CMHC mortgage loan insurance
• Canada Revenue Agency tax topics
• BC Supreme Court self-represented litigant information packages
• BC Supreme Court acts, rules, forms, and interest rates
• BC Laws
• Law Society of BC unauthorized-practice guidance
• NHTSA recalls
• Transport Canada recalls and defects
• US Department of Labor FLSA Overtime Standards
• Canada Labour Standards Regulations (ESDC)
• CBSE Examination Grading & Equivalence
• Staff Selection Commission (SSC) Exam Guidelines

Calculation assumptions

• Mortgage payments use Canadian semi-annual compounding converted to the selected payment frequency.
• Pay calculations are simplified annual estimates and are not a replacement for CRA PDOC or employer payroll withholding.
• GST/HST results use published provincial rates and do not determine product-specific exemptions.
• VIN decoding is local where possible; US NHTSA recall checks require sending the VIN to the recall API.
• BC court-order interest is calculated as daily simple interest, split across official half-year rate periods. Postjudgment partial payments are applied first to accrued interest and then to principal.
• Legal date tools use calendar arithmetic only where the source rule is explicit and show exclusions for deemed service, extensions, holidays, case-specific rules, and court discretion.

BC legal-procedure boundary

The legal tools organize public procedure, dates, source links, checklists, interest estimates, and document references. They do not determine whether a user has a winning case, select legal grounds, draft personalized pleadings or affidavits, advise what evidence to use, represent a party, or certify court filing and service.

Where a prescribed court or RTB form is required, UseCOS links to the official source and does not present its own output as a replacement.

AI-assisted drafting disclosure

AI-assisted research organization, drafting, and coding may be used. AI output is not treated as an authority. Publication-ready claims are expected to be verified against linked primary sources, and reproducible calculations are covered by automated tests. Pages disclose material assumptions and do not invent professional reviewers or credentials.

Known exclusions

Tools may exclude lender-specific underwriting, personal tax credits, employer benefits, product-specific tax exemptions, insurance quotes, appraisal costs, case-specific legal interpretation, court discretion, special-damages treatment, privilege, admissibility, publication bans, and non-US recall campaigns. Each page identifies the exclusions most likely to affect its result.

Updates and source dates

Tax and payroll data is reviewed when official annual or mid-year tables are released. Mortgage, GST/HST, RTB, court-rule, form, enforcement, and interest-rate pages are reviewed when the responsible authority publishes a change. A visible verification date is updated only when the relevant content or source check is actually reviewed.

Testing

Core engines have automated tests for thresholds, formulas, official rate periods, worked examples, partial-payment allocation, canonical URLs, schema categories, sitemap uniqueness, source dates, and privacy limits. Before production deployment, UseCOS runs TypeScript checks, targeted tests, and a production build.

Corrections

Report an incorrect rate, formula, date, source link, legal procedure statement, or tool result through the contact page. Corrections affecting outputs or high-risk procedural claims are prioritized, tested, dated, and deployed with updated source references.