In our words
The rule you are working under
What the rule requires, in our words
A member shall not market their abilities in a manner that is false, misleading, or deceptive.
ET §1.400.090 is the reason firm websites avoid absolutes and guarantees, and the reason the Journal of Accountancy advises obtaining a client's written permission before using their endorsement at all. A claim your site cannot support has been used against firms in malpractice defense.
Hazelsong does not interpret this rule and does not make anyone compliant with it. It gives you the record and the controls; the judgment stays yours.
What it does
What Hazelsong does about it
It marks the overpromise your website should not carry
A testimonial that predicts savings, guarantees an outcome, or claims an expertise is flagged with the reason before it can be approved.
It keeps the client's written permission
The sentence they agreed to, the places they allowed, and the date, stored with their words and exported as a row you can file.
It will not help you ask only the pleased clients
The 0-to-10 question is sold elsewhere with routing attached: the high answers to a public review, the rest to a private form. Marketing your abilities on a selectively collected set is the kind of claim your own code treats as misleading. Here the score changes the wording of the question and nothing else.
A reader can check how any of it was collected
Every published testimonial links to its own record — the permission and who gave it, the date, whether it was read before publication, whether a part was removed, whether anything was given for it — on our address rather than the firm's.
It takes out the figures that should not be public
A client's revenue, a tax number, another firm named in passing: replaced with [removed], with the reason shown, and never reworded.
It tells you which words your clients keep using
A report built only from what they actually wrote — no invented themes, no rounded-up numbers — so your own copy can borrow their language instead of your adjectives.
What it gives you is a testimonial you can defend: the client's own words, the permission in writing, the risky sentence flagged before it was ever public, and both versions kept if you removed something.
Before anything is public
Read for what your rule cares about
A promised result, a figure, a claim of specialization, a client's private detail — each is marked with the words that triggered it and one plain sentence of why, and nothing is published until you approve it.
How the reading worksEvery word arrives as they wrote it — even the 555-0142 they meant to leave out.
Limits, stated
What it does not do
- Hazelsong does not decide whether a sentence breaches your state board's rule.
- Hazelsong does not make your firm compliant with the AICPA code or your license conditions.
- Nothing here is legal, tax or accounting advice.
Your clients already wrote the words
Send one link and their words arrive here instead — with the date, with the permission, and read for risk before you publish.