How a vendor gets in
A vendor is listed when it sells software that a finance team would meet in one of the twelve categories, and it has a public product page we can read. We start from the products finance teams commonly run: the finance software lines of public companies and established private vendors, plus newer vendors whose product pages describe a finished product in the category. A vendor does not apply and cannot pay to be included. Inclusion says nothing about quality, size or fit.
A vendor whose pages we cannot read is left out until we can. We do not describe a product from memory, from reviews or from another site. When the catalog was first built, these pages refused our reader:
- Coupa: HTTP 403
- Embat: HTTP 403
- IFS: HTTP 429
- Ivalua: HTTP 403
- Jaggaer: HTTP 403
- Kyriba: HTTP 403
- NetSuite: HTTP 403
- Oracle: HTTP 403
- Prophix: HTTP 403
- Sage Intacct: HTTP 403
- SAP (S/4HANA, Ariba, treasury): robots.txt disallows automated readers
- ServiceNow: HTTP 403
- Unit4: HTTP 429
- Wolters Kluwer (CCH Tagetik): HTTP 403
- Workiva: HTTP 403
Order
Every list of vendors is alphabetical by company name, and the order carries no other meaning. Categories are numbered in the order a finance team meets the work across a month, and a category keeps its number for good.
What each listing says, and where it comes from
Each product line has the same fields, filled only from the vendor's own public pages: one sentence of ours saying what the product does, one sentence of the vendor's own, quoted exactly and no longer than 40 words, the modules or capabilities the page lists, the integrations it names, and deployment if the page states it. Every listing gives the page it was read from and the date. A field the page does not state is shown as not stated; nothing is guessed. Headquarters appear only where the vendor's pages we read state them.
Whether a vendor files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is checked against the SEC's company ticker file, and a filer's page links its filings on EDGAR. We do not publish prices, because a price is only valid with the vendor's own pricing page and the date it was read.
What is never on the site
- Rankings, scores, ratings, stars or awards
- Reviews or testimonials
- Paid placement, sponsored listings or affiliate links
- Claims that one vendor is better than another
How listings stay current
Every day a script re-reads a rotating set of about fifteen vendor pages and checks that each quoted sentence still appears on the page it came from. When one no longer does, the script opens a change for a person to review: the listing is updated from the current page, or removed if the product is gone. Each re-read updates the date shown with the source.
Corrections
A vendor, or anyone, can ask for a correction by writing to corrections@toolsforcfos.com. Please include the listing and the vendor page that shows the right information. Corrections are made on the page, from the vendor's own public pages, with the new read date. A vendor can also ask to be removed.
See also about this site and the glossary.