How we fact-check our templates

Templates are meant to be copied, so the bar is different from a normal article. We check the template text itself, the checklist, the Clockspot product behavior it describes, and the source guidance behind any legal or workflow claim.

10templates fact-checked
53claims verified
14sources cited
Example — how a claim becomes verified
Claim

Worked time should not be removed as a penalty for a recordkeeping mistake

Sourcewww.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked
StatusVerifiedMay 28, 2026
Pulled from: Timesheet Correction Form Template

Using a template?

Open the report to see what was checked before you copy or print it.

Fact-checked templates →

Adapting it for your business?

The checklist and product-fit claims show what still needs local review.

What we check →

Indexing this site?

Template reports emit ClaimReview data for source-backed claims.

Structured data →

How it works

Each template gets its own public fact-check page. The report lists the exact template claim, where it appears, the source used to verify it, the verification date, and any caveat a small-business owner should understand before using it.

  1. Read the template: title, description, best-for line, fill-in fields, printable instructions, template body, checklist, and related links.
  2. Extract claims: legal claims, workflow claims, product-fit claims, and adaptation cues.
  3. Verify the source: use official sources where the template makes legal or regulatory claims; use the template or related guide when the claim is about how the template should be used.
  4. Publish the trail: every verified claim gets a public source, status, date, and note.

What we check

  • Whether the template matches the guide and topic it supports.
  • Whether the template category matches what the reader is getting.
  • Whether legal or regulatory claims trace to a credible source.
  • Whether fill-in fields collect facts the employer actually needs.
  • Whether printable instructions belong inside the printed template.
  • Whether the template says what to adapt before using it.
  • Whether Clockspot is described only within real product behavior.
  • Whether the template avoids implying payroll, EVV, billing, or vertical features we do not provide.

Claim types

Template claims are narrower than article claims. Most are practical: what to record, what to review, what the template does not replace, and what the employer should adapt.

TypeExamplesSource pattern
Legal / regulatory"Employees must be paid for time actually worked"Official agency guidance, statute, regulation, or court record
Workflow"A correction should include the date, corrected time, and reason"The template text and the related guide it supports
Product fit"This note does not replace EVV, billing, dispatch, or payroll"Template text plus Clockspot product behavior
Adaptation"Confirm state travel-time and mileage rules before using"The template checklist, related guide, and source material
Industry fit"client site", "visit", "caregiver", "manager review"The template text and the related industry guide

What we don't check

We do not certify that a copied template is legally sufficient for every state, city, contract, or employer. The public template is a starting point, not a substitute for legal, payroll, or HR advice.

  • Whether a specific employer can adopt the template without changes.
  • Whether a printed note satisfies every internal HR, payroll, or legal requirement.
  • Whether a template replaces state-specific wage-and-hour review.
  • Whether a template replaces EVV, billing, dispatch, payroll, or legal advice.

Source hierarchy

Legal claims should use Tier 1 sources when available. Operational claims may cite the related Clockspot guidance, or the template text itself when the check is about how the template should be used.

Tier 1 — Primary, authoritative

The issuing body, court, or institution that defines the fact.

  • Government statutes / regulations on the issuing body's official site
  • Court opinions on the court's official site, CourtListener, or PACER
  • Standards bodies on their official sites (NIST, IETF, W3C, IEEE, etc.)
  • Peer-reviewed research in established journals
  • Official institutional reports (BLS, IRS, DOL, Federal Reserve, etc.)
  • Agency interpretive guidance — DOL opinion letters, IRS revenue rulings, SEC releases

Tier 2 — Secondary, generally reliable

Established databases and aggregators that index Tier 1 sources.

  • Cornell LII, Justia, CaseText for case texts
  • State legislature aggregators when statute search on the official site is limited
  • Industry databases run by reputable organizations
  • Peer-reviewed survey papers that aggregate primary research

Tier 3 — Tertiary, used sparingly

Reputable journalism that cites underlying records, used when primary and secondary are unavailable.

  • Reuters, AP, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times
  • Sector-specific established journalism — Bloomberg Law, Law360, KrebsOnSecurity, etc.

Always note when Tier 3 is used and why a higher tier wasn't available.

Excluded

  • Marketing material from any vendor (including our own; vendor self-claims aren't fact-checkable)
  • Advocacy or position sites without primary citation
  • Opinion blogs without primary citation
  • Wikipedia for the claim itself (its underlying citation may be fine; we use that citation, not the Wikipedia article)
  • Unsourced news roundups or content aggregators

Status taxonomy

Each fact-checked claim gets exactly one status. No hedging — a claim that would earn ✓ but has a worrying detail is ⚠ Partial with notes; a claim without a findable source is ✗ Issue, not Unverifiable.

Verified — Confirmed by ≥1 Tier 1 source. Currency holds as of the verification date. Wording matches.
Partial — Source supports the claim with caveats — rounded amount, narrower holding than implied, only Tier 2/3 available, single-source verification on a high-stakes claim. Notes explain the caveat.
Issue — Contradicted by sources, OR no source can be found despite reasonable search. Flags the claim for revision.
Outdated — Was accurate when written; the law, regulation, or data has changed since. Flags the subject for an update.
Unverifiable — Not amenable to source-based verification (aggregate generalization without enumerable check, prediction about future state, etc.).

The date is the trust signal

A “verified” claim is verified as of a specific date, not forever. We don't promise a cadence — the date on each report is the reader's information.

  • Each per-claim entry shows its verification date.
  • The template badge shows the report's overall date.
  • Older reports are not wrong; they're old. The reader clicks through to sources and decides whether the underlying fact has changed.
  • Re-verification happens when it makes sense for that area — some statutes shift annually, some haven't moved in decades. No fixed schedule.

This is intentional: a cadence promise creates a recurring maintenance debt that doesn't improve trust. The date plus the clickable sources let readers verify currency themselves.

Structured data — ClaimReview

For specific, binary-verifiable factual claims (settlement amounts, statute text, named-case holdings, modeled-data thresholds), each per-subject report emits ClaimReview structured data. Google indexes ClaimReview for its Fact Check Explorer, and search-engine crawlers can read the claim, source, and verification date directly from the page. The machine-readable layer is the same trust artifact as the human-readable page, in a form crawlers can extract without ambiguity.

ClaimReview is applied only to claims where the fact is binary, a specific named source supports or contradicts it, and the verification date is concrete. Editorial framing, recommendations, and aggregate generalizations don't get the markup — they don't fit the schema.

Anti-patterns

Template fact-checks should block public-facing shortcuts that reduce trust.

  • Internal framing: phrases like “article cluster,” “product boundary,” or “can ship” do not belong in a public report.
  • Wrong source type: legal claims should not rely only on a Clockspot article when an official source is available.
  • Overstated utility: a template can be useful without being legally sufficient for every employer.
  • Product overreach: a template should not imply Clockspot performs payroll, EVV, billing, dispatch, route optimization, or reimbursement processing.

Quality checks

A fact-check answers whether the template is accurate. A quality-check answers whether the template is worth publishing: clear, useful, copyable, safely bounded, and written for a busy small-business employer.

Quality checks also inspect the rendered template and print output: the printed version should be the usable template, not the web page around it.

Fact-checked templates

Every template below ships with a per-template fact-check report following this methodology. Click any title to read the report — every claim is anchored to its source for direct reader audit.

Check our work

Every fact-check report links each claim to the source we used. Open any source to compare our wording with the underlying rule, guidance, court opinion, source note, or product behavior.

If a source has changed or a claim looks wrong, tell us. We would rather correct the page than leave a stale answer online.

About Clockspot

Clockspot helps small businesses track employee time and keep payroll-ready records. Used in all 50 states since 2007, we focus on getting time and pay right — including the wage-and-hour rules that shape both.

Want to simplify how your team tracks time? See how Clockspot works.