Evidence supports only the claim within its scope. A regulator can define an obligation; a vendor can document a feature; a reproducible test can show what happened in a stated scenario. None of those automatically proves the others.
Evidence order
- Authorities and standards bodiesRequirements, statutory definitions and formal technical standards.
- Official vendor documentationFeature scope, supported workflows, published terms and product claims.
- Documented reproducible testsObserved behavior in a named scenario, with setup and limitations.
- Secondary market sourcesDiscovery and market orientation, not the factual source of record.
Commercial feature is not proven compliance
A product page may say that a workflow supports FLSA, ACA, ESIGN, UETA, privacy, tax or PCI needs. The guide may report that published claim, but must not convert it into a legal conclusion without the corresponding authority and facts.
Unknown is a valid result
If documentation does not resolve a material edge case, the evaluation should tell the buyer what to verify during a demo, contract review or implementation test.