Editorial & Review Policy

Everything here is published by the HariTools Editorial Team, the small group that builds and maintains the site. We publish under that name rather than under individual bylines, and we would rather say so plainly than attach an invented expert to the work.

We are not tax agents, licensed financial advisers, or medical practitioners, and nothing on this site is advice. What we do is narrower and, we think, more useful: we read the primary document, implement exactly what it says, show our working, and link you to the source so you can check it yourself. Where a calculation depends on a judgement a professional should make, the tool says so instead of guessing.

Every regulated calculator is built from a primary source: the document issued by the authority that sets the rule. In practice that means the Inland Revenue Department for tax tables and thresholds, the Public Utilities Commission and CEB/LECO gazettes for electricity tariffs, the Central Bank for interest and exchange-rate references, the Department of Labour for EPF, ETF, and gratuity rules, the University Grants Commission for admission and grading, and Sri Lanka Customs for import duty.

We do not build a calculator from a news article, a competitor’s tool, or a summary on a forum. If we cannot find the primary document, we do not publish the tool.

32 of the 37 tools on the site carry a published source list, linked directly to the source document. The remainder are pure arithmetic — a percentage, a unit conversion, a date difference — where there is no external authority to cite, and we do not manufacture one.

Every tool carries a visible last reviewed date, and where the rules it applies have a start date, the effective from date for those rules. Both appear in the panel at the top of each calculator, and the reviewed date is what the sitemap reports to search engines — we deliberately do not stamp every page with the build time, because that would tell you nothing about whether the content actually changed.

Tools are re-checked on this schedule:

• Every quarter — every calculator that applies a published rate, bracket, tariff, or threshold is re-verified against its primary source, whether or not we expect it to have moved.
• Every year — tools that implement a stable formula rather than a published rate are re-read for accuracy and clarity.
• Before each season — exam and admission tools ahead of results releases, tax tools ahead of the April year of assessment, and tariff tools after a budget or gazette.

A scheduled review is the floor, not the ceiling. We update immediately, ahead of the cycle, when any of the following happens:

• A new tax table, gazette, circular, or determination is published by the responsible authority.
• A national budget or amendment act changes a rate, band, or threshold a tool applies.
• A reader reports a result that does not match the official outcome, and we can reproduce it.
• We find an arithmetic, rounding, or edge-case error during our own testing.

When a rate changes, we update the calculation and the explanatory text in the same change. A tool whose numbers are current but whose worked examples still show last year’s brackets is a tool that misleads, so we treat the prose as part of the calculation.

If a tool gives you a result that disagrees with an official figure, please tell us. Email hello@haritools.com or use the contact form. Include the tool, the numbers you entered, and the result you expected — that is usually enough for us to reproduce it.

This is what we commit to when you do:

• We read every report and reply. The address is monitored by a person, not a form that goes nowhere.
• A confirmed error in a published rate or formula is fixed as a priority, ahead of any other work.
• A correction is recorded in that tool’s revision history, with the date and what changed. We do not quietly edit a number and leave the page looking as though it was always right.
• If we disagree that it is an error, we will tell you why and point you at the source we relied on.

Each calculator publishes a dated revision history inside the review panel at the top of the page. It shows when the tool was published, when its rates or methodology last changed, and what that change was — with a link to the document that prompted it where one exists.

We publish it because a dated correction history is the only honest way to show that a tool is maintained rather than merely launched. It also means you can tell at a glance whether a tool has been touched since the rule you care about changed.

Being clear about the boundary matters as much as being accurate inside it. Across the site:

• These are estimates, not filings, assessments, or diagnoses. A tax result here is not a return, a loan result is not an offer, and a health result is not a medical opinion.
• They model the standard case. Exemptions, secondary employment, lump sums, non-cash benefits, lender-specific fees, and institution-specific rules can all change the real answer. Each tool names its own assumptions in its disclaimer.
• They are not a substitute for the authority. Where money or eligibility is at stake, confirm with the IRD, your bank, your employer, your university, or a qualified professional. We link the source on every tool precisely so that you can.
• They do not collect your numbers. Calculations run in your browser. What you type into a calculator is not sent to us or stored, as set out in the privacy policy.

HariTools is free to use and carries advertising. Advertisers have no influence over what we build, what a calculator returns, or what we write about a rate. We do not accept payment to feature a bank, lender, insurer, or institution, and we do not rank results in anyone’s favour.

If that ever changes — if we add an affiliate arrangement, for instance — we will disclose it on the affected pages and here, rather than leaving you to infer it.

• Methodology — the formula, sources, and review date for every tool, on one page.
• Sri Lanka finance & tax glossary — plain-English definitions of the terms these tools use.
• About HariTools — why the site exists and what it is for.