About Back Office Beat

Back Office Beat is a daily news desk and newsletter for people who run businesses of 10 to 50 people: HVAC, plumbing and electrical shops, general contractors, landscapers, cleaning companies, accounting firms, agencies and small law firms. We read the AI, software and automation news so you do not have to, and we tell you what it means in dollars and hours.

Who publishes it

Back Office Beat is published by J9 Systems, a software and automation firm in Logan, Utah. J9 builds back-office systems for owner-run businesses. That is a commercial interest, and we state it up front. Whenever J9 is one of the options we mention, the sentence carries the line "(J9 Systems publishes this site.)"

We cover tools and providers we do not own. We will say when a $29 add-on beats a custom build, including one J9 could sell you.

The editors

• Carter Josephson, founding editor. Carter runs J9 Systems and edits every item that runs here.
• Ben, founding editor. Ben is a partner at J9 Systems and works with owners of trades and professional-services firms on what to buy, what to build and what to cancel.

Every item carries the name of the editor responsible for it.

Editorial standards

The triage question. Before anything runs, it has to pass one question: does this change what an owner of a 10-to-50-person business should do, buy, cancel or watch this month? Most tech news does not. It does not run.

The four-part template. Every item and explainer answers four things:

1. What happened. Two sentences, linked to the primary source.
2. What it means. Plain language, with a worked example from a real trade or practice, in numbers.
3. What to do. One of five verdicts: try, ignore, cancel, ask your vendor, or wait. Plus one sentence on how.
4. What it costs. Dollars and hours, ending with the cost of doing nothing.

Primary sources. We link to the vendor's pricing page, the release notes, the regulator's notice or the bill text, not to another outlet's write-up. Where we cannot verify a number, we say "as of" the date we checked and link the page, or we leave the number out. Worked examples are composites built from stated assumptions, and we say so.

Named editors. A person reviews, edits and approves every item before it publishes. Their name is on it.

How we use AI. We use AI tools to find stories and write first drafts. A named editor checks every fact and makes every publishing decision. The full process is on our AI disclosure page.

Corrections

When we get something wrong, we fix it and say so. Corrections are appended to the item with the date and a plain description of what changed. We never silently overwrite a published fact. Prices that change after publication are updated with a dated note, not quietly replaced. The full policy is on the corrections page.

To report an error, email beat@backofficebeat.com with the link and what is wrong.

How the J9 calls to action work

Some explainers end with a short note offering a call with J9 Systems. The rules:

• The note uses one of two fixed, approved texts. Editors cannot write new sales copy into an item.
• It appears only where building something custom is a realistic option for some readers. It never appears on policy items or on items whose verdict is to cancel something or wait.
• It never changes the verdict. If the right answer is a $29 tool, the item says so, call to action or not.
• Links to j9systems.com are marked as sponsored links.

Contact the desk

• Email: beat@backofficebeat.com
• Tips, corrections and replies to the newsletter all reach a person.
• Post: J9 Systems · Logan, Utah