Accessibility Statement

Rationale Services wants everyone to be able to use https://rationaleservices.com, including people who use screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, magnification, speech input or other assistive technology. This page states the standard the site is built to, how we test it, what we know is still wrong, and how to reach us if something blocks you.

1. Our commitment

We treat accessibility as part of doing the work properly, not as an add-on. Tax, payroll and licensing information has real consequences for people, so it has to be reachable by everyone who needs it. If any part of this site stops you from getting information or completing a task, we will give you that information or complete that task another way, at no extra cost.

2. What we have done

Steps we have taken:

1. Accessibility requirements are built into our design system, so color contrast, focus styles, target sizes and heading structure are set at the component level rather than fixed page by page.
2. Everyone who writes or publishes content on the site has been trained on accessible headings, link text, alternative text and table markup.
3. One person in the firm is responsible for accessibility. Write to the email address in section 9 and your message will reach them.
4. We review the site against WCAG 2.2 level AA on a regular schedule, and we check any new page or feature before it goes live.
5. We ask vendors whether their embedded tools conform to WCAG 2.2 AA before we add them, and we record the answer.

3. The standard we work to

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. They have three levels: A, AA and AAA. The standard is WCAG 2.2, published by the World Wide Web Consortium at https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/.

This site is built and tested against WCAG 2.2 level AA. We do not claim that it meets the standard everywhere. Parts of the site fall short, and the ones we know about are listed in section 7. We put it this way deliberately: claiming conformance while known problems exist would be inaccurate, and it would make this statement useless to the people who rely on it.

4. Technical specifications

Accessibility of this site relies on these technologies working together with your browser and any assistive technology you use:

• HTML
• WAI-ARIA
• CSS
• JavaScript

If one of these is unsupported or turned off, parts of the site may not work as intended.

5. How we assessed the site

We used self-evaluation, carried out by our own team rather than an outside auditor. Our assessment combined:

1. Automated scanning with axe and Lighthouse across all page templates.
2. Keyboard-only testing of every page and every form, with no mouse, checking focus order and focus visibility.
3. Screen-reader testing with NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS and iOS.
4. Zoom testing at 200% text size, confirming nothing is cut off or overlapping.
5. Reflow testing at 320 CSS pixels wide, confirming no two-dimensional scrolling is needed to read content.
6. Color contrast measurement on text, icons and focus indicators.
7. Manual review of alternative text, form labels, error messages, link text and heading structure.

6. Accessibility features of this site

The site provides:

• A "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable item on every page.
• A visible focus indicator on every interactive element, with enough contrast to see against its background.
• Text contrast of at least 4.5:1 against its background, and at least 3:1 for large text, icons and user interface boundaries.
• Full keyboard operability. Every link, button, menu, form field and interactive control can be reached and used with a keyboard alone, with no keyboard trap.
• Descriptive link text, so that a link read on its own says where it goes. We avoid "click here" and "read more."
• A visible label on every form field, programmatically associated with the field, plus text error messages that name the field and say how to fix the problem. Errors are not signalled by color alone.
• Headings in a correct, nested order, so a screen reader user can navigate by heading.
• No audio or video that plays automatically.
• No flashing or strobing content, and no content that flashes more than three times a second.
• Responsive reflow down to 320 CSS pixels wide without horizontal scrolling for reading.
• Interactive targets of at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, with adequate spacing between adjacent targets.
• Help options — phone number, email and contact link — in the same place on every page.
• Text that can be resized to 200% without loss of content or function.
• Table headers marked up so screen readers can announce the right header for each cell.

We do not use an accessibility overlay. Overlay widgets — the floating accessibility button sold as a one-line fix — do not reliably repair underlying problems and can interfere with the assistive technology you already use. We fix the site itself instead.

7. Known limitations

We are honest about what still falls short. This is the problem we know about:

• Third-party embedded content. Features supplied by other companies and embedded in a page are built and maintained by those vendors. We do not control their code. We have asked each vendor for their conformance information and we will report accessibility defects to them, but we cannot fix their code ourselves. We provide an alternative route for every one of these functions, described in section 8.

If you find a problem that is not on this list, tell us. We will add it here.

8. Alternative ways to get information or complete a task

You never have to use this website to deal with us.

• Any information published on the site is available by phone, by email, in large print, or in another accessible format you ask for, at no charge.
• Any process on the site — the contact form, an appointment request, a document submission, a payment — can be completed by phone with a member of our staff instead.
• If a third-party tool embedded on the site blocks you, call us and we will do that step for you directly.
• You may bring a support person or an interpreter to any appointment, in our office or on a call.
• In-person help is available at our office at 6825 Jimmy Carter Blvd, Suite 1520, Norcross, GA 30071, USA. Call before you come and we will tell you what to expect when you arrive.

Call +1 (470) 359-5949 or write to office@rationaleservices.com and say what you need.

9. Giving us feedback

We want to hear about barriers. Contact us by whichever route suits you:

• Phone: +1 (470) 359-5949
• Email: office@rationaleservices.com
• Post: Accessibility, Rationale Services, 6825 Jimmy Carter Blvd, Suite 1520, Norcross, GA 30071, USA

We reply to every report. If a fix will take longer than our first reply, that reply will say what we are doing, when we expect it to be done, and how you can get the information in the meantime.

It helps us if your report includes:

1. The web address of the page.
2. What you were trying to do.
3. What happened instead.
4. Your browser and operating system, and any assistive technology and version you were using.
5. How we should reply to you.

Send what you have. A report with none of this detail is still worth sending.

10. If our response is not good enough

If you are not satisfied with our reply, ask by phone or email for the matter to be escalated, referencing your original report. We will review it again and come back to you with the outcome. If you are still not satisfied, you may raise the matter with an external body; we will not treat a complaint as a reason to change how we serve you.

11. Browsers and assistive technology

The site is built to work with current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on desktop and mobile, used with NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack, Dragon speech input, browser zoom and operating-system display settings. Older browsers may not support everything the site relies on. If you use a tool we have not tested and something does not work, tell us and we will test that combination.

12. Legal context

We aim to meet the expectations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and we work to WCAG 2.2 level AA as the technical standard. This section is context for our commitment, not a statement about which laws apply to us.

13. About this statement

We review this statement at least once a year, and whenever we redesign the site, add a new feature or complete an assessment. The effective date at the top shows the current version.

How we handle information you send us is set out in our Privacy Policy.