Business Rules and Data Quality Rules

Understanding the Relationship Between them

Business rules and data quality rules are closely related but distinct concepts. They are often confused, so let’s clarify the difference.

Business Rules

Business rules define the policies, constraints, and decision criteria that guide an organization’s operations and processes. They express business logic in natural language and focus on business objectives rather than technical implementation.

How Business Rules Support Data Quality

1. Defining Data Quality Requirements

   Business rules set expectations and purpose for data. These expectations are then converted into measurable data quality standards.

2. Automating Data Quality Checks

   Business rules can be translated into machine-readable data quality rules that validate data automatically within databases and applications.

3. Ensuring Compliance

   Many business rules embed regulatory requirements. Enforcing them through data quality rules helps organizations stay compliant and avoid penalties.

4. Facilitating Data Cleansing & Enrichment

   Data quality rules, derived from business rules, identify and correct inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and missing values.

5. Promoting Data Governance

   Business rules provide a common language for data quality across teams, fostering a data-driven culture and enabling trusted decision-making.

Data Quality Rules

One the other side the Data quality rules translate business rules into actionable, machine-executable validations that ensure data meets quality standards. The results of such rules can be pass or failed

Scenario	Business Rule	Data Quality Rule
Customer Management	"A customer must be at least 18 years old to register."	"The Date of Birth field cannot be null."
Invoice Processing	"Invoices must be paid within 30 days of issuance."	"Invoice date must be in YYYY-MM-DD format."
Address Validation	"Only customers in supported countries can place orders."	"Country field must match ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes."

The Connection Between Business Rules & Data Quality Rules

✔ Data quality rules are a subset of business rules, specifically focused on enforcing data quality standards.

✔ Business rules depend on data quality—if data is inaccurate or incomplete, business rules cannot be effectively enforced.

Example:

A business rule stating, “Process refunds only if the transaction is within 30 days,” relies on a data quality rule ensuring that transaction dates are correctly formatted and valid.

In Summary:

• Business rules define what  expectations in an organization’s operations.

• Data quality rules enforce business expectations and ensure the data supports those business rules.

• Both work together to maintain high quality data