It helps to be literal here: a certificate without a method section is giving you a claim rather than a measurement, and claims are not evidence.
Lot number visibility is the first check, and it is the one most certificates fail — the number is not printed on the vial, or it is on the certificate but the vial is unmarked.
On the detail: the test date matters because a certificate six months older than the vial is not evidence about your material, it is evidence about what the material was like half a year ago.
The standards that exist in this space — ICH Q3A, Q3B and various pharmacopoeial chapters — are worth reading once even if nothing you test is obliged to meet them.
One qualification: a single result from a single vial at a single time is a point estimate with no error bar, and no amount of decimal places changes that.
The practical summary: check the lot number, ask for the method, and reserve judgement until you have both.
edited 16 Jun 2024 by plate_count_9k — expanded the table to cover the lower concentration
5This is the answer I was looking for three months ago. – tamsin_wray 5 months ago 6The arithmetic checks out. I ran the same numbers and got the same result. – Dr_Fatima_Belkacem 7 months ago add a comment