In a Nutshell
It’s important to stay on top of your business credit. But with multiple reports and scores out there, it can be difficult to know exactly how to do that. To check your business credit, you first need to know that there are several business credit bureaus.The sooner you start monitoring your business credit, the sooner you can work on building a credit history that can help your business secure partnerships, financing and more.
Did you know that any company can access your business credit reports? This means that when your potential partners and investors are deciding whether to do business with you, they can pay to see your business credit reports to check how your business uses credit and meets its financial obligations.
Your business credit history affects more than just your relationships with vendors and partners. It can also play a big part in the interest rates you get on financing, or drive your monthly insurance premiums up or down.
So it’s important to stay on top of your business credit. But with multiple reports and scores out there, it can be difficult to know how exactly to do that. Here’s how to check your business credit reports and scores from three of the major business credit bureaus.
- What is a business credit report?
- Dun & Bradstreet
- Equifax Business
- Experian Business
- FAQs about business credit scores
What is a business credit report?
A business credit report is similar to your individual credit report. Both business credit reports and individual credit reports assess your finances to determine your credit score based on elements like your payment history or any other outstanding debts. This score then helps lenders determine how much money to lend you in the future and determines the rates and terms of those loans. While your personal credit score is private, a business credit score is publicly available for future business partners to view.
What is a good business credit score?
Business credit score calculators use a variety of scoring ranges, so the definition of a “good” score can be subjective.
Dun & Bradstreet, or D&B offers multiple business credit scores. Its Paydex score, which measures payment history, ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores reflecting better credit. A score of 80 to 100 means your business represents the best credit risk.
Equifax also has multiple business credit scores, each one using different ranges and representing a different element of risk. In at least one of these calculators, a lower score actually means your business has had stronger payment performance.
Dun & Bradstreet
Dun & Bradstreet, or D&B, generates both reports and scores for businesses that have credit files with them. But you’ll need to put in a bit of work to create this file, or it could appear incomplete.
Check your D-U-N-S Number
To build a complete credit file through D&B, you first need a D-U-N-S Number, a nine-digit identifying number for your business. D&B may have already created one for your company, but if not, you can get this for free in up to 30 business days through D&B’s site.
Free options
If you don’t want to pay the monthly fee, you can get a free CreditSignal account. With CreditSignal, you won’t get unlimited access to your report, but you will get a monthly summary of changes to your business credit file along with other alerts and services.
D&B also generates a number of business credit scores and ratings including Paydex scores. With CreditBuilder Plus, you get unlimited access to them. Or you can opt for CreditSignal again. While a CreditSignal subscription doesn’t include access to scores, it does give you notice when your scores change.
You can also get your Paydex score for free if you sign up for an account with Nav, a credit monitoring company that focuses on business credit.
Equifax Business
Equifax Business Credit Reports may also be used in business financing decisions.
For a fee, you can pull one Equifax report and get access to your Equifax Business Credit Risk Score and Equifax Business Failure Score which will give insight into how likely you are to repay loans or how likely your business is to fail.
Experian Business
Like Equifax, Experian also offers either a one-time report and scores or the option to subscribe to ongoing monitoring. For a fee, you can pull one business credit report and see your Experian business credit scores. Experian uses a scale of 1-100 for their business credit scores. A score between 80 and 100 deems the business a low risk, 50-79 is a medium risk and 1-49 is high risk.
FAQs about business credit scores
Generally, you’ll need the company name, city, state and country to check a business credit score.
No, not all businesses have credit scores because not all vendors will report payments to the credit bureaus. The business must also be legally registered before it’s able to establish credit.
Depending on your lender, credit scores may not be the only factor that determines if you are approved for credit or not. It’s usually a good idea to shop around if you’re looking for a loan to make sure you’re getting the best terms and rates for you.
Bottom line
Monitoring your personal credit reports for information about your business credit (which can sometimes appear on both types of reports) is a great way to start building up a strong profile. The earlier you get started, the better your position when your business is in need.