Posts Tagged Business Credit Report

Securing Business Credit Cards Without Personal Guarantee

Sherry W. Gain asked:




The biggest problem for budding entrepreneurs and small business owners is to secure a credit for their business. The most obvious route they take is to mingle their personal credit with business loan, a faux pas in totality. They end up spending their credit worthiness through their personal loan cards. But do you know that the same financial institutions which provide you credit cards also issue small business owners with business-credit cards without personal guarantees? Of course, your business needs to be credible for obtaining such credit lines.

Once you have established a credible business entity, it is then your duty to establish its credit worthiness. This is attained by reporting the transactions on your business loan cards to business credit bureaus. Similar to a personal credit report, a business credit report is essential to build the credit worthiness of your business. Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax Business and Experian Business are some of the business credit report bureaus you should be targeting. Unless and until you have established your credibility with at least three of them, laying your hands on business credit cards without personal guarantee is tough. If you are thinking of applying right away, consider the information presented below -

• If the business loan application of an organization is declined, the organization cannot apply again for the following 6 months.

• The application will be disqualified if it is made thrice or more within 90 days.

• Very few, or just 5 percent of business lenders care to report your credit worthiness to credit bureaus. Not reporting it impedes the credit worthiness of your business. Thus, choose business establishments that regularly report your regular payments to business credit bureaus.

Business Credit Cards and No Personal Guarantee

It means that it is possible to get business credit cards without personal guarantees. Such type of an application is usually made by small business organizations and entrepreneurs to take care of sundry expenses.

How to get Business Loan Cards?

To get business loan cards, a few things are of integral importance

A Strong Business Plan: The primary requisite to impress any association into allowing you credit, is a great idea. Prepare the plan in a detailed and strong manner focusing on its harvests and how it shall empower you to make more money. Be very specific about the areas which are going to need monetary help.

Market Research: Do your research well. Talk to vendors and buyers about the cash flow and other specifics. In some cases, you need not even approach companies for credit cards, because you will be able to find vendors who are ready to hold credit accounts. However, if you do need business credit cards without personal guarantees, a strong knowledge of the functioning of the industry you’re in is essential.

Applying Well: Start small and choose a local vendor for your card. More often than not, your existing finance company would have an offer for business credit cards and it will be easier to secure one from them too. Furnish information such as your company’s contacts and financial documentation to the issuing institution. In case of small businesses, primary owners also need to present information about personal finances. Legal paperwork like your DBA and employer tax ID might prove necessary for your application for business credit cards without personal guarantees.

Kathleen

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Establishing Business Credit – The Seven Steps to Success

Keith McAslan asked:




Business versus Personal Credit:

Personal – Personal credit building starts when an individual provides their social security number and applies for their first credit card. At that point a credit profile is started with the personal credit reporting agencies in the region of the country in which they reside. This profile, also commonly known as a “credit report”, is built with every credit inquiry, credit application submitted, change of address and job change. The information contained in the report is usually reported to the credit bureaus by those businesses issuing credit. Eventually, the credit report is viewed as a statement or report of an individual’s ability to pay back a debt, and is the key tool to access and grant credit.

Business – When a business issues another business credit, it is referred to as trade credit (credit from vendors or suppliers). Trade, or business, credit is the single largest source of lending in the world, but it typically not reported to the business credit agencies by most small businesses. The data regarding trade credit transactions must be submitted and then is accumulated by the business credit bureaus to create a business credit report using the business name, address and federal tax identification number (FIN). The credit bureaus use this data to generate a historical report about a company’s business credit transactions and payment history. Typically, the businesses issuing credit rely on the business credit report to determine the credit they are willing to grant and the amount of the credit limit. Additionally, many businesses (suppliers/vendors) will submit credit reference applications to the key suppliers of the business as a method to obtain payment patterns as part of the credit granting process.

The major credit bureaus are:

Dun & Bradstreet Business Credit USA Corporate Experian Small Business Equifax TransUnion (Personal)

The information provided to the business credit bureaus (primarily D&B) is sent in voluntarily, as businesses are not required to report. Therefore, credit bureaus may never receive any information about the business transactions on credit and a business could go for years accumulating business history without being reported to the credit bureaus and establishing a positive business history of sound credit practices.

Establishing Business Credit History:

Business credit scores range on a scale from 0 to 100 with 75 or more considered an excellent rating. Personal credit scores, on the other hand, range from 300 to 850 with a score of 680 or higher considered excellent. With today’s tighter credit scrutiny the higher the credit score, the more likely an individual or business is to obtain credit and at more favorable terms (interest rate and contract length).

While it is important to know that there are many factors http://www.myfico.com that affect a credit score; it’s based on more than just whether you pay your bills on time (still very important). The credit score will be affected by the amount of available credit you have on bank lines of credit and credit cards, the length of time you’ve had a credit profile, the number of inquiries made on your credit profile, paying the bills on time, bankruptcy, as well as other considerations.

The typical American consumer credit report receives two to three credit inquiries per year and usually has 11 credit obligations – typically broken down as 7 credit cards and 4 installment loans. Business owners are not your typical consumer, because they carry both personal and business credit. This typically doubles the number of inquiries made to their personal credit profile and the number of credit obligations they carry at any given time, all of which negatively impact the personal credit score. Additionally, because business inquiries and personal inquiries are not separated on the personal credit report, the personal credit scores are negatively impacted. As mentioned earlier, using the personal credit history to get credit for their business, businesses are not able to build their business history/score, all of which could help attain critical business credit in the future.

A critical mistake many business owners make is using their personal information to apply for business credit, leases and loans. This practice has the resultant impact of potentially lowering their personal credit score, while not building a business credit history and business credit score.

A key to establishing credit for the business and a profile and score is to find companies (UPS, FEDEX, etc.) or your key supplier and vendors that will grant credit for your business without using your personal credit information and then report the payment experiences to the business credit bureaus. By reporting the information to the proper credit bureaus, those companies will help the business establish a business credit profile and score.

The Seven Steps to Success:

1. Company Legal Structure – The business must be a legal entity unto itself in order to establish business credit. Therefore, it is recommended to form a corporation (C Corp) or LLC (discuss with your CPA the advantage/disadvantages of a C Corp versus LLC) as opposed to structuring your business as a sole proprietorship or partnership. Formation of a sole proprietorship or partnership, dictates that personal credit information could be included on the business credit report. Additionally, as a sole proprietor or partner in a partnership, you are personally liable for the debts of the business and all your personal assets are at risk in the event of litigation.

Corporations and LLC’s, on the other hand, provide the business owners liability protection, and can build a business credit profile that’s separate from the personal credit profile. Therefore, apply for credit under your business’s name and find businesses will to grant credit without a personal credit check or guarantee.

2. Register with Business Credit Agencies – The best known business credit bureau is Dun & Bradstreet. Dun & Bradstreet has a process on their web site to establish a D-U-N-S number (a specific 9 digit number related to your business) and instructions how to establish a business credit rating. It is strongly recommended that you contact D&B and follow their process to establish business credit. The following is from the D&B web site:

How do I get started with D&B? With our unsurpassed global data collection system, D&B continually gathers the data that initiates the creation of business credit profiles on new companies. Many kinds of activities can trigger a profile on a new company, such as incorporating your business, applying for a loan, getting a business telephone number, taking out a lease on office space – even just when another company seeks information from D&B about your business. Still, a new business may not have a complete business credit profile. Getting a D-U-N-S Number from D&B – the worldwide standard for business classification systems – is an essential part of helping you establish your business credit profile and will ensure that when a company looks you up in the D&B database they will find you. In some cases, a D&B D-U-N-S Number is so a requirement for doing business some entities, such as the US government.

You should make sure you have a D&B business credit profile if:

You are planning to obtain a business loan You need to purchase or lease equipment Your cash flow is tight You want to ensure you are getting a fair deal from lenders compared to your competition You want to pay net 30 days instead of COD (Cash On Delivery) You are paying interest at prime plus 1, or even higher You plan to do business with entities that require a D-U-N-S Number, e.g. the US Government

These issues and dozens other like them can be addressed by having a strong business credit profile. A good rating provides you with the financial freedom to take the steps you need to grow, and is a straightforward, unbiased method for other companies to assess your level of risk when considering taking you on as a creditor. A poor credit rating is a certain barrier to growth and success, preventing you from getting adequate funding on fair terms.

Communicating directly with D&B will help establish your business credit in less time. If you are a new company, D&B can help you build a complete business credit profile from the ground up; if you have been in operation for a while, you will want to improve and/or protect your business credit profile. Find out more about how to establish, monitor, improve, or protect your business credit.

3. Credit Market Requirements – Businesses must meet all the requirements of the credit market in order to have a higher probability of credit approval, as not being in compliance with the credit market can “send up signal flares” with both credit bureaus and potential grantors of credit.

Some of the “signal flares” include:

not having a business license, not being registered with the Secretary of State for a certificate of good standing, operating under your social security number rather than a FIN or EIN, not having a phone line (land line) that is listed in the phone directory in the exact business legal name, no web site, or not having a business email address (not AOL or gmail, but a specific URL for your company).

4. Small Business Credit Lines – Investigate and locate a minimum of five businesses (vendors/suppliers) willing to grant a small business credit without personal guarantees and will report the payment experiences to the business credit bureaus. This will assist your business to establish a credit report and build a financial credit foundation for the company. Find companies willing to grant credit that report to the credit bureaus such as marketingoncredit.com, UPS, FEDEX

5. Business Credit Cards – Obtain three business credit cards (Sam’s Club Discover Business card), that are not linked to you personally and that report the business credit to the reporting agencies. Then be sure to always pay your bills on time!

6. Financial Statements, Business Plans and Loan Packages – These documents are often required by many credit grantors as part of their loan application process. CxO To GO is a national professional services firm that has assisted many business with their financial statement preparation and business plans. Additionally, CxO To Go has packages such as PowerPlan and PowerPlan2 for business plans, PowerPuncher for executive summaries, CFOCast for financial projections and BankSell for bank proposals so lenders and bankers will take action. It is important to note that 61% of all businesses are turned down for a loan due to a poor loan package, however with BankSell the lender loan package gets results and moves the applicant to the top of the list for review and credit committee approval.

7. Debt management – Be a smart money manager and manage the debt levels to ensure they are not too burdensome and can be paid back with current cash flow. Do not incur debt that will over leverage the company and cause missed or late payments.

Jesus

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A Quick Primer on Online Credit Reports

Richard Larkin asked:




When you access your online credit report, you should have an idea of what you are looking at. Many individuals spend their hard earned dollars to see their online credit score, but it doesn’t help them because they are either confused by some of the terms or they aren’t looking at the correct report. In short, there are a few things you should be on the lookout for when accessing your credit rating report.

Things you should know before obtaining your credit report:

Be careful, as there are many fraudulent reports online that are misleading and have been known to fool many people. Always look for the official FICO score on the bottom of your credit report, especially since you are paying good money to obtain that report.

You want an official FICO credit report when you get a copy of your report. The name of this report varies, based upon which credit reporting agency you use.

You will be receiving the Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model credit report when you get a free instant credit report from Experian. Equifax calls their reports “Beacon Score Reports.” Trans Union does it a bit differently, having different names for each of their three credit reports.

It will either be called the Empiria Report, FICO Risk Score report, or the Classic. If you choose to go with merged credit reports from all three of these companies, then you can sometimes miss out on having all of these scores at your disposal.

Watch out for Special Offers

These offers made by companies for their online credit reports often are trying to get you involved into another type offer which will cost you more. By agreeing to sign up for their credit monitoring service, these companies provide free access for your online business credit report and your personal credit report.

While it may sound like a temptingly good deal to begin with, in the long run credit monitoring can be expensive. Checking your online credit report on occasion is a much more cost effective way to prevent any problems before they happen, and it is an effective way to monitor your credit.

Scams are Almost Everywhere

Each and every month, more scams pop up in which people try to use your sensitive personal information for fraudulent purposes. Be aware of companies out there that are posing as credit repair companies or a credit counseling agency. If they make promises that seem a little bit out of the ordinary to you, then there is a good chance they are pulling a scam.

Avoid suspicious emails and websites. Exercise caution when considering who to give your personal information to. Unwary people are lured by the promise of inexpensive credit reports.

MyFICO.com

Try Myfico.com for a trustworthy site where you can access your personal credit report. The vital information you will be looking for is included in the online credit reports provided by them.

You will have a chance to view your official FICO score from each of the credit reporting agencies, as well as all of the current information that each of the three bureaus has on you. You have access to all of that for about $45.

Leon

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How a Small Business Credit Report Impacts Your Company

Marco Carbajo asked:




I’m sure you have a habit of checking your personal credit scores, credit reports and credit card statements on a regular basis but how much attention do you pay to your small business credit report?

While there are several business credit bureaus that collect data, let’s stick with the three main ones. Keep in mind that each file you have listed is going be different with each bureau so it’s important that you monitor your files on a regular basis.

Dun & Bradstreet Business Credit Report

This report also known as the Business Information Report or BIR is an overall profile that suppliers and lenders will use to evaluate your company and tends to be the most popular D&B report that creditors pull. The report is pretty extensive because it includes your company’s financial information, history & operations, payment history and details.

Keep in mind that the details of your company like financials are supplied by you when you set up your file so be sure to keep this information updated through eupdate so it matches the numbers you provide on credit applications. Any inconsistencies can cause your company to get declined.

Two things you should pay special attention to is the paydex score and credit limit recommendation listed in your report. A 75 or greater Dun & Bradstreet credit rating is considered a good risk but what carries more weight is the credit limit recommendation.

The conservative credit limit is for companies that prefer to minimize risk as much as possible and the aggressive limit is for creditors that will accept more risk.

Experian Business Credit Report

This report also known as the CreditScore Business Report includes you’re company’s business and credit information. It’s considered Experian’s most popular report used by creditors and specifically you want to pay attention to your business credit score.

A score of 90 or greater is excellent and it’s based on your company’s industry risk, number of trades, length of history and your debt to credit limit ratios. Make sure you avoid selecting a high risk SIC and NAICS classification code for your company because this can have a negative impact on your scores.

Now don’t be surprised if your company is not listed with Experian because the only way to establish a small business credit report is when a supplier or lender reports your company’s payment experience to them.

Equifax Business Credit Report

This report could also be referred to as the Equifax Small Business Report and it includes a summary of your company’s financial and non-financial accounts. One of the unique differences in this file is the two credit rating scores known as the Equifax Credit Risk Score and the Equifax Business Failure Score.

Your risk score can range from 101 to 992 with the higher the number being the lower the risk. Some of the factors that contribute to this include derogatory trades, length of history, credit limit amounts and number of employees.

The failure risk score predicts the chances of your business failing over the next 12 months. This number ranges from 1,000 to 1,880 with the higher the number being the lower the risk of possible failure.

Some of the key factors that determine your score include length of time since the oldest account was opened, debt to credit limit ratios, negative payment history and number of trades.

This is another file that gets created only when a supplier or lender reports your company’s payment data. It’s said to be one of the most difficult bureaus to get listed with and this may be because many of the reporting partners are banks and lenders.

This is why I recommend establishing a reporting bank loan as soon as possible. This not only will have a positive impact on your small business credit report but it will also improve your overall bank rating.

As you can see your business credit files require the same level of attention that you give to your personal credit files. By knowing how your company’s risk level is being rated by the major business credit bureaus the greater level of confidence you will have when you apply for business financing.

Rose

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Free Instant Credit Report

Tom Cruise asked:


Some may know that credit report is really your credit confirmation. It contains the data collected from different sources by the credit bureaus. Credit report gives full information about financial place in your business life. Finding free instant credit report is not a very hard work to do now. This report also verifies your late credit payment. Therefore it’s very vital that you pay all your debts on time. Keep in mind that a good credit report is an added benefit if you are looking to purchase something very costly. For example, if you are considering buying a home in the near future you need to have a strong credit report. A strong credit report is the best method of impressing your money lenders.

Is it essential to continue a check on our Credit report?

Lots of people want reply to this. Knowing your present credit report is significant, but one has to be equally careful while receiving this information. You require testing your credit report at least once in half year. Remember inspection your credit report helps in protecting your credit rating. Besides, it helps you to keep a check on your creditors. There may be times when your creditor might not succeed to report a past due balance.

Free Instant credit report holds a complete analysis of your personal information. It encloses your name, your residential addresses, contact number, Security number, month and year of birth plus your employment information. It also controls information about any bankruptcy in your credit story. Your economical institution may periodically get your credit report so as to sustain your up to date records.

There are different types of credit report such as consumer credit report, business credit report, annually credit report, etc. In the beginning there was strict prohibition on disclosure of instant credit report but now any person can apply for their credit report. Many lenders and sellers who extend credit services completely depend on credit report and score to give credit to their customers.

Tom Cruise is associated with Free Instant Credit Reports. He is a master in credit reports articles. To know more about free instant credit report, free annual, credit report free credit report please visit http://www.freeinstantcreditreports.350.com



MERLE

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Free Annual Credit Report: Available for Free But Very Useful

Amy Gordon asked:


Keeping data of your annual credit report is very important because the importance of the credit reports have increased to a great extent. Nowadays, you must be aware of every ups and down in your credit status as every financial matter is related with your credit scores. Anytime and at anywhere like while seeking a loan, while applying for credit cards, getting an auto or a home loan or for applying for a job; you will have to produce your credit reports. So, it is very important to know about your credit status and the free annual credit reports will be helpful for you in that context.

Visiting the credit bureau to know your credit reports frequently is not possible. So, you should do such arrangements that these reports are easily available to you. One best way is to go for the online facilities and get information on what you want just by sitting in your home. Just provide the required information like your identity and then avail the reports easily. This will help you in being informed and alert for your records and hence you will be able to avoid any possible unwanted situation.

Such credit reports use to keep data of all kind of expenses, credit status, loans and repayments, major financial transactions and outstanding payments. As the credit scores are being provided in such reports so it will be helpful for you to take precautionary steps if the credit score is going to be poor. These will also save you from suffering any sort of identity thefts.

The free annual credit reports use to be of several types like consumer credit report, business credit report or personal credit reports. Therefore, you will be updated quite easily through such free such services and will be able to keep problems away.



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