Business credit reports affect financing options. Check your business credit, dispute errors, and maintain a good payment history to improve your business credit standing.
Let’s face it—most business owners are too busy putting out daily fires to worry about something as seemingly abstract as a credit report. You’ve got payroll to meet, customers to please, and suppliers breathing down your neck. Who has time to worry about some mysterious score?
The ability to check business credit reports isn’t just some financial homework you should get around to eventually. Businesses that stay on top of their credit standing routinely outmaneuver competitors who remain clueless about their standing. Think about it—would you rather discover a problem when you’re desperately seeking funding, or address it months before when the pressure’s off?
A thorough company credit check peels back the curtain on how lenders and partners see your business. And let’s be honest, their perception carries more weight than your own assessment. A supplier doesn’t care about your vision or potential—they care about whether their risk department gives you a thumbs up or down.
Step-by-Step Guide to Checking Your Business Credit
Step 1: Get Your House in Order
Before you bother checking anything, make sure your business has its basics straight:
- Is your business name exactly the same on all documents? (Not “Smith Contracting” on some forms and “Smith Contracting LLC” on others)
- Is your address current everywhere?
- Is your EIN consistent across all paperwork?
- Does your business phone actually work when someone calls it?
Sounds obvious, but you’d be shocked how many businesses mess this up, splitting their credit history into fragments and tanking their scores.
Step 2: Get That D&B DUNS Number
No DUNS number, no D&B report. Simple as that. It’s your business’s fingerprint in their system.
Getting one isn’t complicated, but it takes time:
- Hit up the D&B website
- Fill out their forms
- Wait around (30 days for the free version, faster if you pay)
- Get your nine digits of financial identity
Step 3: Pull Your Reports
Time to see what everyone’s saying about your business:
- Dun & Bradstreet: You’ve got options—one-time report or ongoing monitoring. Honestly, the one-time snapshot is nearly useless given how quickly things change. Expect to pay for anything worthwhile.
- Experian Business: Their website makes ordering pretty straightforward. Look for their CreditScore report for the basics of BusinessIQ for the full picture. Neither is particularly cheap.
- Equifax Business: Their portal isn’t winning any design awards, but it gets the job done. Their full business credit report gives you both scores plus the details behind them.
Step 4: Decode What You’re Looking At
When you get your reports, focus on:
- Payment History This makes up over half your score. Late payments stick around like bad tattoos—six to sevenyears’ worth. And just like that regrettable spring break tattoo, newer ones catch more attention than old ones.
- Credit Utilization This is how much of your available credit you’re actually using. Maxed out? That’s bad. Using less than a third? That’s good. It’s not rocket science.
- Credit Age Older accounts boost your score. That credit card you got five years ago but never used? Keep it open. Credit bureaus like stability and history.
- Public Records Bankruptcies, liens, judgments—these are the nuclear bombs of your credit report. One bankruptcy can drag your score down for years, no matter how perfect everything else looks.
Step 5: Fix the Garbage
Remember this—about one in four business credit reports has mistakes. Yours might, too. Common problems include:
- Payments you made on time showing up as late
- Court issues that were resolved still showing as open
- Another company’s problems mixed in with yours
- Your good payment history completely missing
Fixing these isn’t fun, but it’s necessary:
- Gather proof the report is wrong
- Contact the bureau’s dispute department
- Follow up weekly until it’s fixed
- Document everything (because you’ll probably need to dispute it again)
Step 6: Make It Better
Found weaknesses? Here’s how to fix them:
- Get credit with suppliers who actually report to bureaus (most don’t)
- Make a plan to tackle existing debt
- Stop mixing personal and business finances (seriously, stop it)
- Pay consistently—even if it means setting up boring autopayments
- Mix up your credit types between cards, loans, and lines of credit
Bottom Line
In business, capital is like oxygen. Your credit score largely determines whether you’ll be breathing easy or gasping when opportunities arise. While competitors scramble to explain away poor scores during critical moments, smart businesses leverage strong credit reports to secure better terms and lower costs.
The companies that treat their credit as a strategic asset rather than an afterthought don’t just survive – they thrive. Following this guide won’t make you a financial genius overnight, but it will put you miles ahead of the business owners who remain clueless about one of their most important financial indicators.
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