Similar to a personal credit report — but with some important difference, which we’ll cover in a moment — a business credit report provides prospective lenders, vendors, investors, suppliers, partners, and sometimes even customers (especially in large-scale or high-profile B2B or B2G transactions) with information about a business’s overall credit worthiness and/or trustworthiness. For example, some third parties may not necessarily care about a business’s credit history, but wants to get a sense of whether it has a track record of fulfilling its promises and meeting its commitments.
A variety of factors ultimately determine a specific business’s credit report score, including: payment history, length of credit history, company size, industry risk factors, credit utilization ratio, and public records (e.g. bankruptcy filings, civil judgements, etc.).
As noted above, there are some important differences between a business credit report score and a personal credit report. These include:
There are several sources that offer free business credit reports, including CreditSignal (by Dun & Bradstreet), Nav, CreditSafe and Scorely. However, as the old but wise saying goes: you get what you pay for. While business credit reports through these sources can be a good starting point, they typically don’t provide a complete, accurate picture. For that, businesses need to pay a fee, either to these sources or to a research/consulting firm (of which there are many).
If you are under the impression that having a high business credit report score is essential for obtaining business funding — then think again! At National Business Capital, we do not believe that credit scores (personal or business) are the end-all-and-be-all of a borrower’s credit worthiness or trustworthiness. We take other factors into consideration, which is why our approval rating is around 90 percent — compared to big banks, where the approval rating plunges to around 15-20 percent.
To learn more, and discover why when banks typically say no we usually say yes, download our free eBook “How to Get Business Funding When Banks Say ‘No’” today:
National Business Capital & Services is the #1 FinTech marketplace offering small business loans and services. Harnessing the power of smart technology and even smarter people, we’ve streamlined the approval process to secure over $1 billion in financing for small business owners to date.
Our expert Business Financing Advisors work within our 75+ Lender Marketplace in real time to give you easy access to the best low-interest SBA loans, short and long-term loans and business lines of credit, as well as a full suite of revenue-driving business services.
We strengthen local communities one small business loan at a time. For every deal we fund, we donate 10 meals to Feeding America!
Megan is passionate about helping business owners along their journey - providing them with relevant content they can use in their day-to-day operations.