Thursday, February 2, 2017

6 Places You Can Find a Free Business Credit Report

As the financially savvy consumer you are, you know why your personal credit score is a big deal, and where you can go to get your free personal credit report. (Hint: it’s annualcreditreport.comthe place to find your federally regulated, annual free credit report.)

But as the financially savvy business owner, do you know why your business credit score matters, or where you can find your free business credit report to monitor your score?

Unfortunately, lots of business owners remain in the dark about their business credit score. But as a major factor in whether your business can secure a small business loan, a business credit card, or other major financial partnership, your business credit score is worth monitoring closely.

Just how can you go about monitoring your credit report? Here are 6 places where you can find a free business credit report.

Why Should You Care About Your Business Credit Score

Before we dive into where you can find a free business credit report, let’s run through why you’d want to obtain one in the first place.

Well, for one, if you’re interested in getting a business loan for your company—or securing business financing down the line—then you should care about your business credit score.

Just as your personal credit score measures your reliability with your personal finances, your business credit score measures your business’s trustworthiness with business finances.

If your business credit score shows that your business is creditworthy, business lenders will feel more comfortable approving small business loans to you.

Your business credit score isn’t the only factor that determines your loan eligibility, but it’s a major part of your business loan application—especially if you’re applying to banks or more traditional lenders.

On top of securing a business loan, a strong business credit score can help you get favorable payment terms from any of your business’s suppliers.

When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. A business credit score essentially shows how reliably a business pays its bills. So having a strong score might convince suppliers to give you more comfortable terms.

What Will Your Business Credit Score Look Like?

As a consumer, you know that your personal credit score will come in somewhere between 350 and 800.

So, if you pull your free business credit report and get a score of 80….

You might be shocked.

Before you pull your free business credit report and panic at your low score, know this: Business credit scores are calculated on a different scale.

The business credit reporting agencies—Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax—calculate business credit scores on a scale from 0 to 100. So if you pulled your business credit report and landed a score of 80, your business credit score would actually be in great standing.

6 Places to Get a Free Business Credit Report

Now that you know the basics of deciphering a business credit report, let’s cover the 6 places you can go to get a free business credit report.

1. CreditSignal

CreditSignal is a free business credit reporting service offered by Dun & Bradstreet—and for a while, it was the only place to get a free business credit report.

CreditSignal is a great tool that lets business owners stay on top of their business credit and be alerted when anything changes with their score. Once you sign up, you’ll have an online dashboard or can use a mobile app to monitor what’s going on with your business credit report. Or, you can choose to receive email alerts whenever anything changes with your score.

CreditSignal is not only one of the best (and easiest) places to find a free business credit report, it’s a great place to look for more business credit resources. They offer a business credit education online center to learn about credit information specific to your industry, or receive advice on how to improve your business credit score based on your profile.

One thing to note, however, is that CreditSignal gives you an indication only when your D&B business credit score and rating has changed, or when someone else has requested to see your business credit score. To view your actual score and rating—and learn who’s looking into your credit score profile—you’d need to purchase a subscription with Dun & Bradstreet to get a full business credit reporting service.

2. Nav

Nav is a credit monitoring service that give both consumers and business owners access to their personal and business credit profiles.

Nav is another great place to look for a free business credit report—you don’t need a credit card to sign up. Nav will give you free access to a summary of your business credit reports from both Experian and Dun & Bradstreet.

Nav will also give you self-serve tools to help build your business credit—like easy error disputing and setting goals to help improve your business credit score.

One benefit of using Nav is the fact that they provide you with summaries of both your Dun & Bradstreet and Experian reports. CreditSignal, on the other hand, just works with your Dun & Bradstreet score. Both the business and personal credit reporting bureaus have slightly different ways of measuring your business credit rating and giving you a score, so you might get a more comprehensive picture of where you stand if you choose to work with Nav.

However, Nav provides free summaries of your business credit report. You’ll have to pay to get more out of your Nav account. But if you aren’t tracking your business credit history at all, receiving free business credit report summaries is a great place to start.

3. Credit.net

Credit.net isn’t technically a place to get ongoing, free business credit reports—their service will eventually cost you money.

But if you sign up—without a credit card—you’ll get a free 7-day trial of their reporting services, and 7 free business credit reports. While you’ll eventually have to pay, having access to 7 free business credit reports could be valuable. And with no credit card required to start the trial, you won’t have to worry about missing your cancellation deadline and accidentally subscribing to a service you’re not interested in.

Credit.net offers a few different packages, all of which let you monitor your business credit report online and get access to a dedicated Credit.net expert.

4. CreditSafe.com

CreditSafe.com is a similar business credit reporting service that costs money if you opt in for the subscription, but offers a free business credit report to get you started.

If you do choose to subscribe to CreditSafe.com’s service after you test out their free business credit report, you’ll have a lot of credit monitoring tools at your disposal. Your account will show your risk rating, days beyond terms, synced financial data, payment trends, and so on.

CreditSafe.com offers three different packages—Standard, Plus, and Premier. The prices after your free business credit report will fully depend on your business’s needs, so you’ll need to consult one of their risk consultants to get a quote beyond the free report.

5. Business Credit Reports

Business Credit Reports is, again, a service that costs money, but it offers a free business credit report before you opt in.

Your free business credit report will be a demo, but if you choose to purchase the service, you’ll have access to credit reports from all three business credit reporting bureaus—Experian, D&B, and Equifax.

If you’re willing to pay for the service, this is a huge perk. By seeing all three scores and reports, you’ll be fully in the know when it comes to your business credit score. Plus, you’ll have access to a wide array of business credit monitoring tools as a subscriber.

6. Scorely

Scorely is another place to look for a free business credit report demo, and then a paid subscription service if you’re ready to commit. Scorely is actually considered a business credit reporting bureau—they pride themselves on being a transparent credit bureau that aggregates data and boils it down to understandable reports.

Scorely is all about empowering business owners and helping them take control of their business credit rating. You’ll have access to easy-to-understand data and actionable tips to boost your business credit score.

Bonus Tip: How to Get a Free Business Credit Report

In the specific case that you’ve applied for a small business loan and have been denied, here’s one sliver of good news—you can request a business credit report for free after you’ve been turned away.

Once you’ve been denied for a business loan, you’ll get a letter in the mail from the business credit bureau that the lender contacted when taking a look into your business credit score. You can receive a copy of your business credit report from the bureau if you send the letter back within 90 days—with a written request to access your free business credit report.

You’ll get a look into your business credit score for free, but it won’t have the full information on your score. You’ll only get information from the bureau your lender worked with, so you’ll just see one score. But if you’re curious as to where you business credit score stands—and why it didn’t qualify you for a business loan—it’s an easy way to access a free business credit report!

Why There Aren’t More Places to Get Free Business Credit Reports

The Fair Credit Reporting Act allows consumers free access to personal credit reports every 12 months. But as you can tell from the relatively short list of where you can go to get a free business credit report, the same laws don’t apply to a small business owner.

Sure, you can find a free business credit report from these 6 services—or something really close to it. But to get the full, totally accurate picture of your business credit rating, you’ll probably need to pay a fee. Many of these services also let you purchase single credit reports.

So if it’s more cost effective for you to do so, consider just buying a single business credit report about every 6 months. That should be sufficient for keeping up to date with your business credit.

If you’re planning to grow your business with a business loan or business credit score at any point in the future, it’s crucial to stay on top of your business credit score. It’s pretty likely that at some point in the near future, business owners will have the same right to a free business credit score every 12 months.

But until then, it’s best to use one of these 6 services, or stomach the fee to stay on top of your business’s financial future!

The post 6 Places You Can Find a Free Business Credit Report appeared first on Fundera Ledger.



from Fundera Ledger https://www.fundera.com/blog/free-business-credit-report

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