How to Establish a Business Credit Bureau

Here we will discuss some of the important steps that a business needs to take in order to establish a business credit bureau. The business credit bureau can significantly increase a company's operating capital, so it's in your best interest to explore this opportunity.

Instructions

1. 

   Look into Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). This is the primary vendor for credit for business owners. There are smaller companies out there, but D&B is the most widely used one. The first step in getting started on your way to establishing credit is to get a D&B D-U-N-S number. You can obtain this from the D&Br website (see Resources below). This will place you in the D&B database with over 120 million other businesses. It will also allow for creditors, vendors and/or customers to learn more about your business.

2. Build a credit file. This will help to establish your business as being viable and creditworthy. D&B has a great tool to help you along with this, called CreditBuilder (see Resources below). It will allow for you to show the trend of past vendors and/or creditors. It will also allow you to establish a pattern of payment history with these vendors and/or creditors. Building a credit file will help in acquiring better interest rates, insurance premiums and credit terms going forward. All of these things are essential in improving a business credit bureau.

3. Monitor your business credit bureau. This will help you to understand who is looking at your credit bureau as well as how you compare to your peers. Keeping a close eye on the trends in your report is the best policy. This will also allow you to better your credit file which in turn will warrant you better rates, premiums and terms.

4. Promote your credit bureau. Promoting your own credit file will allow you to maximize the opportunities that you have with other companies. The better the pay history, the more these businesses will want to do business with you and--even better--extend you more credit.

5. Establish and maintain a good score through D&B or any vendor that handles business credit by making sure that you make timely payments. If at all possible, make them a little early, make them often and make them for more that the minimum amount required. This will allow you to increase your scores through D&B.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not over-extend more than you can pay.

Resources

• Dun & Bradstreet
• Credit Builder