Get to know the major business credit bureaus and business credit reporting agencies where you can check your credit ratings and scores. At Dun & Bradstreet you can view your Delinquency Predictor Score and D&B PAYDEX score, while Experian has your Intelliscore Plus, and Equifax has your Delinquency Risk Score.
Dun & Bradstreet
When you first build your business credit history, you will need to target vendors who report to Dun & Bradstreet to earn trade credit. You will find D&B’s PAYDEX rating has a few key differences from other business credit scores in that you get rewarded for paying bills earlier than due.
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Paydex
Business Risk Score
Found within your business credit profile at DNB.com is a PAYDEX score that ranges from 1 to 100. This score is a numerical equivalent our your business’s financial history, with higher scores demonstrating your company’s ability to pay bills on time.
Paydex scores are also divided into the three risk categories; low, medium, and high. The lower your score, the more risk who extend you trade credit.
High Risk
Medium Risk
Low Risk
The best ways to manage a good business credit score Dun & Bradstreet are to pay your bills long before they are due, and ensure that your suppliers report positive payment history to
Vendors who offer Net 30 accounts in particular will pay close to attention to your PAYDEX rating and may reject your credit application if your score is less 75. Paydex scores above 80 will indicate that you not only pay your bills on time, but are willing to pay them early. To receive the highest PAYDEX score 100, you must pay all your bills 30 days before they are due.
| Risk Level | Days Beyond Terms | Payment | PAYDEX Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | -30 | Early | 100 |
| Low | -29 to -20 | Early | 90-99 |
| Low | -19 to -1 | Early | 81-89 |
| Low | 0 | On Time | 80 |
| Moderate | 2-15 | Late | 70-79 |
| Moderate | 16-22 | Late | 60-69 |
| Moderate | 23-30 | Late | 50-59 |
| High | 33-60 | Late | 40-49 |
| High | 63-90 | Late | 30-39 |
| High | 93-120 | Late | 20-29 |
| High | 121+ | Late | 1 – 19 |
You can view your PAYDEX score free for 14-days when signing up to D&B’s CreditSignal. This time-limited trial, however, is only worthwhile if you already have an established business credit profile at Dun & Bradstreet. If you’re willing to pay a monthly fee, then you can check your PAYDEX score any time you like through a monthly subscription package at Dun & Bradstreet.
If you learn and practice the best ways to improve your D&B Paydex score you can begin to maximize your Dun & Bradstreet credit building efforts.
Pricing
The Dun & Bradstreet credit bureau offers three different subscription services with a free trial available for 14 days, and two monthly packages that cost $15 or $39 per month.
The free CreditSignal account allows you to check your PAYDEX score along with a few others for 14 days. Affer your trial is complete, you will only have access to business credit grades (A to F) rather than numerical scores.
A CreditSignal Plus account ($15/mo) offers unlimited access to all scores including your PAYDEX score and D&B Ratings. If you opt for the CreditMonitor package at $39 per month you’ll get some extras that allow you benchmark your company against industry competitors, and get detailed explanations of all your scores and ratings.
| D&B Features | CreditSignal | CreditSignal Plus | CreditMonitor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | $15/mo | $39/mo |
| D&B PAYDEX | 14 days | Yes | Yes |
| Delinquency Predictor Score | 14 days | Yes | Yes |
| Financial Stress Score | 14 days | Yes | Yes |
| Supplier Evaluation Risk Rating | 14 days | Yes | Yes |
| Email Alerts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Business Credit Inquiries | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Available Score Changes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| New Business Events | Yes | Yes | |
| D&B Ratings | Yes | Yes | |
| Dark Web Email Monitoring | Yes | ||
| Score and Rating Explanations | Yes | ||
| Industry Benchmarking | Yes |
Nav.com members can get instant PAYDEX score credit alerts, along with once-a-month downloads of D&B business credit reports from just $30 per month.
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Experian
The Experian business credit scores range differs within each of their credit scoring systems. The Intelliscore Plus is the most widely used for assessing a company’s historical creditworthiness, while their Financial Stability Risk Rating is used to predict the likelihood of a business defaulting on payments or declaring bankruptcy within the next 12 months.
Intelliscore Plus
Business Credit Risk Score
The business credit risk score from Experian that ranges from 300 to 850 is called Intelliscore Plus. This rating system is not just a number, but a color-coded credit assessment with five different risk levels. The low-to-high range where your credit score falls can also instantly let business loan underwriters know if you should even be considered for approval.
| Risk Level | Intelliscore Plus |
|---|---|
| Low | 781 – 850 |
| Medium Low | 721 – 780 |
| Medium | 661 – 720 |
| Medium High | 601 – 660 |
| High | 300 – 600 |
Inteliiscore Plus It is used by lenders and issuers of business credit cards to assess the strength of business’s payment history and financial health. Typical things that will cause low scores include:
- High number of commercial credit inquires
- Tradelines with current days beyond terms (DBT)
- Low credit limits on active tradelines
- Low percentage of active tradelines
- Legal, tax lien, judgment or collection filings or derogatory public records
You will need two to three active tradelines before you can receive an an Experian business credit score. If don’t have this, then try applying to these vendors that report to Experian Business.
To boost your Experian Intelliscore be sure you keep aged tradelines active as long as possible. Be sure to also maintain a diverse portfolio of trade partners and credit lines that can help create a large and continuous trade balance.
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Pricing
If you want to purchase an Experian business credit report from the source, they have four pricing models to choose from that start from $40 per month. All options include access to your Intellisccore Plus along with some extra features.
| Experian Plan | Cost | Payment | Usage | Reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CreditScore Report | $40 | One Time | 1 Report | Sample |
| ProfilePlus Report | $50 | One Time | 1 Report | Sample |
| Business Credit Advantage | $190 | Annually | 1 Business | Sample |
| Business Credit Score Pro | $1,495 | Annually | 30 businesses/mo | Sample |
You can get free Intelliscore Plus credit alerts along with once-per-month download access to your Experian personal and business credit reports through a Nav.com monthly subscription package from just $30 per month.
Equifax
The last of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax business credit scores differ a bit in that their delinquency scoring model into two separate scores; credit risk and business failure.
Similar to Experian and Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax utilizes public information to calculate your business credit score. This includes things like payment history, legal filings, as well as your company’s size, age, and demographics. Credit utilization ratios are also factored in, along with a business owner’s personal credit score.
Business Credit Risk
Found with your business credit file at Equifax, Credit Risk scores predict the likelihood of 90-day delinquent payments or charge-offs over the next 12 months. This scoring scale ranges from 101 to 992 with somewhere around the midway point (546) being acceptable. A high score means your business is low risk, while no score means the company filed for bankruptcy.
| Risk Level | Credit Risk Score |
|---|---|
| Low | 770-992 |
| Medium Low | 547-769 |
| Medium High | 329-546 |
| High | 101-328 |
| Bankrupt | 0 |
Depending on where your risk score fails, lenders quickly can determine your creditworthiness (high), and if (low) and when (medium-high) they might get paid.
Business Failure
Your Equifax Business Failure Risk score can range from 1,000 to 1,880 and indicates the likelihood of your business ceasing operation within the next 12 months. A low failure score means more lender risk, while a score of zero signifies a company that has already gone bankrupt.
High scores denote low risk for lenders with a score of roughly 1366 being acceptable.
| Risk Level | Business Failure Score |
|---|---|
| Low | 1331-1880 |
| Medium Low | 1221-1330 |
| Medium High | 1111-1220 |
| High | 1000-110 |
| Bankrupt | 0 |
Key scoring factors include the length of time your oldest account has been reporting, and how your total tradeline balances compare with your average credit limit utilization. Also taken into consideration are three months of your worst payment statuses in days beyond terms (DTM) over the last 2 years.
Payment Index
The Equifax Payment Index mirrors the D&B Paydex in that this credit ranges from 0 to 100 and that you need to aim for a high number. The Payment Index (PI) measures your business’s payment habits with scores being based strictly on the distribution of the total amount owned across payment aging periods.
A score of 80+ is typically acceptable even though it means that a few of your payments have been late. Less than 80 would indicate that bills are paid more than a little late, while a score less than 40 suggests that past invoices are most likely already in collection, or close to being charge-offs.
| Risk Level | Days Beyond Terms | Payment | Payment Index Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | -30 to -1 | Early | 91-100 |
| Low | 0 | On Time | 90 |
| Moderate | 1-30 | Late | 80-89 |
| Mediium | 31-60 | Late | 60-79 |
| Mediium High | 61-90 | Late | 40-59 |
| High | 91-120 | Late | 20-39 |
| Extreme | 121+ | Late | 1-19 |
When trending Days Beyond Terms hold steady, a low Payment Index score may simply mean that a company consistently pays its bills, albeit rather slowly. When DBT trends spike, it’s usually a sign of cash flow troubles and increased payment default risk.
Pricing
You can check all of your Equifax business credit scores by ordering a comprehensive credit report. This will cost around $100, so be sure to view the Equifax business credit report sample so you know what you are buying.
- Credit Risk Score
- Business Failure Score
- Payment Index Score
- Credit Utilization Balances
- Trending Days Beyond Terms
- Credit Bureau Summary Data
- Recent Credit Alerts
- Recent Credit Inquiries
- Ongoing Credit Disputes
- Public Records Summaries
For a cost of around $400, you can monitor the business credit reports of five companies. Unfortunately, they don’t have an easy-to-order pricing page, and you’ll have to contact them to get started.
Nav Business subscribers can get 24/7 credit alerts and access to their updated Experian Business and personal credit reports every 30 days, for just $30 per month.
Third-Party
There is a way to get free access to reports and monitoring from all these credit monitoring bureaus, but it’s via the paid services from Nav Business which range from $30-$50 per month.
A free account will still get you the Summary only reports that contain credit grades (A to F) from D&B, Experian, and Equifax, which is better than paying for it. The monthly plans however include full reports, along with access to Intelliscore Plus and TransUnion VantageScore reports.
Unfortunately, you’ll need at least the $40 Business Boost plan to get your business tradeline report or the $50 Business Loan Builder plan to get a FICO SBSS report.
So while not technically free, as you still have to purchase a monthly plan, if you require some of the other services in their plans like those noted below, the extra reporting access is a sweet bonus.
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While this is paid service, as mentioned above, the free account will get you a summary report with credit grades (A to F) from Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. The monthly service however offers up many different options to not only check your reports from the top credit monitoring bureaus, but you’ll be able to.
- Dispute errors on business credit reports
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- Follow up to 5 businesses’ credit reports
To get started, you can simply sign up for a free account by visiting the nav.com website and clicking on the Get Started or Start Now buttons.
When doing so, you’ll need to fill in your full business information as well as your personal data. They will also ask for your income and the percentage you hold within the company.
Then you need to search for your company name, which contains relevant data about any company that is registered as a business in every US state. Check the information that appears in your matches, and be sure to select the right one.
According to the information you entered when signing up, you will receive the appropriate data, as well as offers for credit boosting funds for your company’s situation, coming from Nav Boost partners. There’s no need to sign up to this to get your free report grades, but it’s a service worth noting for later if needed.
After registration, you’ll get access to your A to F grades from D&B, Experian, and Equifax. You also receive your Business Risk Grade, as well as notifications when changes incur to your business and personal scores.