Your business relies on your credit score, acquired throughout the years. What you have done over your business life will get presented on the credit score. Based on the good credit score of your business, banks and other financial institutions will provide you with loans later, when you need it the most. However, for the MSMEs and other start-up entrepreneurs, maintaining a healthy business credit score is tough, because of the ups and downs included in the list. Therefore, it is really important to get along with some of the proven ways, ready to provide you with a great business score later on. Researching will help you come across some tips, to help maintain a proper business credit score for future endeavors.
Managing Debts right on time:
Always remember that debt is most central to the stated credit score and it is the duty of the business owner to maintain and manage it well. Every kind of missed payment rightfully against the debt under your name will create a negative impact on credit score. It will eventually help you realize that debt management should be your number one priority.
- Remember that not all kinds of debts will become a significant part of your credit score. So, you have to be quite judicious on what seems to be the top-notch priority among businesses.
- Let’s take one example for a better understanding. Credit score will always take up a valuable part of the said credit score. So, delaying in making the rightful payment on time will always impact on credit score of company.
- Then you have payment to vendors, which cannot be stated as a major part of credit score. So, while making up choices regarding the debt payments to be made, going for the credit card ones will be your finest choice in here.
Also Read: Life of a Business – Face to face Defaulters
Lower credit balances are always mandatory:
It is vital for you to always aim for the lower credit balances. As a general rule, credit utilization has to be around 30%. So, if you own a credit line of somewhat around Rs 10 lakh, then you might get around Rs 3 lakh from the available credit line. If you get to repay a bare minimum amount of Rs 1 lakh, then you are open to withdrawing the same amount without hampering the credit score a single bit. But, if you are making plans to actually withdraw over 30% from the targeted credit line, then this score will get into one downward journey.
Even when you plan to withdraw a larger amount, you can easily get the chance to increase score by focusing on repaying debts on time. Remember that various credit firms will have different modes of credit utilization norms in here to follow. Therefore, a credit usage of around 30% to 50% is often signaled as a warning sign. Anything, over 75% of credit usage will be termed as a red signal.
Best ways to manage the debt of your company:
The present liabilities on credit report will always include credit lines, credit card based balances and even some of the other term loads. The higher your loads turn out to be without repaying previous ones, the higher will be the negative effect on present credit scores. Lenders are often wary of the higher indebted companies. So, before you actually plan to apply for the newer business loan, make sure that your firm has actually repaid some of the previous pending ones. Managing debt is really important for keeping the scores of business credits high.
Have to report wrong information and open up unused accounts too:
You have to take time and research well, to take a closer look and review the credit reports. The primary purpose over here is to actually check-in for some inaccurate information.
- If you get to see anything weird or wrong with the account or report, like unpaid debt which you actually took care of, make sure to give the credit reporting firm a call immediately. Checking out the dispute and taking care of it instantly is really important.
- Later, the lender will have a time frame of 30 days for verifying the said information in a file or it might get removed from your account. If you really want to improve the business credit score, this point seems to be the primary one to note down.
- On the other hand, if you ever notice any old account which you are not using anymore while reviewing the said report, you might get tempted to call the deal completely. But, it is better not to do so.
- Closing any of the old accounts or unused ones will have one unwanted and negative impact on your business credit score. So, always try to keep them open, and work out some of the minimalist transitions if you can.
Importance of decreasing credit utilization ratio:
One of the major things that these credit-reporting firms check while determining the ratio will be the ratio of credit as used to the available amount. It is always mandatory for you to keep that ratio under 15%. If you are wondering how to do so, some steps will actually help you get the right call.
- Make sure to pay your bills not once but more than that in a month. It helps in keeping the ratio down. Spending will not get the chance to pile up with time so it will keep a check on the ratio well.
- Always try to open a new credit line. It might seem a bit counter intuitive, but why would you actually plan to get more credit if you are not likely to use is, might be the main question haunting your mind. Well, the answer is “ratio.” Trying to have some more credits available and not quite using it all will make you create a good candidate vibe among the credit-reporting firms.
- Be sure to decrease the credit card based spending. Try to keep up your good work by decreasing the amount that you actually spend on credit.
- Make sure to increase the credit limit as well. For that, you need to ask your credit card provider to help increase the limit. This way, you get the opportunity to decrease the ratio.
- Don’t waste time in paying off the balances. It is quite an obvious step to take as soon as you can. But be sure to check that this step is actually helping you to decrease the ratio. If you failed to pay them off entirely, at least give it a try to get the amount as low as possible.
In case, you are actually working with some of the selected suppliers for quite some time now and have established a good pay scale relationship, try to create a credit account with them. It helps in increasing positive payment numbers to your credit history. In the end, this simple step will help improve a perfect credit score for your business.
Also Read: How to protect your Business from Business Defaulters?
Ask your vendors for reporting some payments:
Whenever you are trying to review your Business Credit Score, try checking out suppliers or vendors which were missing. Remember, that not all business to business lenders will report any credit history as it is not always a necessity to consider.
- If your business has an account with suppliers and vendors where you have the chance to create a good payment history, try to ask for some reports or increase the present number of positive payments to file.
- This major step will actually help improve the current business based credit score. If the vendors fail to report the payments, try opening accounts with some others in the market. There are multiple vendors out there to choose from.
- If you can get more positive reports from the suppliers or vendors, your business credit rating will actually end up in a good score.
Try opening one new account:
If your business is relatively new and you don’t have loads of accounts under it, try opening at least one or two, under business credit card or business loans. If you think that having no credit is better than bad credit, then think wisely. Lenders always don’t have a history to review before they decide to approve your business loan request or not. Always be sure to repay any money you own, borrow or credit that you use. On the other hand, choose lenders who will restrict the amount of money you can take. They will keep track of how much you can afford to pay back before giving you out the loan request. Getting a credit that is not used is a sign of positivity among credit reporting firms or agencies.