Business Credit Reporting: A description of the major business credit bureaus

There are a number of sources of business credit information in the United States and, like personal credit bureaus, they track businesses and businesses and provide this business credit information to banks, financial institutions, and other businesses upon request by a fee. Some of them include: Dun and Bradstreet, Kroll, Experian Business, BusinessCredit USA, Equifax Business, and ClientChecker.

Dun and Bradstreet is perhaps the world’s best-known source of business credit information. There are more than 70 million companies registered with Dun and Bradstreet in the United States and they issue a number of reports on businesses including the DUNS Score, which is based on the company’s financial records, and the Paydex Score, which tracks of the payment record of the business. Dun and Bradstreet collects business credit information from businesses, vendors, customers and financial institutions and shares this information with registered businesses.

Equifax and Experian are two well-known personal credit reporting agencies that have developed their commercial credit collection systems in recent years. This experience at the personal finance level has provided them with volumes of data that they use to generate business credit information. Experian Business has more than 14 million registered businesses in its database and issues a business credit score called Intelliscore, which is based solely on payment records. Equifax Business collects information from a number of public and private sources and produces a number of business credit reports and scores from this data.

Kroll is a relatively new player in the business credit reporting market, but it offers a value-added service by verifying every piece of information it receives from vendors, businesses and financial institutions. Some experts believe that Kroll offers the most accurate commercial credit information of any reporting agency in the business.

BusinessCreditUSA is a lower profile business credit reporting operation that provides cheaper service than any of the other business credit reporting agencies, but also verifies all of your information before posting your data to their system. It collects information only from individual businesses and their owners. ClientChecker is a commercial credit reporting agency dedicated exclusively to small businesses. It rates companies using a PayQuo score that is based on the company’s payment experience, but is very useful for providers who want to know the creditworthiness and ability to pay of their potential customers.

With all of these options and more on the market, it’s relatively easy to obtain business credit information on nearly every business doing business in the United States. Just remember that this information may not always be completely accurate or up to date.