Dun & Bradstreet - Your Business Credit

Dun & Bradstreet - Your Business Credit

On July 20, 1841, Lewis Tappan first established The Mercantile Agency in New York City. This organization's purpose was to create a network of correspondents to function as a consistent, objective, and reliable source of credit information.*

Information Collection

Dun & Bradstreet operates the largest business database in the world, with information on over a hundred million businesses worldwide. This includes thirty-eight million in the US. Dun & Bradstreet is far and away the number one provider of business information concerning marketing, credit and purchasing decision-making.

Currently, over a hundred and fifty thousand businesses of many sizes depend on D&B for the insight needed to build and maintain profitable business relationships.

The information found in the D&B database is compiled by gathering millions of bank and trade transactions, business owner info, public utilities, federal bankruptcy listings, and all the offices of the US Secretaries of State.

They also go over hundreds of magazine, newspaper, trade publication, and electronic news to gather data. In addition, they conduct millions of interviews, with managers and businesspeople.

They can attain up to as many as fifteen hundred data elements compiled on a particular company. Overall, over two hundred million financial transactions are added to D&B's database annually. They update the information on a continual basis; one and a half million times each business day, to be sure the information is the most current available.

Managing Business Credit

It's a good idea to manage your business' credit as this credit rating can either save or cost your business money.

Have you ever been denied a loan? Have you been required to pay a high insurance premium? Have you been required to pay cash on delivery to receive supplies?

If you're not exactly sure of what is in your credit profile, you can't really be sure if your company is being presented in a favorable way. A bad or absent credit profile can affect your bottom line directly. Having good credit is a lifeline to your business. This will let you find the funds to expand, make capital expenditures, create research and development, and hire staff.

Your future growth is dependent on this rating, along with access to the cash needed to survive. Maintaining a good business credit rating also let you keep cash on hand to cover your costs, and this kind of liquidity will allow you quick response to situations that are time sensitive - without the need to wait or pause operations.

Business credit has become the main method of setting the terms of business loans, lease payments, and insurance rates. Maintaining excellent credit can help your business earn lower rates and improve cash flow. Your credit record is the main method which companies will determine if they want to do business with your company or not - and, on what terms.

These companies will depend upon your creditworthiness in order to make important decisions. These decisions include whether or not to sell to your business, lend money, accept you as a partner, increase a line of credit, lease equipment, extend favorable rates of financing, and determine if you compare well against competitors in your field.

A number of business data points are included in business credit: date began, experience of executive leadership, annual sales figures, and the total number of employees. This info is listed with the credit profile, as well as ratings and scores which have been determined though the past behaviors of your business.

For example, past willingness to pay bills is factored into determining the likelihood that you will pay bills in the future. The overall credit worthiness of a business is determined by the four Cs of credit: character, capital, capacity and conditions.

Character includes the total number of years operating in business, workforce size, willingness to share information, judgments or law suits, coverage in the media, stock market valuations, and comments from relevant references.

Capital determines if a business has the resources necessary to repay creditors. Generally, this part of the credit report is most important in the review of an analyst. Top importance is attributed to items including net worth, working capital amounts, and cash flow.

Capacity refers to a company's ability to satisfy its accounts payable. This also covers the debt of the company and how it is structured, including unused credit and defaults.

Conditions are the outside factors which surround the company. These include industry growth, market changes, political or legal factors, and currency valuations.

Loan officers and credit managers answer these sorts of questions by reviewing information supplied by customers, banking information, trading information, and requests for credit check information.

The process is quite like that of gaining personal credit. If you've ever opened a banking account, financed an auto, or used a credit card, you have a personal credit file. This info intends to help you locate the funds to operate your household. Still, not all businesses have a credit profile; this is why some creditors check the personal credit of small business owners.

If you want to reduce your personal liability and operate a business, it is preferable to establish credit for your business and use this to run it. Using personal credit to obtain funds to operate your business could pose some problems.

The bottom line is that other businesses need to take note of your credit profile regardless of the size of your company. You too, need to understand your own business credit profile, to understand how credit worthy you appear there. All transactions affect your profile. On-time payments help keep the cost of borrowing low.

The information about new and old companies are equally available, obtained from numerous sources and added into your compiled profile. Make sure this information is true, accurate and updated. A strong credit score can help you maintain favorable rates, and affect your overall cash flow, the lifeblood of a business.

*The information provided in this article is strictly for informational purposes only. Please consult with your financial advisors regarding any aspects of your credit profile.

Nick Pegley is a marketing expert with All Covered: Technology Services Partner for Small Business, providing information technology consulting and IT services in 20 major U.S. metro areas. Outsource your procurement, installation and technical headaches..

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Pegley

By Nick Pegley

Dunn & Bradstreet - Love Em' Or Hate Them, They're a Monopoly Here to Stay

If your business is not listed with a public exchange (NYSE, NASDAQ, ect.), then your business' financial condition is an utter mystery to your potential creditors. How are they supposed to know whether or not your company pays its bills on time? How will they know what kind of financial condition your business is in? Dunn & Bradstreet tries to illuminate this mystery, but the key word is "TRIES".

Article Body

Small Businesses dwell in a world of anonymity in that their financial statements are not public record via the Security and Exchange Commission. This obscurity can be overcome with the help of your Dunn & Bradstreet report, but beware, this report can be a blessing and a curse. Let's examine Dunn & Bradstreet's role in the credit decision process in the context of the general factors weighed by underwriters when considering a loan approval.

Lenders crave information when making credit decisions. They love it. It makes them feel more secure. Think about it...If somebody came up to you and asked you if they could borrow $50,000, what questions would you ask this person before agreeing to loan them the money?

• What are you going to use the money for?
• How long will it take you to pay me back?
• What is your current financial condition?
• Do you have a consistent history of paying your bills on time?

The answers to these questions help make up the risk profile of your business. The first 2 questions are pure common sense and don't need any elaboration. Let's concentrate on the last 2 questions.

What is Your Current Financial Condition?

If your company is traded on a public exchange, an underwriter could simply go to Edgar Online and look up the financial statements and disclosures that your company had made to the Security and Exchange Commission.

Your financial condition would be clear and an underwriter would most likely have all that information that they love and crave so much available to them with the click of a mouse. Of course, most small businesses do not report to the SEC. So what does any of this have to do with you?

If an underwriter cannot determine your present financial condition, then you have increased the uncertainty as to your ability to pay. Underwriters hate uncertainty with a zeal equal to or greater than their love of information. This uncertainty raises your risk profile thus raising their required return a.k.a. the interest rate that you will pay.

Let's say that you do not have financial statements available, and/or your financial condition is not what you would like it to be (ex: low profitability, little to no equity, high debt ratio, ect.). How do you overcome this challenge? Well, that leads us to our final question and to an explanation of Dunn & Bradstreet's role in the credit decision process.

Do You Have a Consistent History of Paying Your Bills on Time?

Since nobody has a crystal ball telling them with absolute certainty that you will make all future debt payments on time, the next best thing is to look at your past to see whether or not you have established a pattern of timely debt payments. If you can demonstrate this pattern, your loan will be far less risky in an underwriter's mind.

This is where your Dunn & Bradstreet report comes into play. Dunn & Bradstreet's compile payment history from your company's creditors much in the same way that credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion) compile information on individuals.

Dunn & Bradstreet also assigns your business a credit score in much the same way that the credit bureaus assign individuals a FICO score. This score will be weighed as a factor by underwriters as they assess your risk profile.

Whether you realize it or not, your creditors may be regularly reporting your payment history to Dunn & Bradstreet. These are typically suppliers who have granted you net 30+ terms. They track late payments as well as timely payments.

A favorable D&B report will certainly lower your risk profile and, at the same time, lower the interest rate that you will pay on future loans. A derogatory D&B report will have the opposite affect. This is why you should check your D&B report to make sure it is accurate.

You may be getting declined for loans based on erroneous information being provided to D&B without even knowing it. Since D&B is essentially a monopoly in the field of business credit reports, it is vital that your report reflects correct information.

Luckily, it is much easier to clear up errors with D&B than it is with the three major credit bureaus...so long as you have a good contact. As a small business lender, Dimension Funding has regular contact with D&B and has been able to get mistakes corrected within a few days of providing supporting documentation.

Whether you love them or hate them, Dunn & Bradstreet's monopoly on business credit reports has solidified as credit markets have tightened. Their reports have become more relevant to assessing risk since fewer small businesses show profitability or positive equity due to the recession.

Eric Johnson

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_X_Johnson

Dun & Bradstreet - Your Business Credit

Dun & Bradstreet - Your Business Credit
By Nick Pegley

On July 20, 1841, Lewis Tappan first established The Mercantile Agency in New York City. This organization's purpose was to create a network of correspondents to function as a consistent, objective, and reliable source of credit information.*

Information Collection

Dun & Bradstreet operates the largest business database in the world, with information on over a hundred million businesses worldwide. This includes thirty-eight million in the US. Dun & Bradstreet is far and away the number one provider of business information concerning marketing, credit and purchasing decision-making.

Currently, over a hundred and fifty thousand businesses of many sizes depend on D&B for the insight needed to build and maintain profitable business relationships.

The information found in the D&B database is compiled by gathering millions of bank and trade transactions, business owner info, public utilities, federal bankruptcy listings, and all the offices of the US Secretaries of State.

They also go over hundreds of magazine, newspaper, trade publication, and electronic news to gather data. In addition, they conduct millions of interviews, with managers and businesspeople.

They can attain up to as many as fifteen hundred data elements compiled on a particular company. Overall, over two hundred million financial transactions are added to D&B's database annually. They update the information on a continual basis; one and a half million times each business day, to be sure the information is the most current available.

Managing Business Credit

It's a good idea to manage your business' credit as this credit rating can either save or cost your business money.

Have you ever been denied a loan? Have you been required to pay a high insurance premium? Have you been required to pay cash on delivery to receive supplies?

If you're not exactly sure of what is in your credit profile, you can't really be sure if your company is being presented in a favorable way. A bad or absent credit profile can affect your bottom line directly. Having good credit is a lifeline to your business.

This will let you find the funds to expand, make capital expenditures, create research and development, and hire staff. Your future growth is dependent on this rating, along with access to the cash needed to survive. Maintaining a good business credit rating also let you keep cash on hand to cover your costs, and this kind of liquidity will allow you quick response to situations that are time sensitive - without the need to wait or pause operations.

Business credit has become the main method of setting the terms of business loans, lease payments, and insurance rates. Maintaining excellent credit can help your business earn lower rates and improve cash flow. Your credit record is the main method which companies will determine if they want to do business with your company or not - and, on what terms.

These companies will depend upon your creditworthiness in order to make important decisions. These decisions include whether or not to sell to your business, lend money, accept you as a partner, increase a line of credit, lease equipment, extend favorable rates of financing, and determine if you compare well against competitors in your field.

A number of business data points are included in business credit: date began, experience of executive leadership, annual sales figures, and the total number of employees.

This info is listed with the credit profile, as well as ratings and scores which have been determined though the past behaviors of your business. For example, past willingness to pay bills is factored into determining the likelihood that you will pay bills in the future. The overall credit worthiness of a business is determined by the four Cs of credit: character, capital, capacity and conditions.

Character includes the total number of years operating in business, workforce size, willingness to share information, judgments or law suits, coverage in the media, stock market valuations, and comments from relevant references.

Capital determines if a business has the resources necessary to repay creditors. Generally, this part of the credit report is most important in the review of an analyst. Top importance is attributed to items including net worth, working capital amounts, and cash flow.

Capacity refers to a company's ability to satisfy its accounts payable. This also covers the debt of the company and how it is structured, including unused credit and defaults.

Conditions are the outside factors which surround the company. These include industry growth, market changes, political or legal factors, and currency valuations.

Loan officers and credit managers answer these sorts of questions by reviewing information supplied by customers, banking information, trading information, and requests for credit check information. The process is quite like that of gaining personal credit.

If you've ever opened a banking account, financed an auto, or used a credit card, you have a personal credit file. This info intends to help you locate the funds to operate your household. Still, not all businesses have a credit profile; this is why some creditors check the personal credit of small business owners.

If you want to reduce your personal liability and operate a business, it is preferable to establish credit for your business and use this to run it. Using personal credit to obtain funds to operate your business could pose some problems.

The bottom line is that other businesses need to take note of your credit profile regardless of the size of your company. You too, need to understand your own business credit profile, to understand how credit worthy you appear there. All transactions affect your profile.

On-time payments help keep the cost of borrowing low. The information about new and old companies are equally available, obtained from numerous sources and added into your compiled profile. Make sure this information is true, accurate and updated. A strong credit score can help you maintain favorable rates, and affect your overall cash flow, the lifeblood of a business.

*The information provided in this article is strictly for informational purposes only. Please consult with your financial advisors regarding any aspects of your credit profile.

Nick Pegley is a marketing expert with All Covered: Technology Services Partner for Small Business, providing information technology consulting and IT services in 20 major U.S. metro areas. Outsource your procurement, installation and technical headaches..

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Pegley

Dun & Bradstreet - Your Business Credit

How to Improve Your Dun and Bradstreet Business Credit Rating

How to Improve Your Dun and Bradstreet Business Credit Rating
By Chaz Lamm

Good credit in a bad economy can be the difference between thriving and not surviving. Good business credit provides cash for expansion, capital expenditures, and staffing when your creditors are contracting due to lack of funds.

Cash flow and liquidity can be enhanced by business credit. A cash rich business can take advantage of time-sensitive opportunities without jeopardizing day to day operations.

Dun and Bradstreet owns the business credit evaluation market in the United States. If you want to play the business credit game, you have to master their court. Placing yourself in position to take advantage of a good credit rating is smart business. Trying to recover from a bad rating is next to impossible.

D&B is a private, for-profit enterprise. You must deal with them carefully to reap the rewards and not have your own information used against you.

D&B Rating measures a company's business credit rating against other companies in the same field. Data is provided on net worth, equity, number of employees, and financial stability and risk. Other factors include age of the company, trade payments, payment history, and public filings.

Dun and Bradstreet earns money by selling this information to banks, insurance companies, vendors, and government agencies.

More and more companies are examining the D&B rating of a vendor before entering into contracts. The cost savings at first from a risky vendor can put large corporations and projects in peril if that vendor goes bust before completion. Dun and Bradstreet help evaluate those risks.

Even if you do not yet need credit to expand your business, you will want to register with Dun and Bradstreet. Even with federal, state, and local contracts, a D-U-N-S number is a basic requirement to bid on most projects.

A D-U-N-S number is required to register in the Central Contractor Registration System (CCR) for federal government contracts. CCR is the main database for the Departments of Defense, Transportation, and Treasury, as well as NASA and others. As of October 1, 2003, a vendor must be registered in the CCR in order to receive contracts and purchase orders from most federal agencies.

To establish or improve your profile with Dun and Bradstreet, the following strategies should help:

1. Update your information at least once or twice a year, or as changes occur within your company.

2. Pay your bills on time. Make it your company religion. Nothing will help your D&B rating more than for other companies to know you pay on time.

3. For a new company, consider paying even before you get the bill. Order. Pay when you receive the products. Your Paydex score is based on how fast you pay, not just paying by the due date.

4. Make sure your company has a business listing in your local Yellow Pages or directory assistance. A business phone landline shows that you are here to stay, even for a home-based business.

5. Establish Equity Lines of Credit (ELOC) before you need them. As Harvey Mackay once titled his book, "Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty".

6. If you are paying your creditors and vendors on time, make sure those payments are being captured in your profile.

7. While your business and personal credit files are separate, keep your personal credit in good standing. You don't know when a prospective bank or creditor will want a peak at your personal creditworthiness.

Business credit has become a primary method for determining terms of a business loan, lease payments, and insurance premiums. Using your D&B report, companies will determine whether or not to sell to your business, lease equipment, offer a line of credit, or even do business with you instead of your competitors.

Improving your business credit profile will help your company obtain lower interest rate loans, decrease your cash outflow, reduce your insurance premiums, and acquire new customers. You can improve your D&B Rating by monitoring and updating your file online, or hire professionals to assist.

=====

Charles Lamm is a retired attorney now serving as a legal/technical consultant for Accessible Communication for the Deaf in Pembroke Pines, Florida. His umbrella blog can be found at chazlamm.com [http://chazlamm.com].

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chaz_Lamm

How to Improve Your Dun and Bradstreet Business Credit Rating

Dun & Bradstreet Ratings

Dun & Bradstreet Ratings
By David Gass

Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) ratings are like a good housekeeping sign of approval for businesses. D&B is probably the best known business reporting agency in the world and its ratings are coveted by businesses and examined closely by financial institutions and investors who want to know the financial health of any business.

The D&B rating is prepared by an exhaustive examination of financial records, statements and dealings of the business with its customers, clients, investors and shareholders.

The D&B rating offers companies an opportunity to build their business credit, mitigate credit risks from other businesses, and ultimately improve their cash flow as well as the ability to enhance profit.

D&B offers a number of other tools in addition to the basic D&B rating which allows businesses and financial institutions to make good decisions based on data and not just on guess work.

The D&B Rating measures a company’s business credit rating against others in the same field as well as companies operating in different countries and different continents.

The rating provides data on the net worth or equity of the business and then sorts these companies by the number of employees to reflect the overall creditworthiness of the business.

It also measures both financial stability and the company's payment record, public filings, trade payments, business age, and other factors in order to produce the most comprehensive report on a company's creditworthiness that exists anywhere in the world.

Other subsidiary products that augment the D&B rating are the Paydex Score, the Financial Stress Score and the Commercial Credit Score. The Paydex Score is a report and score that evaluates the payment record of a business to its suppliers and vendors.

The Financial Stress Score makes a prediction on the possibility of a company having to file for bankruptcy during the next year. The Commercial Stress Score evaluates the likelihood of a company making a late or delinquent payment during the next twelve months.

All of these additional information products still play second fiddle however to the D&B rating. This one rating can not only assist or prevent a business from receiving a business loan or an extension to a line of credit but can also cause investors to vanish or panic, suppliers to cease shipments & or vendors to refuse to stock products.

In other words, keeping a good D&B rating is essential to the successful operation of any business. Many businesses, large and small have risen and fallen based on the D&B rating. Smart companies keep one eye on their balance sheet and the other on maintaining a good D&B rating.

Receive the booklet How to Build Business Credit by David Gass – President and Founder of Business Credit Services. It will share with you how more than 10,000 businesses across the nation have achieved over $175 million in combined financing in their business name only, all using his patent-pending system to build corporate credit separate from your personal credit.

You will also learn the first steps required to getting a business loan, lease, and other lines of credit without the use of a personal credit check or guarantee.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Gass

How to Read a Dun & Bradstreet Report

How to Read a Dun & Bradstreet Report
By Nick Winters

Dun & Bradstreet reports provide detailed reports on millions of businesses internationally. These reports help companies decide who to do business with, making it important to know how to read a Dun & Bradstreet report to both evaluate other companies and to understand what is said about your own. Following are comprehensive summaries of some primary portions of a Dun & Bradstreet report.

• Business Summary - This summarizes basic business information, such as address, year started and names of primary managers. It also contains an SIC code, identifying what type of business the company is.
• Payment Analysis - The payment summary gives detailed information on the company's payment history. It also provides a PAYDEX, measuring how punctual the company has been in paying its bills compared to others in the same industry.
• Credit Score Summary - This portion predicts the likelihood that a company will make late payments. It is calculated using the most recent payment information available to Dun & Bradstreet.
• Financial Stress Summary - Predicts the likelihood of a company to cease operation without paying back creditors. This is based on the individual company's financial stress record and trends of other companies in the same industry.
• Business Background - Provides more detailed information on primary managers of the company such as history, as well as history of the business. Also provides information on company operation, telephone and fax numbers, and addresses of additional branches of the company.
• Financial Summary - Detailed information on company assets, loans and cash flow. This is useful in determining a company's ability to afford debts.
• Public Filings Summary - This lists all public filings for a company, including judgments, suits, liens and UCC filings. Full information on these filings are not available in the D&B report.

Not all of these sections will be available on a Dun & Bradstreet report. Some of them have to be requested. It is nevertheless important to know how your company stands in all of these areas when you decide to go into business with another company, or to understand Dun & Bradstreet reports are available to evaluate those companies before you make agreements. These areas are all used to determine if a company is qualified lessee for Equipment Leasing or Equipment Financing.

Equipment Leasing Article from : tridentleasingcorp.com/equipment-leasing-articles/article.cfm/article/11/How-to-Read-a-Dun-&-Bradstreet-Report

Written By: Nick Winters at Trident Leasing Corporation

Trident Leasing Corp. provides a broad range of cost effective and flexible equipment leasing and financing programs for the purchase of new or used Industrial, business, or manufacturing equipment. Our focus is on providing your business with the ongoing support of a team of equipment leasing professionals that can tailor solutions to meet your business needs today and in the future.

For over 10 years Trident Leasing corp has helped hundred of companies get the equipment lease financing they need to continue to expand their businesses. Our team has successfully helped companies of different sizes across a wide variety of Industries.

We pride ourselves on offering our customers straightforward information on leasing and financing equipment so that they can be comfortable in making a decision that best meets their needs. We offer a range of completive financing solutions for customers and do our best to offer your business exactly what it needs and if we aren't the best option we'll let you know that too.

We understand that long term business success is built on relationships and our team strives each day to provide our clients with the highest levels of information, expertise, and services. Our goal has always been to help customers get access to the capital and financial expertise they need and to help develop a partnership that will be there for them now and in the future.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Winters

How to Read a Dun & Bradstreet Report

Dunn & Bradstreet - Love Em' Or Hate Them, They're a Monopoly Here to Stay

Dunn & Bradstreet - Love Em' Or Hate Them,
They're a Monopoly Here to Stay
By Eric X Johnson

If your business is not listed with a public exchange (NYSE, NASDAQ, ect.), then your business' financial condition is an utter mystery to your potential creditors. How are they supposed to know whether or not your company pays its bills on time? How will they know what kind of financial condition your business is in? Dunn & Bradstreet tries to illuminate this mystery, but the key word is "TRIES".

Article Body

Small Businesses dwell in a world of anonymity in that their financial statements are not public record via the Security and Exchange Commission. This obscurity can be overcome with the help of your Dunn & Bradstreet report, but beware, this report can be a blessing and a curse.

Let's examine Dunn & Bradstreet's role in the credit decision process in the context of the general factors weighed by underwriters when considering a loan approval.

Lenders crave information when making credit decisions. They love it. It makes them feel more secure. Think about it...If somebody came up to you and asked you if they could borrow $50,000, what questions would you ask this person before agreeing to loan them the money?

• What are you going to use the money for?
• How long will it take you to pay me back?
• What is your current financial condition?
• Do you have a consistent history of paying your bills on time?

The answers to these questions help make up the risk profile of your business. The first 2 questions are pure common sense and don't need any elaboration. Let's concentrate on the last 2 questions.

What is Your Current Financial Condition?

If your company is traded on a public exchange, an underwriter could simply go to Edgar Online and look up the financial statements and disclosures that your company had made to the Security and Exchange Commission.

Your financial condition would be clear and an underwriter would most likely have all that information that they love and crave so much available to them with the click of a mouse. Of course, most small businesses do not report to the SEC. So what does any of this have to do with you? If an underwriter cannot determine your present financial condition, then you have increased the uncertainty as to your ability to pay.

Underwriters hate uncertainty with a zeal equal to or greater than their love of information. This uncertainty raises your risk profile thus raising their required return a.k.a. the interest rate that you will pay.

Let's say that you do not have financial statements available, and/or your financial condition is not what you would like it to be (ex: low profitability, little to no equity, high debt ratio, ect.). How do you overcome this challenge? Well, that leads us to our final question and to an explanation of Dunn & Bradstreet's role in the credit decision process.

Do You Have a Consistent History of Paying Your Bills on Time?

Since nobody has a crystal ball telling them with absolute certainty that you will make all future debt payments on time, the next best thing is to look at your past to see whether or not you have established a pattern of timely debt payments. If you can demonstrate this pattern, your loan will be far less risky in an underwriter's mind.

This is where your Dunn & Bradstreet report comes into play. Dunn & Bradstreet's compile payment history from your company's creditors much in the same way that credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and Transunion) compile information on individuals.

Dunn & Bradstreet also assigns your business a credit score in much the same way that the credit bureaus assign individuals a FICO score. This score will be weighed as a factor by underwriters as they assess your risk profile.

Whether you realize it or not, your creditors may be regularly reporting your payment history to Dunn & Bradstreet. These are typically suppliers who have granted you net 30+ terms.

They track late payments as well as timely payments. A favorable D&B report will certainly lower your risk profile and, at the same time, lower the interest rate that you will pay on future loans. A derogatory D&B report will have the opposite affect. This is why you should check your D&B report to make sure it is accurate.

You may be getting declined for loans based on erroneous information being provided to D&B without even knowing it. Since D&B is essentially a monopoly in the field of business credit reports, it is vital that your report reflects correct information.

Luckily, it is much easier to clear up errors with D&B than it is with the three major credit bureaus...so long as you have a good contact. As a small business lender, Dimension Funding has regular contact with D&B and has been able to get mistakes corrected within a few days of providing supporting documentation.

Whether you love them or hate them, Dunn & Bradstreet's monopoly on business credit reports has solidified as credit markets have tightened. Their reports have become more relevant to assessing risk since fewer small businesses show profitability or positive equity due to the recession.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_X_Johnson

Dunn & Bradstreet - Love Em' Or Hate Them,
They're a Monopoly Here to Stay