Credit Reporting

Most of the information in credit reports is voluntarily reported to the credit bureaus by other companies. For example, a credit card issuer might choose to report your payments to the consumer bureaus, or your small business's vendor might report if your business didn't pay for its supplies within the agreed-upon time.

Many creditors report both positive and negative activity related to your account (i.e., your on-time payments and missed payments). There are some exceptions, though. Utility, phone, internet and rent payments generally don't get reported to the bureaus if you're paying your bills on time. But if you stop making payments and your account gets sent to collections, the collections account could get reported to the bureaus and hurt your credit scores.

The bureaus collect all this information from different types of creditors and public records, and then combine the information that's associated with an individual or business to create a credit report.

Credit reports can be important for two reasons. First, they're the basis for credit scores, which can give lenders and other businesses an easy way to evaluate you or your business.

The credit report itself may also contain a lot of information that lenders can review before approving or denying your application. And businesses may review each other's business credit reports before deciding to work together. As a result, even if you have a high credit score, you may be denied for a loan or contract based on something in your credit history.

Personal credit reports

In the United Kingdom, there are three main, nationwide consumer credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Those credit bureaus may not be available depending on which country you live. Laws and bureaus' policies dictate what can and cannot be in your personal credit reports, limit who can view your credit reports, impact how you can access copies of your reports and affect how to dispute any errors you find.

Your personal credit reports contain information about you and the accounts you've opened in your name, such as:

• Identifying information. Your personal information can include your name, date of birth and address. Your credit report may also have information about past addresses, along with current and former employers.
• Accounts. A list of all of your credit accounts that are reported to the bureau, including different types of loans and credit cards. The accounts, also called tradelines, could have a variety of information associated with them, including the date each account was opened, the current balance and your payment history with the account.
• Collections. A company may send your account to collections, tasking another department or hiring a different company to collect your debt, if you haven't paid your bills. The collection account may show up in a different section of your credit reports.
• Credit checks. When someone checks your credit, a record of the credit check (called an inquiry) is added to your credit reports.
• Public records. The only information the credit bureaus actively obtain is public record data from the court system, such as bankruptcy filings.

Some information will never be part of your credit reports, such as your religion, ethnicity or income.

You can generally request a free copy of your credit report but this will differ based on the bureau. While your credit reports from different bureaus are often similar, they may not be identical.

If you find an error on one of your reports, such as an account that you didn't open, you can file a dispute with the bureau and it must investigate your claim and either verify, correct or delete the disputed item.

Business credit reports

Credit bureaus also create business credit reports. Some of the bureaus create personal and business credit reports. However, there are also bureaus that solely focus on business credit.

There are a few steps you may need to take before a business credit bureau can create a credit report for your business. These are detailed on the Business Credit page and include legally creating your business.

Like personal credit reports, business credit reports are filled with information that the bureaus receive or collect. A business credit report may have several sections:

• About the business. Who owns and runs the business and whether the business is part of a larger family of businesses. The section may also have details about when the business was started, how many employees there are, where it's located and its estimated sales for the year.
• Accounts. The business's loans, credit cards and credit accounts with suppliers, along with the payment history and balances for each account.
• Collections. The business's unpaid accounts that have been sent to a collection agency.
• Banking, insurance and leasing. The business's primary bank, whether the business is leasing (i.e., renting) equipment from another business and the insurance companies that have sold insurance to the business.
• Public records. Bankruptcies and judgments (a court order that the business must repay a debt).
• Comparative data. How well a business is doing financially compared to other similarly sized companies in the same industry.

You aren't necessarily guaranteed free access to business credit reports. However, you may be able to buy your business's credit reports from a bureau, and some companies that aren't credit bureaus may give you free access to some of your business credit reports.

Regularly checking your business credit reports for errors could be a good idea, as an error may hurt your business's creditworthiness or even indicate fraud. If you find an error, you can dispute the information with the credit bureau.

Credit Scoring

Credit scores are the result of computer formulas (also called credit scoring models) analysing credit reports and attempting to predict specific outcomes based on an individual's or company's credit history. Many credit scores attempt to determine the likelihood that the person or business will fall behind on a bill..

Credit scores can make it easier to evaluate someone's credit — rather than figuring out how to interpret a credit report, creditors can quickly look at a score and then make a decision.

Generally, a higher credit score means a person or business is more likely to pay bills on time. Having higher credit scores can make it easier to qualify for loans or credit cards with favourable terms and lead to paying less for insurance.

There are both consumer and business credit scores based on consumer and business credit reports.

Personal credit scores
Consumer credit scores are generally based on the information in one of your credit reports. These scores attempt to predict the likelihood that someone will be 90-plus days late on one of their bills. Many lenders create their own credit scoring models rather than (or in addition to) buying a score to evaluate an application. Custom scores may be based on the information in your credit report along with internal data. For example, if you have a current account and apply for a credit card from the same bank, the bank might consider how you've managed the current account.

Business credit scores
Similar to personal credit scores, companies create different types of business credit scores to evaluate businesses.

How to improve your credit scores

Building credit can take time, and it's best to start early before you need to apply for a loan or credit card. Although the credit scoring formulas can vary depending on the type of credit score, there are some actions you can take that will generally improve your personal or business credit scores.

Personal credit scores

Consumer credit scores use similar scoring criteria. As a result, the actions that will improve one of your personal credit scores tend to improve all your personal credit scores. In order, here are the most important scoring factors.

• Pay your bills on time. Try to build a long history of on-time payments with multiple accounts. While a single late payment might not push you all the way down to the poor credit range, having many late payments can definitely hurt your scores. If you don't pay your bills and your account is placed into default or sent to collections, that can hurt your score even more.
• Don't carry high balances. Your current balance on revolving credit accounts, such as credit cards and lines of credit, can also be important to your credit scores. Keeping your balance as low as possible will help your scores. Paying down balances on installment accounts (e.g., a loan that has a fixed repayment period) can also help, although it's not as crucial.
• Have multiple types of accounts. Having a mix of revolving and installment credit accounts can help your credit scores. You may also want to have at least three active accounts on your credit reports to show that you can manage multiple bills at once.
• Limit how often you apply for credit. A lot of recent applications could lower your scores.

Business credit scores

Business credit scores also have different formulas, and if there's a particular score you want to improve, you may want to research how that score is calculated to figure out what specific actions may help. However, in general, the following could improve your business credit scores.

• Pay your bills on time or early. As with personal scores, paying your bills on time is one of the most important scoring factors. However, unlike with personal credit scores, some business credit scores reward you for paying your bills early.
• Don't carry high balances. Having low balances can also help your business credit scores.
• Use multiple accounts that report to the business bureaus. Having loans, credit cards and payment accounts with suppliers on your report (with on-time payment histories) can help your credit scores. You can ask suppliers which business credit bureaus they report to, if they report to any at all.
• Focus on improving your business's finances. Business credit scores may take your business's finances into account as a scoring factor. If you have more money coming in than going out each month and have built your savings, that may be good for your score.
• Work on your personal credit. Some business credit scores consider the owners' personal credit as a factor. Your personal credit score could even be one of the most important factors, if your business is brand new.

Using credit wisely

Having excellent personal and business credit scores can help your business in many ways. You may save money on insurance and have more time to repay your vendors. You may also be able to borrow more money at a lower interest rate from lenders and credit card issuers.

However, just because you can get approved for a loan or line of credit doesn't mean you should borrow money. Generally, it's best to borrow money when you have a specific plan for how you're going to use the money, know how the money will help grow your business and are confident that you can repay the debt.