Understanding Business Credit Reporting
Tradelines are credit lines that provide information to Business Credit Bureaus. Account data such as the date opened, payment history, credit history, account balance, and date reported make up tradelines. One tradeline corresponds to one reported account. Tradelines are individual records of your available credit lines, which is why utilities normally do not report. Tradelines are used to establish your creditworthiness for other types of credit. If the tradeline is not used, they may cease reporting to business credit bureaus.
Misconceptions About Business Credit
The Wrong Way to Build Business Credit
Buying tradelines, buying shelf corporations, and generating CPNs are the top three ways people fail to generate business credit. If you are caught performing any of these things, your funding efforts will be ruined.
Piggybacking Tradelines
Piggybacking will catch up to you
If you spend money to raise your credit scores without performing any of the work, you may be misleading potential investors about your creditworthiness. When you acquire a tradeline, the seller will do a credit check because they want to make sure they are paid. D&B, for example, will affect whether you purchased tradelines sooner or later. If a tradeline sales organization conducts a credit report inquiry, D&B will discover fraud. The process of shutting down your tradelines is only the beginning. D&B will flag your whole profile, terminate any legitimate and fraudulent deals, and you will lose any time or money you believed you had gained.
Shelf Corporations
Shelf corporations are companies that were founded and then set aside to mature. The corporation is founded on paper, but it never conducts any business. There may be a credit history, but that is not always the case. Because the business is dormant, there are no real assets or value associated with it. Corporations basically re-age when a new owner takes over. Shelf firms are a waste of money because they provide no tangible benefit.
CPNs
CPN is an abbreviation for Credit Privacy Number or Credit Profile Number. A CPN is a nine-digit number that resembles a Social Security Number (SSN). CPNs are for customers, not for the company. They are not a substitute for credit or identity. Banks and the federal government do not recognize CPNs. Federal and banking requirements demand that you apply with your Social Security number. It is prohibited to use a CPN to apply for credit at a bank. Checking and savings accounts, SBA loans, and bank loans are examples of assets.