Building business credit, walked as one route
Business credit is built in an order. This site follows that order from the first bit of groundwork to the point where the file looks after itself — one route, one waypoint at a time.
The route is drawn. Nothing is published along it yet: this is a new site, and the write-ups for each waypoint are still to come.
Six waypoints, in the order they are reached
Each one is a piece of the work of building business credit. They are listed here as ground to be covered, not as finished pages — there are no articles on this site yet.
Standing the business up as its own entity
An EIN, a registered address, a listed phone number: the details a business credit file is later matched against, and why mismatches between them cause trouble.
418·072Opening a business credit file
What a D-U-N-S number is, which bureaus hold business files, and how a file gets created in the first place.
421·086A business bank account, kept separate
Why the account is the line between business and personal money, and what account history is used for later on.
427·101Net-30 vendor accounts and which ones report
Trade accounts are the usual first entries on a file. Not every supplier reports, which is the part that decides whether the account is worth opening.
433·118Business credit cards, secured and unsecured
Where a card fits once there is trade history, what a personal guarantee means, and the difference between the two kinds of card.
440·129Reading the file and keeping it clean
How to pull your own business credit report, what appears on it, and how to get an error looked at.
446·147Three legs, and what each one asks of you
Start at the cairn
The groundwork comes before anything else, because the later steps are matched back to it. A short leg, and the one most often skipped.
Cross the reporting ground
Trade accounts and cards that actually report are the long middle stretch of the route, and the part that takes the most patience.
Keep to the line
Checking the file and correcting what is wrong on it does not end. This leg has no far edge — it carries on for as long as the business does.
Notes in the margin of this sheet
Worth setting down before there is anything to read, because it is what the writing will be held to once there is.
Nothing here is scored
No ratings, no star counts, no tier boards, and no good/fair/poor bands. Where one option is preferred over another it is said in words, with the reason attached.
Claims stay inside what was done
No described testing standing in for work nobody did. Where a write-up rests on published terms or public filings, it says so and points at them.
Grid references are locations
The codes beside each waypoint mark a position on this sheet and an order along the route. They are not a measure of anything and they do not rank what they sit next to.
Affiliate links are disclosed
Some links earn a commission. That never sets the order things appear in, and it is stated on every page it applies to.
The far end of the route: a business with its own credit file, standing on its own. The waypoints fill in as they are written.