Business credit report

Each major commercial bureau maintains its own file on your business, with its own identifier, its own scores and its own data sources. They routinely disagree, and a lender may pull one, two or all of them.

What is in it

• Payment behaviour with suppliers, usually expressed as days beyond terms and rolled into a payment score
• A risk, failure or delinquency score, predicting the likelihood of severe payment problems
• Recommended credit limits, which suppliers use to set your terms
• UCC filings, judgments, liens, bankruptcies and collections
• Company demographics: industry code, size, years in business, corporate linkage to parents and subsidiaries
• Sometimes a "high credit" figure showing the largest balance a supplier has extended

How it differs from consumer credit

There is no comprehensive furnishing obligation. Vendors report voluntarily, and most small suppliers report nothing at all, so a business with perfect payment behaviour can have a thin or empty file. Access is largely open: anyone can buy a report on your business, including your competitors. And the Fair Credit Reporting Act's accuracy and dispute machinery is built around consumer reports — it applies where a consumer report on the owner is pulled, but pure commercial files sit largely outside it, so correction runs through each bureau's own process rather than through a statutory right.

Where it is used

Bank and SBA underwriting alongside the owner's personal credit, supplier credit decisions, equipment lessors, surety and insurance pricing, and trade terms generally.