Resource Category: Credit

What’s the Small Business Financial Exchange?

Each payment experience you make as a consumer — mortgage, credit card, and car payments, to name a few — could show up on your personal credit report. The same goes for your business in regards to your business credit report. Payments to suppliers, loan payments, commercial lease payments, auto payments, are all payment experiences that could be reported and end up on your business credit file. Data warehouses, like the Small Business Financial Exchange (SBFE), along with business credit… Read More

How Often Does My Credit Score Change?

"How Often Does My Credit Score Change?" Nav customers often ask us this question. Most people guess their credit scores change once a month, but that’s not the full story. The quick answer is that your scores can change any time new information is added to your credit reports. Here’s how it works: How credit bureaus generate your score First, it’s important to understand how the major credit bureaus create a credit score. A credit score is calculated using information… Read More

How Business Owners Can Get and Keep Strong Personal Credit Scores [VIDEO]

When you’re a business owner, strong personal credit scores can be an asset, by helping you qualify for a business credit card, an SBA loan or other types of funding that take the owner’s personal credit into account. But if you’re not careful, your business can hurt your credit scores. In this video you’ll learn: The big credit score mistake many small business owners make How to protect your credit from your business Nav tools that can help you protect… Read More

Business Tax Liens

Business tax liens can hurt your finances, your credit and can possibly even put your business in jeopardy. "A tax lien can be devastating to you and you should do everything you can to avoid it," says Barbara Weltman, attorney and author of J.K. Lasser's Small Business Taxes. What Is a Business Tax Lien? Here's how a business tax lien can happen. The IRS says you (or your business) owes taxes. It sends you a notice, called a Notice and… Read More

Business Tradelines: What They Can Do for Your Business Credit

If you’re an entrepreneur trying to establish business credit, you’ve probably heard terms like “tradelines, trade credit, corporate tradelines, or vendor accounts.” You may even know they are important, but aren’t sure how to get them and how they can benefit your business. We’ll demystify them here. What Is a Business Tradeline? A business tradeline is a credit account between a business and vendor. Typically, a supplier or vendor will offer the business payment terms such as net-30, which means… Read More

What Is a Good Business Credit Score?

Most of us are readily familiar with the general structure of consumer credit, but if you’re a small business owner, becoming familiar with business credit is important to your overall success. Establishing and maintaining business credit will help you build valuable relationships with vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, and financial institutions that are important to operation. For business owners, a good business credit score translates into lower interest rates, better trade credit, and access to the financial support necessary to grow and… Read More