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5 Amazing Ways You Can Get a Free Credit Score for Business

Reviewed by Ty Crandall

November 14, 2023
Free Credit Score for Business Credit Suite

Get a Free Credit Score for Business – We Show You 5 Easy Ways to Do It

You can get a free credit score for business. There are 5 that entrepreneurs should understand.

Keeping your credit scores high is essential, so be sure you don’t miss any of these. You need to be proactive to get and improve any free credit score for business.

1. Free Credit Score for Business: Dun & Bradstreet’s PAYDEX

A PAYDEX Score from Dun & Bradstreet ranges from 0 to 100. This score has a basis in payment data which is on report to the bureau. Or it is on report to data-gathering companies partnering with the CRA. See https://creditreports.dnb.com/m/business-glossary/paydex-score.html

D & B uses this data, along with a credit score and Financial Stress Score, so as to advise how much credit a loan provider should extend to your business.

Getting a Free Credit Score for Business from D&B’s PAYDEX

To get a PAYDEX score, you need to apply for a D-U-N-S number by using Dun & Bradstreet’s website. The number is at no cost. Plus the CRA will require to have reports of your payments with four or more merchants.

Your firm’s PAYDEX score reveals if your payments are usually made promptly or ahead of schedule. As you may expect, a higher number is better.

PAYDEX Score Information

The scores break down as follows:

  • 80 – 100: A low risk of late payments
  • 50 – 79: A medium risk of late payments
  • 0 – 49: A high risk of late payments

D&B Business Credit Scores

Your company’s credit rating ranges from 1 to 5. 1 is the best score. This matches your business with other companies with comparable payment histories. The score shows just how often those firms tend to pay without delay.

This information can actually help loan providers to identify your company’s standing. Yet it does not really show every one of the payment records from your business.

Financial Stress Score

The Financial Stress Score also runs from 1 to 5. It matches your business with other companies sharing comparable financial and company characteristics.

These resemblances are in areas such as size or amount of time in business. This score shows just how regularly those businesses have a tendency to pay on time. As before, 1 is the very best score. This score is a more comprehensive examination of the business landscape, versus an analysis of your company’s real payment history.

An amazing PAYDEX score for your company is 80 – 100.

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2. Free Credit Score for Business: Experian Credit Scores

Experian’s scoring system is called Intelliscore Plus.

What is the Intelliscore Plus Free Credit Score for Business?

The Intelliscore Plus credit score is a statistically based credit-risk assessment. The essential purpose of Intelliscore Plus is to aid companies, investors, and possible future loan providers make wise judgments regarding who they should or should not do business with.

Like an automobile dealer makes use of a customer’s FICO score to swiftly identify just how much of a credit risk a potential customer may be, the Intelliscore Plus credit score can offer insight on just how much of a credit risk a business or business owner might be.

Intelliscore Plus Credit Score Range

The Intelliscore scores vary from 1 to 100. So the higher your score, the lower your risk class. The chart below details each Intelliscore Plus credit score range as well as its associated meaning.

Score Range/Risk Class

  • 76 – 100 Low
  • 51 – 752 Low – Medium
  • 26 – 503 Medium
  • 11 – 254 High – Medium
  • 1 – 105 High

Computing an Intelliscore Plus Credit Score

In the credit world, Intelliscore Plus is regarded one of the most dependable tools in effectively forecasting risk. Among the ways Intelliscore Plus maintains this claim to fame is by acknowledging the significant variables that show if a business is likely to pay their debts.

Though there more than 800 business and owner variables constituting an Intelliscore Plus credit score, the variables can be broken down into these essential elements:

Payment History

The bureaus call this recency however in the real world, it’s nothing more than your current payment status. This includes the number of times your accounts become delinquent, the number of accounts that are currently delinquent, and your overall trade balance.

Frequency

Similar to payment history, frequency make up the quantity of times your accounts have been sent to collections, the quantity of liens as well as judgments you may have, and any bankruptcies connecting with your business or personal accounts.

Frequency can also include information connecting to your payment patterns. Were you regularly slow or tardy with payment? Did you begin paying expenses late, yet over time, stopped doing so? These variables will certainly all be taken into consideration.

Monetary

This particular facet focuses on exactly how you use credit. As an example, just how much of your offered credit is presently in use? Do you have a high proportion of delinquent equilibrium in comparison with your credit line?

If you’re about to begin a company or are rather new to this game, the checklist above may appear a bit overwhelming. If you haven’t begun or don’t have a lengthy history of company-based purchases, exactly how will Intelliscore Plus rate you?

Intelliscore Plus handles these situations by using a “blended model” to develop your score. This implies that they take your consumer credit score right into consideration when determining your company’s credit score.

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3. Free Credit Score for Business: Equifax Business Credit Scores

The Equifax Credit Risk Score originates from a model which they use to place specific risks. Equifax uses these details in its calculations, consisting of the depth of the credit details Experian can obtain the length of your company’s credit history, as well as your firm’s payment delinquency history. See https://www.equifax.com/business/equifax-risk-score

Equifax then sectors some five separate scorecards together, by using statistical analysis. In order to enhance their precision, Equifax suggests combining their Credit Risk Score with their exclusive Equifax Bankruptcy Navigator Index.

The Bankruptcy Navigator Index helps forecast the likelihood of your business declaring bankruptcy in the next 24 months. Equifax bases its predictive model on over 270 million different accounts.

Equifax shows three separate company determinations on its business credit reports. These are the Equifax Payment Index, your business’s Credit Risk Score, and its Business Failure Score.

Equifax Payment Index

Comparable to the PAYDEX rating, Equifax’s Payment Index, which has its measurement on a scale of 100, shows how many of your firm’s payments were made punctually. These include both data from credit providers and suppliers.

However it’s not indicated to forecast future habits. That is what the other two scores are for.

Equifax Credit Risk Score

Equifax’s Credit Risk Score analyzes just how likely it is your business will become severely overdue on payments. Scores vary from 101 to 992, and they examine:

  • Available credit limit on revolving credit accounts, e. g. credit cards
  • Your business’s size
  • Proof of any kind of non-financial transactions (e. g. vendor invoices) which are delinquent or were on charge off for two or more payment cycles
  • Length of time since the opening of the earliest financial account
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Equifax Business Failure Score

Finally, Equifax’s Business Failure Score looks at the risk of your company closing. It ranges from 1,000 to 1,600, assessing these aspects:

  • Total balance to total current credit limit average utilization in the previous three months
  • How much time since the opening of the oldest financial account
  • Your business’s worst payment status on all trades in the previous 24 months
  • Documentation of any non-financial transactions (e. g. supplier invoices) which are past due or have gotten on fee off for two or more billing cycles.

Equifax Scoring Analysis

For the credit risk as well as business failure scores, a rating of 0 means bankruptcy.

An amazing Equifax score for your firm is as follows:

  • Payment Index 0 – 10
  • Credit Score 892 – 992
  • Business Failure Score 1400 – 1600

4. Free Credit Score for Business: FICO Business Credit Scores

FICO uses its SBSS (Small Business Scoring Service) Score to integrate consumer bureau, economic, application, and business bureau data. FICO then validates their SBSS models for transactions such as Line of Credit transactions, Term Loans, and Commercial Card obligations which go up to $1 million. Their idea is to examine how your company pays back all kinds of loans.

Business credit providers use the FICO SBSS score as a tool to determine whether they should authorize a loan to your business at all.

The SBA uses this score too, to authorize or approve company loans. It has a basis in your company and consumer credit history as well as not simply your business’s financial health.

The score factors in the evaluation of the risks inherent in your company’s credit applications. With SBSS, lenders make their determinations in a matter of hours, instead of days. Lenders are more confident in their lending judgments, and your company gets quicker decisions on your loan applications.

The SBA’s Participation

The FICO Small Business Score or SBSS score is the main figure that the SBA thinks about while figuring out to approve a loan, especially when it involves the SBA’s 7(a) loans.

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Computing a FICO SBSS Score

The FICO SBSS Score shows the likelihood or probability of you, the candidate, covering your month-to-month bills in a timely manner. The score runs from 0 to 300. A higher score means lower risks and commonly generates more favorable credit terms. The score originates from your company as well as personal history of credit use together with your company’s financial data. Variables also include your company’s age, and its years or complete time in business.

Since 2014, all SBA 7(a) loans must go through a business credit score pre-screen, as well as for SBA loans, you could perhaps not get an approval if you had a score less than 140. However the cutoff was typically set to 160, and frequently, a score below 160 meant a rejection. A lot of lending institutions will only accept scores over 160 or 180, to lend as much as $1 million. But a rating lower than 160 or 180 can still qualify you for a smaller loan.

The formula for the FICO SBSS Score is as follows:

  • The last year of PAYDEX scores from Dun & Bradstreet
  • Amounts and types of any judgements against your firm
  • The amounts and kinds of any liens against your company’s real or personal property.
  • Your firm’s available resources
  • Your company’s profit
  • Plus other, less distinct monetary information

If you have no document of company credit and had a modest or short time in your business, then the possible greatest FICO SBSS score you can possibly anticipate is 140.

Usage and Sorts of SBSS Model Lenders

A FICO SBSS rating includes the choice to opt for certain models which are market-specific for enhanced and better decision making. As an example, one model is an agricultural leasing and lending model. Another model was made especially for Canada. Additionally, the insights of the SBSS score provide support for the SBRI (Small Business Risk Insight, from Dun & Bradstreet) and the SBFE (Small Business Financial Exchange) information repositories.

Validating the SBSS models is necessary for credit lines, commercial cards, as well as term loans of as much as one million dollars. If you are asking for one million dollars or less from bank financing, then there are chances that your SBSS score will be under review.

The Kind of Information in the Score

The SBSS provides the credit issuers of businesses different information blends to make sure that they can analyze your company’s credit risks. For instance, a specific issuer of credit can choose only to assess a concept proprietor’s application data, or the credit issuer can choose to consist of one or multiple business bureaus’ information.

Or the credit issuer can only decide to prioritize one element over another. This intelligent rating originates from various business bureaus on an automated basis, in any type of order or whatever priority the issuer of the credit chooses. As a result, if the loan provider chooses the score of Dun & Bradstreet’s PAYDEX as its default, the SBSS will pull that set of data.

SBSS Credit Offer Index: Just How It Works and Why It Is Important

The Credit Index is an aspect of the FICO SBSS Credit Score for your small business, made to aid credit issuers understand your capacity. It works as the standards against all businesses with comparable profiles.

The SBSS Credit Offer Index includes economic application details, business bureau documents, and credit bureau information for consumer. It provides a percentile ranking of the present against other smaller companies with identical or similar features and total requested money from all those businesses.

The Updated SBSS

Reporting agencies like Experian power the newer FICO SBSS Score model. The SBFE data might be used to prepare for charge-offs, bankruptcy, or three plus cycles overdue or misbehavior over a duration of two years.

5. Free Credit Score for Business: SBA Credit Scoring

The SBA’s tool has a basis in FICO. Their idea is to speed up their credit decisions for loan approvals. The tool uses several information sources and over one hundred combinations of company and consumer analytical models. They use a designated cutoff.

Their general stats on their over $60 billion profile show that companies with ratings at, or above the assigned cut-off will have excellent payment history. So in a way, this isn’t a free credit score for business – it’s more of a score derived from other scores.

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Free Credit Score for Business: Takeaways

When you recognize where to check your free credit score for business, you have a much better chance of getting on top of it, and staying there.

About the author 

Janet Gershen-Siegel

Janet Gershen-Siegel is the seasoned Finance Writer and a former content manager at Credit Suite. She has been admitted to practice law for over 30 years, with a focus on litigation and product liability, and is a published author, with writing credits at Entrepreneur, FedSmith.com and BusinessingMag.com.

She has a BA in Philosophy from Boston University, a JD from the Delaware Law School of Widener University, and a MS in Interactive Media (Social Media) from Quinnipiac University.

She regularly writes for Credit Suite, which helps businesses improve Fundability™, build credit, and get approved for loans and credit lines.

Her specialties: business credit, business credit cards, business funding, crowdfunding, and law

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