How to Get a Free Business Credit Report
Looking to keep up to date on your financial health without the cost? Find out how to get a free business credit report and stay on top of your credit profile.
0
min read
Looking to keep up to date on your financial health without the cost? Find out how to get a free business credit report and stay on top of your credit profile.
0
min read
Regularly reviewing your credit report is an important practice if your company wants to boost its credit rating and improve its chances of getting approved for business finance. Did you know you can access a free business credit report from certain providers?
In this article, we discuss the benefits of regularly monitoring your financial profile, what to look for and how to get a free business credit report.
A business credit report is an in-depth document containing the information held about your company by a credit reference agency (CRA). This includes your key company details, credit history and other information gleaned from public records.
The report can be accessed by lenders, suppliers and other organisations (where consent is given) and is used to determine your credit score and judge your risk level. Businesses can request their credit report to understand their company’s financial health, identify issues/areas for improvement and validate details or detect discrepancies.
Like your business credit score, a business credit report is an evolving entity that changes with your payment history, credit use and financial-related activity.
The importance of checking a business credit report is due to it being an objective view of your company’s credit history and a reflection of your financial health. If you want to build your business credit score the report indicates activities have had a positive and negative impact, so you can address key problems or double down on the things helping your score to climb.
Monitoring and improving financial health is vital, with around a fifth of new companies failing within two years and 49% of businesses stating that getting funding had become more challenging over the past three years (according to recent BCoC data).
Each credit report provider has its own methods, data sources and risk management tools, but the majority of business credit reports include the following information:
Keeping a close eye on your credit report is good practice. Here are some of the main benefits of monitoring your credit report:
Regularly monitoring your credit report usually comes with costs but you can get a free business credit report from various sources.
Not all CRAs offer complimentary reports, but many have free trials or basic reports that can be upgraded to an ongoing paid credit report monitoring package. Also, some financial providers offer basic free credit insights from CRAs through integrations with banking apps.
One of the leading CRAs in the UK, Experian’s data integrity is highly regarded within the credit industry.
You can get a free Experian business credit report on a three-month free trial through the My Business Profile service. Then it’s £24.99 per month after the trial ends. The solution includes the following:
As a trusted global data and analytics provider, operating in numerous countries, Equifax provides innovative credit reporting, insights and risk management solutions.
Although Equifax offers a 30-day free credit report trial and reasonably-priced monthly packages for ongoing credit reports, it’s for individuals, not businesses.
You currently can’t get a free Equifax business credit report. However, its commercial credit report and scoring service offers key information about organisations, helping you make informed decisions on who to do business with.
Like Equifax, TransUnion offers free consumer credit reports but doesn’t offer free business credit reports.
Although the agency provides credit scores and risk ratings for individuals and organisations, powered by the industry-standard VantageScore model, TransUnion’s business solutions are focused on providing information and analysis on creditworthiness and risk levels of other companies. TrueVision is TransUnion’s suite of data solutions that offers detailed insights to support customer acquisition, compliance and portfolio management.
This US-based credit agency has a large global footprint. Dun & Bradstreet provides an extremely granular view of business risk levels and creditworthiness. The agency offers a range of solutions with annual pricing for accessing business credit reports on potential and existing partners, suppliers and customers.
If you want a free business credit report from Dun & Bradstreet to assess your own company’s financial health, you can get its Credit Insights offerings. The free version offers an overview of your business risk level and credit score, plus alerts when your score changes. But it’s not a detailed, exportable report. The paid version, currently costing £245 per year, is a comprehensive view of your credit profile, with ongoing monitoring and actionable insights from the D&B’s six key indicators.
Creditsafe is one of the leading providers of business credit reports in the UK, offering extensive services to help businesses manage risk, assess creditworthiness and make informed decisions, whilst helping to maintain good financial stability.
You can access a business credit report for free with Creditsafe, which provides real-time access to your credit score, insights into factors impacting your score and alerts about changes. If you want a more in-depth view of your profile, Creditsafe has paid offerings with greater insights and customised reports – after a free trial you can arrange bespoke pricing.
While you can’t get a free UK business credit report directly through government channels, you can get useful information about your business, related to what information CRAs hold. For example, you can access various financial records and business structure overviews through Companies House.
Also, you can legally request a free statutory business credit report – a static report showing details held on your business by a CRA. However, it doesn’t provide credit scores, educational insights or the granularity of a business credit report.
So, once you’ve got your free online business credit report, what’s next and how can small businesses get the most value from the data? Reports help you monitor your company’s financial health and creditworthiness, keep on top of credit score movement and identify potential issues.
As your report can be accessed by lenders, suppliers and potential clients, it can be a key trust factor in your company winning or losing business or securing funding.
iwoca is a leading UK business loan provider empowering small businesses with fast and flexible finance. We know the challenges facing SMEs and our alternative financing solutions offer easy ways to build business credit while easing cash flow.
With short-term financing tailored to your needs, iwoca business loans are ideal for companies of all kinds, even those without great credit scores. We assess a wide range of factors, beyond your credit score, including business plans and revenue potential.
Explore our Flexi-Loans and see how we can help your business. It’s easy to apply and you could be approved within 24 hours. Plus, we don’t charge early repayments fees and you’ll only pay interest on the funds you actually use.
It can take time for reports and scores to change, so you don’t have to check your report that often. Monthly or quarterly checks are beneficial for seeing patterns, ensuring accuracy and spotting potential errors. However, many free business credit reports are one-offs and you may need to pay to regularly monitor your report.
No, checking your own business credit report won’t impact your credit score. However, actions taken that require lenders or third parties to review your credit report will leave a footprint on your profile, meaning it can affect your score.
If you detect any errors in your business credit report, you should contact the CRA you got it from. You can submit a dispute claim, backed with evidence supporting your claim, and creditors/CRAs must act within 28 days, in line with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK's Credit Reporting Code of Practice. If disputes are successful, your credit report will be adjusted, which will change your score – but allow a little while for this to kick in.
There are numerous ways to improve your credit score. Some are quick-fix actions, like registering your business and avoiding hard credit inquiries. Others take months to bear fruit, such as demonstrating responsible debt management (including diversifying your credit use, making prompt repayments and reducing your credit utilisation ratio).
Read our article on how to improve your business credit score to learn more.
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Looking to keep up to date on your financial health without the cost? Find out how to get a free business credit report and stay on top of your credit profile.