Small business owners have many aspects of their business to oversee and manage every day. Many ignore or don’t think about their business credit score, making the mistake of thinking it is not important. In reality your business credit score is a vital part of your business success and ability to expand your business down the road.
This is the perfect time to focus on your business credit score as the economy starts to recover. Banks are starting to ease on making small business loans and consumers are starting to spend more money.
The first thing you need to do is to check what your business credit report. Make it a habit to check it once or twice a year. You should schedule this, just as you would schedule your taxes and other business reports.
If you see an error on your report take steps to correct it immediately. If you monitor your report regularly errors can be corrected more easily if they are caught quickly. Signing up for credit alerts can also quickly warn you of an fraudulent use of your credit information.
Many smaller business owners fail to separate their business from their personal credit. From the start, no matter how small you are, it is important to open up credit and trade lines using your business information even if you are required to use personal guarantees. Just getting anything started in the path of business credit lines will help you later. Eventually the personal guarantees will not be required.
Take the few extra steps in creating and maintaining your business credit report will bring open up more doors for you and your business down the road.