Obtaining a Corporate Credit Report
Obtaining a corporate credit report for your own business can be a great way to see if your company has established credit, and whether that credit is good enough to obtain a loan. On the other hand, obtaining a corporate credit report about another business can help you assess the risk of doing business with an unfamiliar company.
Contacting the Equifax Canada or TransUnion Canada credit reporting agencies will allow you to access your company’s corporate credit report. After receiving your report from either of these agencies, you can use the information to decide whether to apply for loans or other forms of credit, and you may dispute any false information that may be on your report.
Online Credit Reports
If you wish to obtain a corporate credit report online, Dun and Bradstreet offers global credit reports for businesses. Simply go to their website and look at the top area of the web page to select a region. Hit the small arrow and scroll down to Canada, or the area in which the business is located, and then hit Search Site on the right.
On the subsequent page, scroll halfway down and look directly beneath the images on the page. On the right side there is a link that says Buy a Credit Report Now. Clicking on this link will take you to a search page. To search for a company by the company’s name, fill out the box on the left side of the page and then hit Search. To search by their phone number, fill out the top right box, and to find a company by their given DUNS number, fill out the bottom right box.
Once you have filled out the box and hit Search, you will be taken to a page that has all the information available. For example, if you look up Bank of Montreal, you will be taken to a page that has the legal names for each branch and the central location. If you click on the legal name of the Bank of Montreal you will be taken to an order page. This order page gives you the option of buying several different types of reports, as well as paying with a club membership.
Different Types of Reports
The comprehensive report includes risk management tools and other content found in the business information report, the payment profile report, and the credit evaluator score report. The comprehensive report, available for $185, also includes a prediction of the credit risk scoring as well as financial data for the business.
The business information report is $114 and includes background information on any company along with financial and public record information.
The payment profile report is $60 and includes the company’s payment habits for the last 2 years, a comparison between their performance and the performance of other companies in their industry, and information on judgments, liens or lawsuits.
The credit evaluator report is available for $40 and discloses expectations about the company’s ability to pay their bills over the next year, along with any changes in their payments in the preceding 90 days. The credit evaluator report also gives information on the contacts for the company, lawsuits, liens and judgments.
