Business credit reports

[Karimbo]

Hello

Are there any alternatives to getting business credit reports other than creditsafe that doesn't cost £50 pcm or more?

I dont even want a huge amount of information, just a summary is enough for me.

I thought £5 for a one off report was reasonable, or maybe £15pcm for a subscription. I am a sole trader that uses credit reports very rarely. Like once in a blue moon. So I can't pay £700 annual for a credit report service which I'm sure they'll fleece you into an annual contract so you can't even do one off reports.

 

[pentel]

If you are looking at ltd companies then companies house is a good place to start

Search the register - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

 

[Ian J]

If you are looking at ltd companies then companies house is a good place to start

Trouble with Companies House is that the information is normally too old to be of much use

 

[pentel]

Trouble with Companies House is that the information is normally too old to be of much use

Companies house seems to be where Creditsafe drag most of their information from. We also find their analysis of creditworthiness leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[Bob Morgan]

Many treat information from Companies House as 'Gospel' - IT IS NOT! The Landing Page for CH states "Companies House does NOT verify information submitted." It should be viewed in much the same way as the V5 Vehicle Registration Document. "This document is NOT proof of ownership" appears in Bold Red Type at the top of the form - However, many choose to ignore it!

For the most part, it is how the results from a 'Companies House Trawl' interact with other information, that is readily available - Something that the Department for Transport failed to do, with Seaborne Freight. This was a Ferry Company awarded a £13.8 Million Contract in 2018. However, no one checked to see how many Ferries the company had. All that existed was a Brass Plaque at an Accommodation Address, and not even a Rowing Boat!

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

It's the cost of doing business
Either don't offer credit and take payment on booking /purchase or add these costs onto the customers.
I'm pretty sure that there is someone on here that does individual company credit reports as required

 

[Bob Morgan]

It's the cost of doing business
Either don't offer credit and take payment on booking /purchase or add these costs onto the customers.
I'm pretty sure that there is someone on here that does individual company credit reports as required

Possibly a Contact Listing for Ozzie's upcoming Resources? Although I do use a local 'Miss Marple' lady when needed.

 

[Ian J]

Back in the day it used to be Dun & Bradstreet that was the market leader for providing credit information but I've no idea how good or expensive they are nowadays

 

[Gettingthereslowly]

Agree with what others have said: creditsafe (and other services) suck their data from Compnaies House, add extra bits, and present it in a more user friendly manner.

I have tried lots of different credit support suppliers in the past, but have to say I prefer the 'user friendlyness' of Creditsafe.

May I humbly suggest you hone your negotiating skills......check your private messages.......I've ping'd you something that may be useful.

 

[pentel]

May I humbly suggest you hone your negotiating skills.

This:

Creditsafe initial pricing is just a first offer, similar to double glazing sales.

 

[The Byre]

There is more to finding out what credit a company or person has than just a credit report.

Look at their group structure. Look at their shareholders. Look at their directors. Look at the address - who is co-located there? Any CCJs against them? Look at the history of a business and most importantly, the history of the people involved - any short-term company formations and collapses? Any long convoluted strings of companies?

All that info is freely available online.

 

[IanSuth]

the trouble with any credit reports is they are telling you the past and guessing the future

Imagine my year end was last week and I had a bad year, bad enough that i have little spare cash. Now imagine that all my costs have gone up and sales are getting harder so I decide to take out some massive expensive advertising and go to sign up for a 12 month advertising deal despite actually running at a monthly loss at present

If you are that ad agency/paper and pull a credit report now, you are looking at my profit for y/e Mar22 which was great and showed me as flush with cash.

Am i a good bet for that contract or not ?

 

[IanSuth]

Back in the day it used to be Dun & Bradstreet that was the market leader for providing credit information but I've no idea how good or expensive they are nowadays

D&B's HQ in High Wycombe (now gone) had an indoor pool heated by spare heat from the data centre in the 90's. They were one of the largest IBM Mainframe sites locally

 

[Mark T Jones]

the trouble with any credit reports is they are telling you the past and guessing the future

Imagine my year end was last week and I had a bad year, bad enough that i have little spare cash. Now imagine that all my costs have gone up and sales are getting harder so I decide to take out some massive expensive advertising and go to sign up for a 12 month advertising deal despite actually running at a monthly loss at present

If you are that ad agency/paper and pull a credit report now, you are looking at my profit for y/e Mar22 which was great and showed me as flush with cash.

Am i a good bet for that contract or not ?

'Better than nothing' springs to mind.

Unfortunately 'nothing' is what many will default to.

There is one thing (I can think of ) that is worse than nothing - And that is gut feel/look them in the eye. A credit control system that is reliant on the ego of someone who believes they can read character. (I'm refering to primary tools - meeting someone can help to verify & authenticate the data)

If you really want to learn how to use credit data, it can be extremely revealing and will pick up on anomalies and one-offs as such. Most small users will either just blindly follow the given credit limit, or will have their own favoured 3 or metrics to compare.

It depends on the why/how/where of giving credit how much effort you put into using the tool effectively. If you are selling goods for £100 to 200 customers on 14 days terms, you will want far less research than if you are committing half your annual turnover to a 6 month contract.

 

[Ian J]

the trouble with any credit reports is they are telling you the past and guessing the future

Imagine my year end was last week and I had a bad year, bad enough that i have little spare cash. Now imagine that all my costs have gone up and sales are getting harder so I decide to take out some massive expensive advertising and go to sign up for a 12 month advertising deal despite actually running at a monthly loss at present

If you are that ad agency/paper and pull a credit report now, you are looking at my profit for y/e Mar22 which was great and showed me as flush with cash.

Am i a good bet for that contract or not ?

But a decent credit report relies on far more than Companies House accounts as it should also tell you payment histories and patterns

 

[BubbaWY]

They can be helpful, but not foolproof. I suppose it depends on the industry.

My example, in construction. Carried out two contracts for a main contractor with a combined value of around £1.3m. We did all our checks on them and they were rated as excellent. Anyway, we were around £800k deep into the two projects. The main contractor had issues on another project and ended up going into administration (and were liquidated). This hit took us under and a couple of companies in our supply chain.

Its the main reason I hate the construction industry. Theres no reason why the main contractor should be touching the money of the supply chain. Why cant the client pay the whole supply chain once approved by their QS/Contract Administrator. It would avoid situations as explained above.

 

[MBE2017]

There is no foolproof method on credit control. I generally advise trade on cash pro forma for a minimum of six months before even considering credit, but if you feel you need to extend credit, be ultra cautious and chase any arrears relentlessly.

Fortunately I have only been knocked once on a large figure, which probably resulted in my abhorrence to extending easy trade credit. The company I worked for was OK about the loss but I took it hard.

For those considering large sums such as the post above, I would be looking to reduce such high exposure asap, but I understand many think credit has to be offered as standard.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

They can be helpful, but not foolproof. I suppose it depends on the industry.

My example, in construction. Carried out two contracts for a main contractor with a combined value of around £1.3m. We did all our checks on them and they were rated as excellent. Anyway, we were around £800k deep into the two projects. The main contractor had issues on another project and ended up going into administration (and were liquidated). This hit took us under and a couple of companies in our supply chain.

Its the main reason I hate the construction industry. Theres no reason why the main contractor should be touching the money of the supply chain. Why cant the client pay the whole supply chain once approved by their QS/Contract Administrator. It would avoid situations as explained above.

A lot of directors feel that they have to comply with traditions and what is being dictated by the customer often very big companies who in reality are just zombie companies themselves
Still companies are giving credit despite the fall of a major government supplier a couple of years ago nobody has learned any lessons. I suppose it is easier for a director to except that he or she can take a dividend of 500K if it all goes well or just scupper the company and blame the failed supplier if it al goes wrong!
I myself am often told it is not our policy to pay with a credit card we only pay under our terms around 30 to 90 days
We clearly explain that you are booking under our terms and conditions and that we wont be dealing with your company under any other circumstances
They always pay with a card or an immediate transferee
There is only one set of people to blame when a company is ruined due to a customer failing and that is the directors for giving that credit in the first place there are simply no excuses .

 

[fisicx]

My wife works in trade credit insurance. They do all the checks for you and cough up if the bills don’t get paid. Can’t understand why anyone would want to work without this sort of cover.

 

[Ian J]

They can be helpful, but not foolproof. I suppose it depends on the industry.

My example, in construction. Carried out two contracts for a main contractor with a combined value of around £1.3m. We did all our checks on them and they were rated as excellent. Anyway, we were around £800k deep into the two projects. The main contractor had issues on another project and ended up going into administration (and were liquidated). This hit took us under and a couple of companies in our supply chain.

It may sound rude but more fool you for not credit insuring the debt. Many years ago someone was being interviewed on the radio and he said that there were only three reasons why companies went bust. Bad management, bad management and bad management

 

[Mark T Jones]

To somewhat reiterate the above

The only way to sure of payment is to collect it with order or on delivery

Credit insurance offers near certainty, as long as you confirm to their term.

If you are going to offer credit without insurance then you are risking bad debt. you can, to varying degrees, manage that risk with a robust, well executed credit control process, but there will always be a risk.

That's just the reality of business

 

[Mark T Jones]

There is more to finding out what credit a company or person has than just a credit report.

Look at their group structure. Look at their shareholders. Look at their directors. Look at the address - who is co-located there? Any CCJs against them? Look at the history of a business and most importantly, the history of the people involved - any short-term company formations and collapses? Any long convoluted strings of companies?

All that info is freely available online.

It is slso all included in a decent credit report.

The skill, of course, isn't just in having information but knowing how to use it

 

[Bob Morgan]

There is quite a good short video by ('Catch me if you can') Frank Abagnale on YT relating to Credit Report Services. It is biased towards the US, but the basic arguments hold true for all markets.

 

[BubbaWY]

It may sound rude but more fool you for not credit insuring the debt. Many years ago someone was being interviewed on the radio and he said that there were only three reasons why companies went bust. Bad management, bad management and bad management

You may or may not have experience of credit insurance in the construction industry, but it is pretty much worthless. Probably because the industry is such high risk.

 

[fisicx]

You may or may not have experience of credit insurance in the construction industry, but it is pretty much worthless. Probably because the industry is such high risk.

My wife does this for a living. Contractors use it all the time. Not for the whole project, they get cover for each part of the project. A lot of cover is for amounts of £5k, £10k etc. they spread the risk. Seems to work well for them.

 

[BubbaWY]

Im not sure what cover that is. But at the previous company I was at, we paid an annual cover of around £45k and had to let them know what main contractors we were looking to work for and then they would let us know what cover they would offer us.

 

[fisicx]

Just sent you a message with the insurance my wife ideals with. She agrees it’s risky but they have thousands of small businesses on the books. The process is mostly automated. Many clients putting in mutilple requests for each project.

 

[SeanOF]

If you still need this, I have access to both CreditSafe and Experian so if you'd like a report on a company just let me know and I can send you the PDF.

Beware though, these rating agencies are trying to make assessments on companies using very little information (mainly the abbreviated accounts filed at Companies House which isn't a lot to go on) so it's not unusual for them to give very differing scores to the same company and the can often give high scores to companies right before they go pop. That said, it's better than nothing and they can flag some obvious issues such as previous bankruptcies, outstanding CCJs etc.

I hope this helps.