Success and sustainability as a small business often have a lot to do with maintaining ready access to cash and coping with financial pressures as they come along. So the health of your company’s credit scores can be crucial to keeping your business operational and competitive.
Here are 5 easy ways you can improve your credit scores and help make your company more financially flexible.
Clarify Your Details
The first and often the most important way in which a company can look to secure a better credit rating is to ensure that all its essential details are present and correct.
Information about a business contained within a credit report isn’t always 100 percent up-to-date, but it’s up to the company itself to inform the relevant rating agencies of any apparent discrepancies that exist.
Prioritize Specific Debts
Taking on and servicing debts is an essential part of developing a business and pursuing strategic aims for most companies, so being in the red is not in itself a problem. Some debts, though, can weigh heavily on your balance sheets and it is important not to let debts spiral out of control at any stage.
Related Article: 6 Tips for Improving Your Company’s Credit Rating
Focusing on key debts and paying them off as fully and as swiftly as possible can help give your company’s credit score a welcomes boost.
Keep Pace with Essential Payments
It can be a real challenge for businesses to keep up with demands for payment at every turn and without fail. Ideally, if you’re keen to boost your company credit score, then every bill will be paid on time. If that isn’t possible, then you should at least aim to ensure that essential payments are not left to become overdue on a regular basis.
It is always better for your credit scores to make sure that any bills for utilities, internet services, property rents, etc. are all paid on time every month. Failing to do so can see your credit score take a hit.
Don’t Complicate Your Finances without Good Reason
Complexity isn’t necessarily an indicator of poor management when it comes to company finances. But potential creditors will tend to prefer a business to keep its finances relatively simple, and for them not to have a complex myriad of bank accounts and credit facilities in operation at any one time. So, it can generally play in your favor, from the point of view of your credit report, to limit the variety of ways in which you look to finance your business.
Leave Old Bank Accounts Open
A lot of what works in your favor as a business is longevity and consistency. Even dormant, company bank accounts you’ve forgotten about can be useful, as a means of showing that you’ve been around and you’ve been in business for an extended period of time.
There aren’t any instant fixes for bad company credit scores, but with a commitment to doing the right things and taking on the above tips, there’s no reason why your business can’t quickly start to improve its rating significantly. What really matters, though, is sticking to it and not letting bad financial habits pervade your everyday operations.
Author: Mark Halstead is from redflagalert.com, part of the Begbies Traynor Group, and is now in his 10th year with the business. He’s worked at companies across the financial services industry and is a fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing.
Published: July 8, 2015
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