Need help building or boosting your company's credit scores
and ratings?

Identify problem areas
Submit company updates
Dispute slow payments
Add trade payments
Better understand the business credit scores and ratings

and more!

We can help you:

Your business credit scores and ratings can determine your credibility or capacity to succeed

Five years training as a Resolution and Escalation Specialist at D&B and Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp.
10+ years of experience building and boosting the D&B scores of my own clients at Starpoint Credit Solutions
Thirty-two years experience as a self-employed small business owner

My 30-day Powerboost service
was designed specifically for
business owners just like you!

We identify problem areas by reviewing the data already in (or missing from) your business credit report

We help you submit the updates and slow payment disputes that are necessary for improving base scores

Spreadsheet table paper. Finance development, Banking Account, Statistics Investment Analy

We review your existing vendor list and submit the ones that qualify to help verify your payment history

Businesswoman finger pointing arrow graph. Business development to success, profit and gro

We monitor and track your day-to-day progress and update you as your scores and ratings are boosted

Your business credit should stand on its own merit.

And now it can.

You have a business to run. You shouldn't have to waste money buying products or services you don't need. Building strong business credit doesn't require risky strategies or navigating expensive programs. You also don't need to dodge pushy salespeople to get answers. What you need is for your corporate credit report to be better, right, and right now!

We'll help you access, update, manage and maintain your commercial credit report quickly and affordably! You can be confident in the services we provide, our extensive training, discretion and professionalism while we help you to build new business credit or boost an existing credit file that may have blemishes or suffer from missing or mismanaged data from the past.

Starpoint Credit Solutions provides both free and paid services to business owners who need help building or boosting their corporate credit potential.

See What Our Clients Say About Our Services

We are driven to your success — having successfully achieved millions in credit for a client base that ranges from solopreneurs to small business owners to major corporations.

POWERBOOST

MONTH-TO-MONTH $99/mo

A month-to-month subscription that you can cancel at any time — even after just one month. LEARN MORE

SUBSCRIBE MONTH-TO-MONTH

ANNUAL SERVICE $679/yr

The annual version of our most popular program, a subscription that you can cancel prior to renewal or extend for another year. LEARN MORE

SUBSCRIBE ANNUAL SERVICE

ONE-ON-ONE $299/once

Six (6) 30-minute training sessions so your staff can repair, maintain and grow your company's own corporate credit in-house. LEARN MORE

SUBSCRIBE POWERBOOST 1-ON-1

D Jones, Chantilly VA

"Our credit scores now accurately reflect our exceptional credit standing, thanks to their profound understanding of the intricacies of the system. Unlike others, Starpoint Credit triumphed where others faltered, and remarkably, at a fraction of the cost."

Fired Federal Workers Are Flipping the Script (Again)

Do you remember where you were 5 years ago? In February 2020, Covid-19 was just making its presence known in the United States. By the time the shutdowns began in March, most of us had already begun living the new normal — work from home. But for many employees, there was no work from home option. The recent DOGE-firings, cancelled contracts and paused SBA loans are bringing back gut-wrenching reminders of when pandemic shutdowns created an urgent need for "subsistence income" to pay bills and make ends meet.

Ah, yes. Entrepreneurship 101: How To Start A New Business — Soccer-moms became grocery shoppers and influencers. Cooks and janitors became disinfection specialists. Remodelers built Plexiglas partitions. Bartenders and waitresses delivered meals or groceries or drove for Uber, Lyft or DoorDash. Call-center employees became skilled remote staff.

And now, five years later, a million and a half fired federal employees are finding that they, too, are going to need to flip the script and possibly even get paid even MORE for doing exactly what they've always done — THEIR JOBS!

READ THE WHOLE BLOG POST: https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/fired-federal-workers-are-flipping-the-script-again

The fact remains: These federal jobs are not going away. They will still need to be filled, and no one knows the job requirements and relevant federal government acumen better than the person who has been sitting at that desk as a full-time federal employee. The key difference will be when that former federal employee walks back onto the job as part of the new workforce, made up of small business owners and federal contractors who'll now be paid 5-to-10 times more than what they were paid as a federal employee.

If you (or someone you know) are a recently fired federal worker who is interested in starting a new business or registering your existing business for possible federal contracting opportunities, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#federalcontracting
#creditbuilding
#federalemployeesfightback
#federalemployeesmatter

How Shortcuts Undermine Your Company's Legitimacy

In business, legitimacy is everything. It's how large corporations stay at the top of their game and small mom-and-pop companies secure multimillion dollar contracts that change their lives forever. A company's legitimacy helps them to leverage access to credit cards, loans, purchases, contracts, deeds, insurance, leases and services every single day and all around the globe. Legitimacy is transparency. Justifiability. Validity. Without legitimacy, commerce and ecommerce would wither on the vine.

Legitimacy is easy, and it's easy to prove. It's the act of registering your business to do business, dotting the i's and crossing the t's. It's operating within the guidelines. While your business may require you to be flashy, attention-getting, and maybe even a little risky, growing your business credit requires simplicity, authenticity and legitimacy. Black ink on white paper. Cut and dried with no embellishments. Consistency across all platforms. Your company's legitimacy should never draw unnecessary attention or scrutiny.

Nothing will short-circuit legitimacy faster than a shortcut.

Shortcuts Undermine Authenticity
They are the "cheat sheet" — the misrepresentation that something "is" what it isn't. Shortcuts make you look like all the others who used those same shortcuts — fake, fraudulent, illegitimate, and risky — even if you're actually not any of those. Shortcuts are the clouds to an otherwise crisp, clear, transparent blue sky. Shortcuts are the snake-oil that lures with promises of the moon and the stars but leaves you holding an empty bottle, empty dreams and, usually, an empty wallet, too.

READ MORE: https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/how-shortcuts-undermine-your-company-s-legitimacy

• Shortcuts Cause Delays
• Shortcuts Bring Added Scrutiny
• Shortcuts Cause Suspicion
• Shortcuts Cause Confusion
• Shortcuts Cause Others to Question Your Company's Legitimacy

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

Have you ever wondered if it was possible to boost your D&B Paydex score above 80? Unfortunately, people who search the web for answers are being inundated with inaccurate information.

It's time to set the record straight!

What is a Paydex score?
The Paydex is a numerical score that tells potential creditors how well (or poorly) a business pays their debts. The score ranges from 0 to 100, with 80 being the optimum Paydex that most businesses strive to achieve. The higher the score, the more likely a business will pay creditors on time. A minimum of three payments from three different creditors is required in order to achieve a Paydex score. Once that milestone is reached, however, a company still needs to keep paying their bills on time if they want to maintain the Paydex score as high as possible.

What impacts your Paydex score?
The Paydex score is primarily impacted by how timely a business pays their creditors. If a company has Net 30 terms with their creditor and the creditor always receives payment within 30 days, the creditor will report to D&B and other business credit bureaus that the debt was paid "within terms". The Paydex score is dollar weighted, which means that higher dollar values are going to have a greater impact on the score. You can have a hundred on-time payments, but one high-dollar slow payment can reverse all of your progress in an instant.

What doesn't impact your Paydex score?
A Paydex score is NOT impacted by whether you are using 30% of your credit line or 90%. It's also NOT impacted by your debt-to-income ratios. And no, it doesn't matter how many days ahead of the due date you pay your bill. If you have Net 30 terms and you pay within 30 days, the bill is considered "paid within terms" regardless of whether you paid 5 days before the balance was due or 25 days before it was due. Paid on time means just that — paid on time. Period.

READ MORE How To Get A Paydex Above 80
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/how-to-get-a-paydex-score-above-80

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines

How Elections Impact Small Business

I am indifferent to the political affiliations of my clients. Whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or Independents does not concern me. What is important to me is that my clients are prepared to leverage the opportunities presented by any elected candidate once they take office. To achieve this, it is crucial for you to be well-informed about how the incoming administration could impact your small business.

Like it or not, you and your business will be impacted, as will your business credit. To help you better understand the many factors that will influence your company going forward, I've put together a few non-partisan examples of what history has shown us over the past 40+ years.

The unexpected events of September 11, 2001 led to the introduction of policies that now impact every small business owner in America, most notably the requirement to provide a personal social security number on any business credit application. In 2001, many legislators were hesitant to mandate identity verification using a social security number, which could blur the separation of business debt from personal responsibility, not to mention the havoc that could wreak on a business owner's personal credit scores due to increased credit checks.

In response, the Bush Administration decided against enforcing the social security number mandate, allowing small business owners to obtain funding using their company's EIN and business credit scores instead. The Obama Administration agreed to pause the mandate during his two terms, as well. Under the Trump Administration, however, the Department of Treasury enforced the mandate as part of...

READ MORE: https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/how-elections-impact-small-business

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

How A Hurricane Impacts Business Credit

As businesses begin cleaning up from Hurricane Helene's impact, I thought I would repost the information I've previously provided on this subject for those who have been impacted by a natural disaster and could soon after face another potentially catastrophic loss: their corporate creditworthiness.

Natural disasters can play a huge role in a company's credibility. That's why, when generating scores and ratings based upon the amount of risk your business can sustain, business credit bureaus gauge factors that impact your financial strength, longevity and credibility. Any natural disaster is going to have a negative impact on all of those, but the resulting hit a business takes to its credit risk analysis can sometimes be equally devastating.

We saw it happen after the BP oil spill in the Gulf, after Hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey shore, after earthquakes, fires, and other natural disasters. And it may happen again, now, after Hurricane Helene moves on and businesses get busy cleaning up.

This tragedy is going to reach far beyond the immediate neighborhood. Obviously, if facilities are damaged, repairs need to be made. Utilities may need to be restored before you can even begin cleanup. You may have employees who aren't able to come back to work. Supply lines may be cut for months. Current inventory may be compromised. The fact is — your company may not be operational for weeks.

But disasters also have an impact on other businesses, some located thousands of miles away or around the globe. Corporate communities far outside the impact zone are relying on those impacted businesses in order to run their own companies — whether that's infrastructure, staffing, supply lines, transportation or business systems.

In so many words, this means a hurricane in Florida can dramatically affect your scores and ratings even if your business is in New York, New Brunswick or North Dakota.

READ MORE: https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/how-a-hurricane-impacts-business-credit

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#businesscreditrepair
#creditbuilding
#updatednb
#hurricane

The SBA's New 7(a) WCP Loan Program: Are you eligible?

Working Capital lines of credit can be the most flexible and affordable way for businesses to manage their funding needs. With a line of credit, interest is only charged when the loan is actually in use, making it an efficient way to small businesses to access short-term funding.

Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to many small business owners being taken advantage of by predatory lenders who charge exorbitant processing fees or high interest rates.

To answer the call for better working capital options, the SBA has begun a new pilot loan program referred to as 7(a) WCP to provide eligible small business owners with a range of financing needs while mirroring all of the best features of their existing permanent 7(a) line of credit options.

The new annual fee structure is modeled after SBA’s 7(a) Export Working Capital Program (EWCP), using an annual short-term guaranty fee structure that charges a proportional amount for each year the loan is in use. This allows borrowers to customize the line of credit to their exact needs, paying only for the time that they are actually accessing the line of credit.

Lenders that are currently approved to process 7(a) loans began processing the new 7(a) WCP loans on August 1, 2024, so eligible business owners should contact their preferred SBA lender to see if they have been authorized for this program.

Business owners who previously qualified for PPP, EIDL or other SBA loans may want to put the new 7(a) WCP high on their list of priorities. Even if you don't need the funding right now, having immediate access to it when you do need it can be crucial to growing your business.

READ MORE at: https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/the-sba-s-new-7-a-wcp-are-you-eligible

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#sbaloans

SMALL TRADELINES ARE A BIG DEAL

One of the first things we do for our clients is add their own existing payment history to their business credit report. This helps to add verifiable credit experiences that speak to the very heart of what their company does and how it pays its bills over time.

But what if you have a a very young company that has no payment history yet?

When that happens, we help our clients establish new accounts they can use to buy the things they need to run their business, and also build their business credit at the same time!

These are generally small trade or vendor accounts allowing net term credit of $200 to $1000, utilizing suppliers who auto-report all qualifying business transactions to the corporate credit bureaus.

Tradelines are a fast and effective way to earn strong scores or provide a boost to struggling credit files, and they grow as you use them.

I have seen clients who used the accounts to get scores generated and then never used them again. I have also seen clients, like myself, who use them religiously as part of their day-to-day operations. Believe it or not, there have even been clients who scoffed at small trade lines as insignificant and refused to use them at all.

Surprisingly, how you utilize these accounts can positively impact your business credit scores and rating in more ways than you think.

• AS A SUPPLEMENTAL BOOST
• TO PROVE ONGOING PAYMENT HISTORY
• TO KICK-START YOUR START-UP
• TO REBUILD POOR CREDIT HISTORY

READ MORE: Small Tradelines Are A Big Deal
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2016/08/24/small-tradelines-are-a-big-deal

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#smallbusiness
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#businessinquiries
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

Starpoint Credit Solutions is committed to the BBB Standards of Trust.
Our 10 years of experience allows us to stand on our own merit.

Your business credit also needs to stand on it's own merit.

And now it can!

You have a business to run. You shouldn't have to waste money buying products or services you don't need. Building strong business credit doesn't require risky strategies or navigating expensive programs. You also don't need to dodge pushy salespeople to get answers. What you need is for your corporate credit report to be better, right, and right now!

We'll help you access, update, manage and maintain your commercial credit report quickly and affordably! You can be confident in the services we provide, our extensive training, discretion and professionalism while we build new business credit or boost an existing credit file that may have blemishes or suffer from missing or mismanaged data from the past.

Starpoint Credit Solutions provides both free and paid services to business owners who need help building or boosting their corporate credit potential. That's right! We are so determined to help small businesses succeed that we give you all of the tools and information you need, even if we have to give it to you for free!

See What Our Clients Say About Our Services
READ: https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/testimonials

We are driven to your success — having successfully achieved millions in credit for a client base that ranges from solopreneurs to small business owners to major corporations.

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#fixbusinesscredit
#smallbusinesscreditbuilding

Personal Credit Freezes Can Put Your Business Credit in the Cooler

If you've ever placed a fraud alert or block on your personal credit report, frozen it (even temporarily) due to possible identity theft, or worked with a credit repair company to remove derogatory information you suspected (or claimed) wasn't yours, you may find that your business credit applications are in a permanent state of lock-down.

When you apply for any type of personal credit, whether its from retailers, credit cards, personal loans or auto financing, your creditors are required to perform due diligence tests to verify you are actually you, that you're not currently (or previously) the victim of identity theft, and that the information you've provided in your application matches information that is already verified by outside resources, such as credit bureaus or information retrieval services.

When you apply for business-based credit from a vendor or supplier, they have the option whether or not they want to verify personal credit information on a principal. The decision of whether a supplier wants to pull a personal credit report on a company's principal is usually dictated by the dollar value of the sale. There's hardly any value in spending $20 to pull a credit report for a $14 sale.

But if there is even the slightest possibility your business credit application's approval could render access to cash (hard currency), lenders are now required to perform certain "tests" to validate the identity of the principal whose name appears on the application. While the goal is to separate your personal CREDIT from your business, when it comes to identity verification, you don't have the option of separating your personal IDENTITY from your business.

READ MORE: Personal Credit Freezes Can Put Your Business Credit in the Cooler
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2019/08/02/personal-credit-freezes-can-put-your-business-credit-in-the-cooler

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

Why Trade Lines Aren't One-Size-Fits-All

Your company is unlike any other. Even if you sell the exact same tires as the guy down the street, or the same type of cupcakes as the lady across town, or even the same cars as the dealership out on the highway, you will never have the exact same vendors — which is why it's so easy to spot companies who are using one-size-fits-all strategies to create the illusion of legitimate business credit.

Whether you sell groceries, houses, newspapers, slacks, cars, cupcakes or cannabis, the details of your business are as intricate and individual as the fingerprints on your front door glass. While you might share similar types of suppliers based upon your industry, you'll likely use a different plumber, or advertise in a different market, or buy your business cards from a different printer.

Even franchise operations that are intentionally designed to mimic one specific model will find different locations have different needs and different vendors who support those needs. A good example: Imagine if your local Starbucks had to wait for the A/C guy from Milwaukee to show up!

There are lots of commercial credit enhancement services on the web these days, and 90% of them create accounts for their clients using the same handful of "tried-and-true" vendors, no matter whether your business sells yarn, yams, yachts, or yaks. While those are all great suppliers and are proven auto-reporters, they aren't going to be your only suppliers, or your most important suppliers, or even the right suppliers usually found in normal day-to-day operations.

So when D&B sees your company has just placed orders with the exact same handful of vendors as 7,643 other companies did this year, it's pretty easy to see through your thinly-veiled attempts to "manufacture" business credit where none actually exists.

READ MORE: Why Trade Lines Aren't One-Size-Fits-All
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2019/08/21/why-trade-lines-arent-one-size-fits-all

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

Red-flagged Credit-building Strategies

There is nothing more frustrating than listening to the heart-wrenching tale of a small business owner whose bogus strategy or "shortcut" to building business credit has collapsed around them, leaving their D&B credit file downgraded (or worse) and their company's reputation in tatters. If they're really lucky, they haven't had to call a lawyer... yet.

I get calls, literally, every single day from some poor soul who stumbled across the latest "get rich quick" scheme for building business credit or got suckered into a program touting outrageous pie-in-the-sky results. They have spent hundreds (if not thousands) to get from point A to point B, only to find themselves back at square one when D&B throws the hammer down and they're left empty-handed, or worse... in deep debt and facing criminal prosecution.

Speaking as someone who once worked for Dun & Bradstreet, let me start by saying that D&B's primary focus is NOT on making your business more credible or creditworthy, but rather to protect the financial interests of THEIR customers — the banks, credit card companies, major retailers, insurance carriers, and high-value suppliers who spend millions of dollars each year pulling credit reports on your business.

For this reason, D&B is diligent is tracking every element of data that goes into your credit file, from something as simple as your business name, to the credibility of your suppliers, to the frequency and riskiness of who is pulling your D&B report. They watch for signs of fraud, tactics used and promoted by those who prey off the desperation of small business owners every day. These "shortcut" techniques create visible patterns of misbehavior that are easily identifiable, especially when compared across a platform of companies that turned out to be fakes.

READ MORE: Red-flagged Credit-building Strategies
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2019/07/10/red-flagged-creditbuilding-strategies

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#tradereferences

What Data D&B Will Gather From Your Vendors

I have yet to meet anyone who runs their business without expenses. Whether you're paying for prepared products or raw materials... advertising or marketing or shipping supplies... software subscriptions or legal fees... cars, jewels, chemicals, tires, flour, fans, computers... it doesn't matter. But where and how you pay those things DOES! So why not get credit for your prompt payment history!

Adding just one payment to your D&B file has the potential to boost your scores and ratings by up to 90%. So adding five or eight or a dozen payments can boost your credit capacity even further.

Some credit enhancement companies will try to talk you into using the same old cookie-cutter creditors they use on all their other clients, and that's just crazy. They don't care that those cut-and-dried vendors will actually put your company into a riskier classification.

Because I worked at D&B for almost five years, I tend to look at things through their eyes. I know what types of behaviors they see as risky or questionable. That's part of the reason why I push my clients to save their time and money (and risk) by submitting their existing vendors and suppliers to D&B. When those creditors provide strong responses to D&B's questions, their answers will carry a heavier weight, accomplish ten times more in the credit-building process, and can usually get your credit file built out in just a fraction of the time!

What questions will D&B ask your vendors?

READ MORE: What Data D&B Will Gather From Your Vendors
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2019/04/12/what-data-db-will-gather-from-your-vendors

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#tradereferences

Have you re-ordered from your vendors lately?

By now, you've probably used some of the vendors I've provided in order to establish a your business credit scores, but have you re-used them lately? If not, you may not be getting the most bang for your buck. And worse yet, they may have already dropped off your report altogether.

Manually added payment history stays in your D&B report for 24-28 months, but history that flows in from auto-reporters can drop out of your report in half that time if you don't re-use the accounts at least once per year.

As you can see by the payment history shown below, I have an old $50 COD transaction that reported to my D&B file back in January of 2017.

Because that payment has reached its maturity (24 months) I can expect it to drop off my report soon. If I didn't have a sufficient number of vendors reporting to D&B, losing that one could have a negative impact on my Supplier Evaluation Risk rating. If that payment were larger and was also helping to prop up my Paydex or other scores, the result of losing it could affect my ability to achieve more credit.

Making a new purchase from your existing vendors once per year is good business, and for more reasons than you think. It helps to:

• Keep your account open and in good standing
• Provide an additional (bonus) boost to scores and ratings
• Refresh old payments with new info for another two years
• Prove your business is still active and functioning
• Increase credit lines with your supplier over time

READ MORE: Have you re-ordered from your vendors lately?
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2019/02/12/have-you-re-ordered-from-your-vendors-lately

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

VENDORS: Why "more-of-the-same" is better

How many vendors does your company utilize over the course of a year? Depending on what type of business you have, that number could vary significantly. You may have one "go-to" provider for some items, but multiple suppliers for other items or services you use on a day-to-day basis.

While your company may have fewer suppliers than your favorite coffee shop down the street, if you look at THEIR vendor list, you may find there's a good reason to focus on "more-of-the-same" vendors for your company, too.

Pretend for just one minute that YOU are the owner of that little coffee shop and diner down the street. It's unlikely all of your daily needs would come from just one distributor, so it's easy to identify which areas where you might need to have multiple suppliers —

• Multiple vendors for dishes, glassware, and utensils
• A different one for the heavy coffee mugs
• And a different one for the Styrofoam cups and to-go boxes
• And another for your pots, pans, and cooking utensils
• There's a vendor to lease the coffee machines
• And another for the actual coffee grounds
• And another for the filters
• And then there's the soda supplier
• And the water supplier
• Multiple vendors for perishable food products like bread and fruit
• And more for non-perishables like sugar, flour, ketchup

READ MORE: Vendors: Why "more-of-the-same" is better
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2018/10/02/vendors-why-more-of-the-same-is-better

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

Business Credit: One-Size-Doesn't-Fit-All

Building business credit is a lot like shopping for blue jeans. No two people's bodies, preferences or needs are exactly alike, and neither are their businesses. Even individual branch locations of the same company are going to have different expenses depending on their location, staff, size and their particular costs of operating on a day-to-day basis.

So why would anyone think the exact same vendors, suppliers, products and services are going to fit each individual business the same way? Because a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all strategy is easy. It allows them to run more clients through their process faster, regardless of what those companies need, or where they end up. They see their customer's businesses as a statistic rather than focusing on what your business actually needs to get to your end goals.

In reality, business credit bureaus like D&B have made it a part of their practice to track those one-size-fits-all patterns of suspicious behavior and the run-of-the-mill tactics that come and go like the seasons. If the only vendors and suppliers (tradelines) that you have are the same ones the guy next door has, and the guy next door to him has, you've just put yourself (and your business credit) at risk... and that's NEVER a good thing!

Companies who sell a one-size-fits-all strategy to their clients don't care about their client's companies. They are only focused on their own bottom line. One-size-fits-all credit-building is what's easiest and most profitable for their business, not yours. Their cookie-cutter technique will do more harm than good because it sends a message to the bureaus that your business is only as credible as the thousands of others who have used those same techniques.

READ MORE: Why Business Credit: One-Size-Doesn't-Fit-All
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/business-credit-one-size-doesn-t-fit-all

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

What Data & Payments Say About Your Company

As you may have noticed, much of the training I provide focuses on the importance of adding payment history to your corporate credit report as a means of boosting your scores and ratings.

But today, I'd like to provide a little insight into what a huge difference you can make when you add the right kinds of vendor and supplier payment history to your commercial credit report, and we'll use one of my actual clients as an example.

Ronnie first came to Starpoint in 2016. He owns an East coast construction company that operates locally, but also bids on contracts to the tune of a million plus per year. But things weren't always running so smoothly...

When Ronnie first came to Starpoint two years ago, he was desperate. D&B had just downgraded his corporate credit and he was in danger of losing some major contracts. His D&B report had old, outdated information that was no longer relevant to his company. For payment history, all he had were a couple of derogatory payments. Because it had been so long since he'd updated his company's data, none of his recent positive payments were flowing in like they should, and his D&B report certainly wasn't showing a business that did over $1m/year in sales.

With old information in Ronnie's file, the address and phone number he submitted on bids and applications didn't match what was showing in the D&B report. Because of that, potential customers and contractors oftentimes couldn't find him in the D&B database, so he would get passed over for certain contracts or would get denied for the credit he needed to complete the bids he did win.

READ MORE: What Data & Payments Say About Your Company
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2018/08/08/what-data-payments-say-about-your-company

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

How to Dispute (and Remove) Slow Payments on Your D&B Report

Do you have slow payments or bad debts showing up on your business credit report? If so, you aren't alone. Even the most conscientious business owner is going to make a mistake at some point. But that doesn't mean you have to live with it or suffer the consequences that are sure to follow.

Perhaps you've put off paying an invoice and then suddenly realized it's gone past due. Or you mailed the payment but it arrived at the vendor after the due date. Or maybe you never received the invoice at all and now you're getting a late notice. That can be such a horrible feeling, especially when you've worked so hard to build a perfect credit report.

Millions of small businesses don't even know they have a slow payment in their D&B report until their scores have already started to drop or they've lost a valuable contract or vendor. But there are a couple of creative ways to fix these black marks that can actually not just reverse the negative effects, but also boost your score to an even higher level than it was before the dirty deed ever happened.

If you have a slow payment or bad debt reporting on your D&B file, or you've tried disputing a derogatory mark in the past and failed, you should check out these: DISPUTE GUIDELINES (and other creative strategies)

HOW TO LAUNCH A DISPUTE
What happens when you launch a slow payment dispute
What to do if a slow payment returns to your file
What to do if you can't get a slow payment removed

READ MORE: How to Dispute (and Remove) Slow Payments on Your D&B Report
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2018/05/31/how-to-dispute-and-remove-slow-payments-on-your-db-report

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

Three Examples To Learn From

If you are working to build up your business credit scores and ratings, you may want to check out these three examples of clients who are using my 30-Day Powerboost right now. At this writing, they still have 7 days to go and all are thrilled with their progress!

DON - Real estate investor and house flipper
Don started with just three payments in his D&B report, and one of them was a slow payment that hadn't re-reported in more than 6 months. His scores were in the high-to-moderately high risk range. He had a dozen suppliers and contractors he'd spent money with in the past year who weren't showing in an inaccurate and outdated D&B report. In just 23 days, we have:

• disputed the slow payment off his report
• updated his business information
• added five new positive payment histories to the credit report
• achieved an 80 Paydex score
• established new auto-reporting vendor accounts for his company
• boosted his scores and ratings across the board by more than 60%
• increased his credit limit recommendations from $4,000 to $40,000
• helped him find equipment financing

JOSH - Insurance and real estate
Josh started with just two payments in his D&B report, and one of them was a slow payment that was almost 2 years old. He had no Paydex score and his risk ratings were high.

READ MORE: Three Examples To Learn From
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/11/09/three-examples-to-learn-from

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#powerboost

What do you need right now?

I know it may sound like a dumb question, but what are you planning to buy this week? What's on your shopping list right now? Ink or toner for your printer? Some lumber for a project? A new tablet to organize your schedule? New windshield wipers for your truck? Business cards or marketing materials?

Whatever is on your shopping list, you need to make sure you buy from a company that can report your payment to the commercial credit bureaus. It's what I refer to as "passive" creditbuilding — buying what you already need, but in a way that benefits your business.

Here's a good example: I usually buy pens, ink, and paper from local supplier. I buy online using a company that reports to D&B. Last month, while preparing materials for a trade show, I decided to buy 200 pens with my company name and give them away as freebies.

Instead of buying the pens through my local supplier, I purchased them from two different online retailers my clients have successfully used in the past. This month, I have two new payment experiences on my D&B report and all my scores and ratings earned another boost. It's just that simple.

READ MORE: What do you need right now?
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/10/19/what-do-you-need-right-now

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#inquiries
#whoispullingmydnb

How A Hurricane (or any natural disaster) Can Impact Business Credit

Natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, etc) have become all too frequent around us, no matter what part of the country you are in. So I thought I would repeat the information I've previously provided on this subject for those who have been impacted by a natural disaster and could soon after face another potentially catastrophic loss: their corporate credit scores.

History has proven that businesses can be dramatically impacted by factors that are far outside their control. Natural disasters can play a huge role in a company's credibility. That's why, when generating scores and ratings based upon the amount of risk your business can sustain, D&B looks at 75 factors that impact your financial strength, longevity and credibility.

But D&B's credit risk analysis can sometimes be equally devastating. We've seen it happen after the BP oil spill in the Gulf, after Hurricane Sandy hit the Jersey shore, after earthquakes, fires, and other natural disasters. And it is certain to happen again after the most recent catastrophe moves on and eventually dissipates...

You see, D&B has been rating businesses for 180 years. They know from experience that businesses that lie within the zone of impact are going to face struggles that businesses just 100 miles away may not.

At some point soon, D&B is going to place a notation into the corporate credit report of every business located in the impact zone to let their suppliers and creditors know that this businesses may now be at a higher risk of failure. And they are going to do that for every business, even those that escaped a direct hit.

READ MORE: How A Hurricane (or any natural disaster) Can Impact Business Credit
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/08/28/how-hurricane-harvey-can-impact-your-business

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#naturaldisaster

Managing Your New Vendor Accounts

When looking to establish trade lines for your small business, there are some hard and fast rules you want to follow, especially if you are expecting those trade lines to eventually report future business transactions to D&B and other corporate credit bureaus. If you don't set them up correctly, you could be throwing good money after bad.

While it's easy enough to set up a new account with anew supplier, if you don't know the base criteria for setting up those accounts, you may never see any benefit to the purchases if your payment history never makes it into your report.

Some companies will report your transaction history to the bureaus automatically, even if you only set up an online account and prepay when you make your purchase. But none of these trade lines are going to do you a lick of good if you don't create the account correctly in the first place, so here are:

HERE ARE EIGHT QUICK NEW VENDOR TIPS to make sure you get the most bang for your business buck...

1) The first thing you want to do is make sure your D&B report has the correct name and physical location. Think of auto-reporting as a puzzle in which all the pieces have to fit perfectly into place. If your company's base data doesn't match what your new vendor has on file, the payment history may not get associated to your credit report.
2) Be sure to set up your online account as a commercial account. On some websites, you are given the option to choose between business and personal use, but others will just give you the option of adding a business name, EIN number, or DUNS number. Some eCommerce websites give you an option of applying a specific purchase order number to each individual order so they can differentiate between personal or commercial purchases.

READ MORE: Managing Your New Vendor Accounts
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/09/07/managing-your-new-vendor-accounts

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#vendoraccounts

Why Business Credit Now Requires a Social Security Number

Are you one of those people who are reluctant to apply for business credit if you know you'll be required to attach your personal social security number to the credit application? After all, that's kind of redundant, isn't it? Especially when the goal is to take every step possible to separate your business from your personal credit?

Unfortunately, this is a fear (often, unfounded) that's drummed along by companies purporting ways to give you access to outrageous amounts of capital without requiring the use of personal information. You should be told up front, though — what they're promising is far from the truth.

Any reputable credit adviser will tell you the truth — that you may need to provide your social security number, birth date, and other personal information to achieve certain types of credit, such as bank loans, working capital, and credit cards, even if that credit doesn't, in the long run, require a personal guaranty.

It wasn't always like that, and here are two reasons why...

First, government regulations, specifically the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act, now require banks and financial organizations to perform adequate “know your customer” processing when opening new accounts.

Second, because the banks can now be held liable for any illegal activity if they don’t adequately take steps to identify you when opening an account, payment card networks have taken additional steps to comply with the federal laws, and are reducing their liability by instituting rules for all issuers and program managers associated with all credit, debit and prepaid debit cards.

READ MORE: Why Business Credit Now Requires a Social Security Number
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/07/25/why-business-credit-now-requires-a-social-security-number

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#nonpgbusinesscredit

Banking on Your Business

If you are still trying to find easy ways to boost your business credibility, this one tip may mean a world of difference.

One of the questions I get asked most is what affect your business bank account has on your ability to achieve corporate credit. Most people think that as long as they're making purchases in the business name, they should be okay, right? But that's not necessarily so. The key to getting positive payment history into your business credit file is understanding how your banking practices play into the process.

Lots of small business owners (especially those just starting out) will make purchases in the business name, but then pay for those purchases using a personal credit or debit card. In effect, what their saying is "I'm paying for this, but it's really for my business". Unfortunately, just by attaching your personal payment method on the file, they have just converted a business transaction into a personal one. And, by rule, if it's personal, it can't be contributing to the business's credibility.

Over the years, any number of businesses have sued Dun & Bradstreet because of issues pertaining to the payment history in their file. Some have even taken it as far as the Supreme Court. But the reason D&B always wins these cases is not because of a team of high priced lawyers, but rather because D&B is firm in their commitment that no consumer transactions will make it into the commercial credit report.

Most of the lawsuits against D&B revolve around their refusal to identify the specific business or financial entity reporting derogatory payment history in a business's credit file.

READ MORE: Banking on Your Business
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/06/23/banking-on-your-business

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#businessbanking

Is Your Creditbuilding Aggressive Enough?

Are you making progress in your quest for better business credit? If your company has paid for any products or services in the past 12 months, are those payments reflecting in your corporate credit report? Have you already achieved solid scores and ratings? Do you have to chase new credit, or are creditors coming to you with offers and options?

By and large, business credit is based upon reliable data, positive payment history, and a proven capacity to handle debt. If you do it right, strong credit scores are a beneficial bi-product of your normal day-to-day processes. But just like most customers don't accidentally chose to do business with you, most of your truly beneficial credit isn't just going to magically find its way into your credit file. Sometimes, success requires you to take an aggressive approach to (literally) every financial thing your business does.

NINE TIPS FOR AGGRESSIVE CREDIT-BUILDING

1) Every time you open an account with another business to purchase products, services, or funding, do it in the business name. Every transaction has the potential to boost scores and ratings by up to 90%, but only if it is associated specifically to your business and not to you personally.
2) Eliminate point-of-sale purchases. Even if you are standing in the store and looking at what you want to buy, go online, set up an account, put the item into the shopping cart, choose to "pick up in-store", and make your purchase. Even prepaid purchases can help to build up payment history.
3) Separate business buys from personal purchases by carrying a separate debit card with you that is linked to your business bank account. Don't blow everything you've done to separate business from your personal by paying for business purchases using your personal debit or credit cards.

READ MORE: Is Your Creditbuilding Aggressive Enough?
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/05/23/is-your-creditbuilding-aggressive-enough

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#creditbuilding

Using Trade Lines to Build Scores

It was a question I had answered a hundred times before, but somehow, it still left me shaking my head. "Can you help me get trade lines added to my D&B report?" And it had come from Larry, an email subscriber who called in for a free consultation. His voice sounded tired and frustrated.

"Yes," I said. "But you do realize that's something that you can do yourself, right?" I think my response surprised him because he suddenly went quiet.

Over the next 30 minutes, I realized there was a lot that Larry didn't understand about "tradelines". He had been fed misinformation on the web and when talking to other people in the past... People who had been more interested in making a sale than doing what was best for him and his business. Those companies had been trying to "sell" him some "established tradelines" rather than teaching him how to build legitimate and long lasting business credit using simple, affordable, reliable, and legitimate techniques.

The term "trade lines" comes from the premise that a specific supplier would be generally associated with your specific industry, or "trade".

• A plumber will use trade lines from a plumbing supply warehouse, a local home improvement store, or even an online HVAC supplier.
• A local family restaurant will have multiple food purveyors as their tradelines, but also furniture retailers, kitchen equipment companies, a linen supplier, and maybe a dishware manufacturer.
• Tradelines for a computer tech will likely include large-scale computer manufacturers, but also part suppliers, hardware and software companies.
• A small home-based house flipper will have a vast assortment of trade lines, such as building materials, discount appliances, an A/C guy, a landscaper, and a vendor for the tools he needs to get the job done.

READ MORE: Using Trade Lines to Build Scores
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/06/07/using-trade-lines-to-build-scores

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#paymenthistory

Enhancing Your Payment History

By now, you probably already know that you need payment history to boost your business credit scores and ratings. What you might not know is that you need that payment history to come from a variety of suppliers across an array of industries and resources to get the most benefit and convert those excellent credit scores into excellent credit approvals.

Any business can show a history of paying their bills on time. Companies do it everyday — and usually by accident.

But knowing which suppliers, industries, and reporting habits will benefit you the most seems to evade even the most savvy business professionals. So I'm going to take some of the mystery out of the matter by letting you in on eight tips and tricks you may not be aware of.

#1 - Variety is the spice of credibility
#2 - Who you buy from matters
#3 - Prompt payment habits pay off
#4 - Who banks on your payment
#5 - Tracking payments onto your file
#6 - Watch for a DUNS opportunity
#7 - Meet the minimums
#8 - Don't be afraid of prepaying

READ MORE: Enhancing Your Payment History
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/04/21/enhancing-your-payment-history

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#businessinquiries
#businesstradelines
#updatednb
#paymenthistory

Turbo-Boost Your Paydex Score

Whether you need to purchase inventory, add a new vehicle to the fleet, hire new staff, buy investment property, or lower insurance premiums — every business owner wants or needs credit at some time. For some business owners, the ability to have ready access to credit may mean having the luxury of buying when the price is right rather than having to put those purchases off until a later date. For others, it may mean the difference between the business carrying the weight of a loan or adding it to already burdened personal credit. But for every business owner, if you can ignite the turbo-boosters behind your Paydex score, it could help you get to the finish line, and maybe even win the race.

The goal is to be able to get it when you need it, and without having to rely on your personal credit or suffer with higher interest rates in the process. If you can boost your Paydex score, you may be able to get more bang for your buck and, in turn, more bucks from your bank.

For those who don't already understand the mystery of Dun and Bradstreet's Paydex score, this is a score that indicates your company's ability to maintain responsible payment habits. It's a dollar-weighted score assigned to your corporate credit file when you have three or more payments reflecting in the file, with at least 2 of those payments being defined as net or revolving credit. But, most importantly, the Paydex score is the single most critically impacting score most creditors are gauging when determining credit approvals.

But not everyone has perfect payment history. Mistakes happen. It's not uncommon to see derogatory information applied to the wrong company, or for payments to be delayed or lost in the mail, or for disputed invoices to continue negatively impacting the credit file.

READ MORE: Turbo-Boost Your Paydex Score
https://www.starpointcreditsolutions.com/post/2017/03/27/turbo-boost-your-paydex-score

#smallbusiness
#businesscredit
#howtofixmybusinesscredit
#businesscreditbuilding
#tradelines
#tradepayments
#businesscoach
#businesscreditrepair
#businessvendors
#creditapprovals
#businessinquiries
#businesstradelines
#updatednb

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}

Need help building or boosting your company's credit scores and ratings?

Identify problem areas

Submit company updates

Dispute slow payments

Add trade payments

Better understand the business credit scores and ratings

and more!

We can help you:

Five years training as a Resolution and Escalation Specialist at D&B and Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp.

10+ years of experience building and boosting the D&B scores of my own clients at Starpoint Credit Solutions

Thirty-two years experience as a self-employed small business owner

​

Follow us on Instagram

Need help building or boosting your company's credit scores
and ratings?