Every business wants to grow, but when your business involves providing credit terms or delivering goods and services before payment, it can be tricky to determine which businesses to work with and which to decline.  Historically, some large corporations have been wary of taking on small business clients who can be notoriously hard to evaluate due to having little or no information available on their credit files. Also, small businesses tend to be a volatile group – 49% fail in the first 5 years of operation. 

So, what’s the best way to find solid small business customers?  We recommend a 3-fold approach –

• Use blended data – a combination of business data and personal data on an owner or principal.
• Incorporate automated decisions that automatically approve accounts that meet your credit policy criteria and decline those who don’t. Manual review is reserved for middle-ground accounts, which saves you resources.
• Regularly monitor the health of our client portfolio with scoring and alerts.

Learn more by downloading our whitepaper with CFO.com , “A Widening Focus, Setting Your Sights on Growth Companies.”

We promise that blogging from our product managers will start again soon, but in the meantime, here’s more from the Marketing and PR front…

In honor of National Small Business Week, through May 30, 2012, we’re offering a 50% savings on our brand new BusinessIQ Express tool — just $375 for an annual subscription rather than $750.  It’s designed especially for small businesses and is the one-stop-shop for evaluating, monitoring and collecting from your B2B prospects, customers, suppliers and partners.

Small businesses sometimes aren’t familiar with the need to view credit history and financial background – or the need to monitor current customers. The reason evaluating and monitoring are so important is that they help identify and manage risk.  For instance, I would be less likely to sell to a business branded as ‘high risk’ because of their history of late payments and tax liens.  Also, I would want to be alerted if a regular customer suddenly filed for bankruptcy.  Having background knowledge could help me avoid the risk by declining the business or requiring cash payment.

In addition, it can sometimes be hard to collect from delinquent accounts. BusinessIQ Express provides easy-to-use letter templates and even additional contact information.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of the discount, go to: http://www.businessiqexpress.com/smallbusinessweek.

Are you a small business owner or do you know one? At FinovateSpring 2012 this morning, we announced BusinessIQ Express, an exciting online tool designed to help small businesses keep the cash flowing by helping them make smarter decisions about the businesses they work with. The tool helps users:

• Evaluate prospects, customers, suppliers and partners on their likelihood to pay on time
• Monitor business relationships via alerts and notifications of key changes
• Collect on outstanding debts and avoid future losses

In addition, it houses a library of tutorial videos and educational information including whitepapers as well as live customer service – everything a small business needs to make informed, insightful decisions. 

BusinessIQ Express is a complete package for one compelling price! (There’s even an option to user limited services as a free member.)

Our team is on a plane heading to San Francisco to announce our latest exciting solution at FinovateSpring 2012 tomorrow, May 8. If you’re not familiar with Finovate, it’s a twice yearly showcase of the most innovative financial and banking technologies. We showcased DecisionIQ Premier last year – and this year’s announcement is just as exciting.

Check back tomorrow for the big news!