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.)

Experian’s quarterly Business Benchmarking Report released numbers for Q3 showing the percentage of dollars severely delinquent (91+ days past due) has increased by 15.8 percent compared to September 2010. This goes to show why businesses are struggling with their debt collection efforts. 

 How do you know if you are getting the most out of your collections strategy? 

Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew exactly when one of your uncollectable accounts freed up some capital?

In my previous blog, I discussed the traditional use of commercial triggers for portfolio management purposes. However, many businesses are using triggers with their collections teams to get paid sooner.

 Commercial triggers offer notifications on balance change decreases, which from a collections standpoint means your delinquent customer is paying other vendors. Why aren’t they paying you? A new inquiry or a new tradeline trigger also indicates that the business is actively establishing new credit relationships which is an indication that they remain credit active.

Additionally, some traditional triggers used for portfolio management can also be used for collections.  Score change triggers as well as days beyond terms triggers can track positive payment performance indicating your customer is in a better position to pay you.

So while the business landscape may not be changing anytime soon – this doesn’t mean your collections strategy shouldn’t change either.  Work smarter not harder and get paid sooner!

The kids are back to school. Now it’s time for you to get back to business and focus on building what’s best for growing your small business, including a good business credit rating. 

Remember, your company’s business credit information is one of the first things lenders, suppliers and others will look at before deciding to do business with you. If it’s strong enough, it can even help you avoid personal guarantees.

Improving your business credit rating can make it easier for your small business to get loans and lines of credit, or improve your existing credit terms. Furthermore, it can lower your interest rates and insurance premiums to help your business save money. 

In short, it’s time to get back to business and focus on making your business credit work to your advantage… Take the time to know it, protect it, improve it and build it.

You’ve got a great idea, the capital and the know-how to make it happen. Yet entrepreneurial success also depends on something else many small business owners don’t pay enough attention to: your business credit profile.

Here’s a tip! Just as your personal credit rating has a big impact on your financial health, your business credit rating can help you get competitive business loan rates and terms. Having complete, up-to-date information on your business credit profile can help improve your credit rating…and maintaining a good credit rating is the best way to obtain favorable financial terms.

To obtain a recent copy of your business credit profile online, and to make sure it’s updated with accurate information on your business, visit BusinessCreditFacts.com. Click on the orange button that reads “Update my report”.

We’re all aware of the increasingly bold moves fraudsters take to steal personal identities to secure jobs, cars, homes and more—but what about business-to-business fraud? As a small business owner, how much thought do you give to fraud protection for your business?

You have a lot to fear and even more to lose if you become a victim of commercial fraud. Approximately 30 percent of all business credit losses are attributed to some type of misleading or fraudulent information. Ultimately, financial damages from these and other business scams far overshadow losses from consumer fraud. View Experian’s white paper on Identifying Small Business Fraud to get more information about types of common fraud.

On average, losses are 3 to 10 times higher than personal identity theft damages. So, it’s time you become aware of business credit fraud. To learn more about protecting your business, and what to do if it falls victim to fraud, click here.

Credit reporting companies require a minimum amount of information on your small business before they can generate a credit rating for your business. The process of scoring your business can include more than 200 factors into its model. To build a business credit history and rating, encourage your suppliers or vendors to report your company’s payment history to Experian’s business database. You can download an easy-to-use letter template located here, and send your request to your current suppliers.

There are many varying answers to this question, including one that often gets overlooked…. We all know that a prime factor for business success relies on being able to generate customers, and generating customers often means having the business capital and financial means required to market effectively to those customers. So what’s an important “To-Do” to have a successful business? The answer should include: Monitor and maintain a healthy credit score! Why? Because a good small business credit score will grant a growing business the best financial terms and capital to help you gain customers. Want more? Here are four compelling reasons to monitor your business credit:  http://www.businesscreditfacts.com/pdp.aspx?pg=faq-19&lsv=www

Unlike personal credit information, which is regulated and can be viewed only with the permission of the report holder, access to business credit is not as restricted. Business credit information is available to anyone for any reason, including customers, competitors and suppliers. This makes it imperative to monitor your business credit on a regular basis and proactively manage it. Outdated or incorrect information can give the wrong impression about your business, resulting in unfavorable decisions by potential lenders and creditors – which can negatively impact your bottom line. Plus, if your business has grown or changed over the last year, it’s important to update the data reflected in your report. It can help your business reputation. For more information on how to update your business information, visit www.BusinessCreditFacts.com.