Credit Checking

[PetrolTed]

What's the best way of checking credit history of companies before doing business with them?

[wtd]

How big are these companies? How much do you want to spend?

Standard and Poors, Moodys, Fitch etc will all offer ratings for companies.

[obiwonkeyblokey]

I have the facility to do credit checks on companies through a company that I use. If its just one or two then you can mail me their details including co reg number and amount of credit and I will see what i can do.

[PetrolTed]

It would be dozens of companies per year if it was economical to do. What does it cost?

[Plotloss]

I think it depends

If you are doing loads you can set up a merchant type account which is a one off cost.

If you are doing it seldom you can pay per search.

[PetrolTed]

Ballpark figures for one off checks?

[anonymous-user]

We use a thing called First Report which i'm told you can do online. Though I get someone else to do it of course!

www.firstreport.co.uk/

[PetrolTed]

Thanks, that's useful.

[2 Smokin Barrels]

I use www.creditsafeuk.com/

You can get 100,000 reports for a couple of hundred quid or so (if you negotiate). It's all online, & shows shareholders, directors & group structures. (As well as credit ratings, accounts CCJ etc)

[RichUK]

We use these guys, www.bcmnet.com/

[steviebee]

All of the above valid and good. However, it's worth noting that credit reports - as valuable as they are - can be misleading.

For example, I used to work for the trading division of Barnardo's many years ago. The structure and nature of the business was such that each year, it traded just a whisker above insolvency with very little cash in hand. As a result, it had a very poor credit rating despite the fact it paid its bills within 7 days and was part of a £100million a year buisness/charity.

We do the credit checks but also get new clients to provide us with three trading references.

[italiano]

Ted.

Buy Riskdisk. It's excellent. One off payment with as many checks as you can do. You get sent a new cd-rom every month with all the updates.

Very very good.

>> Edited by italiano on Tuesday 26th April 17:34