PRODUCT INFO | Use this service to credit check your new B2B customer before you extend credit terms. Our specialist service is staffed by credit professionals who built scorecards back in the day for some of the biggest names in credit.
If you don’t know a potential customer’s credit history, there is a risk of being paid late or not being paid at all. Ask your new customers to complete a credit application form. This will give you the information you need to assess their credit risk and will also show them that you take a serious approach to grant credit.
Credit Application Form
The credit application form should include |
- Full name of the business and any names it trades under.
- The name/s of the business owner/s.
- The name and contact details of the person who’s responsible for arranging payment and for dealing with any queries.
- The registration number of the business if it’s a company.
- The amount of credit being requested.
Requests for consent
Requests for consent to approach the following |
- A credit reference agency
- their bank (for a reference)
- At least two trade references (e.g. existing suppliers)
Why Is It Important to Check a Client’s Credit Score?
- Enables you to make more accurate and informed decisions.
- Gives you an idea about the customer’s financial standing.
- Saves your company from cash flow issues.
- Guides the formation of your contracts and payment terms.
- Helps maintain a healthy financial relationship with the businesses you supply.
Today they use that experience to give a more personal and intuitive service to the creditworthiness of a UK business. In a carefully curated report, you will understand in plain English the real trading position of this potential new customer and make informed decisions about the amount of credit you can offer based on their trading performance.
Credit Check report
Your Credit Check report will be made based on current information for the month you submit it meaning you have a credit check in “real-time”.
The report will cover |
BASIC INFORMATION | such as checking the company registration number, year of incorporation and net worth. It will also tell you the age of the last filed accounts.
STRUCTURE AND OWNERSHIP | The report will then move on to the structure and ownership of the business including connected businesses. It will confirm the company number of all these connected companies and the date of the last filed accounts.
The report writing experts will then offer an insight into the trading status of the company, how it was formed, whether it was a phoenix company before, and what potential pipelines for business it has in the future. All this insight can help inform you about the extent of the new customer’s creditworthiness and offer commercial insight for more opportunities.
SCORECARD | Our scorecard puts all this data and insight into the perspective and is unique for each report.
It will look something like this |
Scores (red cells indicate pro forma credit terms are recommended)
| Date | Score | Credit Recommendation | Score and Risk Comments |
| 21/08/2020 | 43* | £5,000 | *new scoring algorithms |
| 08/07/2019 | 32 | £4,000 | New accounts filed (2019) |
| 19/04/2018 | 3 | £0 |
Scores are all in a range of 1 – 100 where 100 is the lowest risk. The highest risk is in the range 1-10, and we also closely monitor higher risk cases in the range 11-20.
OTHER RISK INDICATORS | such as debentures, losses, management changes and changes to the financial year-end are all highlighted.
KEY FINANCIALS | The figures for the latest sales, fixed assets, current assets, current liabilities, working capital, long-term liabilities, net worth and liquidity are all summarised in an easy-to-read table. Our experts will give you a commentary on these financials, which again will help you put them into perspective.
THE CONCLUSION | Finally, the report will include our expert’s conclusion on the likely risk you face in trading with a customer. For example, in one such report, our experts concluded: that “the opportunity to trade with [X} beyond any very small level of the contract is a leap in the dark”.
The report may go on to suggest who our client should contract with – which may be a different part of the entity who you want to do business with.
In short, these reports are designed to distil all the financial information you can curate about a prospective customer, or an existing customer, and give you a readable and straightforward analysis of the business risk to your business in doing business.
Why Instruct Shergroup?
Shergroup ‘s Credit Check a Customer solution gives the opportunity to instantly assess the risk of potential new customers. Our data allows informed decisions to be made to help drive your business forward and is one of the most predictive in the industry. Our business credit reports are recognised by the major credit insurers and include a credit score and our professional opinion of a suitable credit limit.
Information is obtained from a number of sources including the electoral roll, county courts and the insolvency service. Consumer data is then combined with credit and payment information obtained from banks, building societies and other lenders to produce an accurate and trusted consumer credit score and comprehensive credit report.