Hi everyone. Calling all you Business credit gurus (and any guru for that matter!) I have been studying these boards for quite some time now, and I am thankful to all who post with such great information. I am about to open a new business, and I am looking to doing buisness credit appliations soon. I have a corporation which I formed back in 2004, but have done nothing with yet. Business revenue and taxes have been $0 since then. Now I am opening a storefront business with an online presence. I am wondering if it is better to use older corporation to apply for business apps in (since it is 3 years old) or simply start over and incorporate another business, or apply in name of sole proprietorship. Currently I have a listed phone line with older corps name, but thatâ??s about it. (But I do plan to follow instructions in this link once I figure out which entity to use) http://consumers.creditnet.com/Disc...business-credit-the-backdoor-appro-16341.html So is it better to have an older company that hasn't done anything for 3 years, or is it better to start fresh with a new one? Also, I need any info I can on how to avoid having the credit companies ask me for my personal tax docs when doing these applications. I have not filed for the last 2 years ( corporate or personal) and my accountant is currently working out the mess. He plans to file them with this years taxes, so sometime in late Jan I think. Should I wait until then, or is it still safe to perform the applications now? I did a small personal set of credit applications last year and only a very few companies asked for tax docs, and I did fine with it securing about $75k in personal credit lines. I need to raise capital before late Jan, since business is due to open in December. Even though this could be huge snag, my scores are all around 750-760. Any and all help and advice with this would be greatly appreciated!
The primary factor in any small business application is YOUR personal credit score. If the business (however old) is unemcumbered, shoot away. Be advised that such apps can liter your personal reports with inquiries. With that in mind, elect to go with creditors that access Equifax and Trans Union. Yes, in theory, it is better to have an older business. However, that matters little when it is a small corp, LLC, or SP. Therefore, if the older entity has no Paydex or even a Duns number you could go with the new or the old. It is your decision. Ideally, you would want to get a Duns number for any business. It would be advisable to get a few Net-30's reporting to populate the Duns file and perhaps, putting an Experian report on file as well. However, most creditors will give you biz credit so long as you have an EIN which matches a legit biz and a 680 personal score. Again, personal credit is the key. Unfortunately, that is what most "biz" credit entities fail to disclose . . .
