Business Credit Reports

Limited Companies

Credit Report

Our "Credit Report" is our most in-depth limited company report, with all our other limited company reports containing extracts from this report, as detailed in the matrix schedule below:

The following gives a summary of each section contained within the main "Credit Report".

Statutory Information (Company Identification)

• Background information on the target company, including official Registered Office address details, enables quick and accurate identification
• Trading address, phone and fax number
• Presence and display of previous company names provides better insight into the history of the company you are looking at and can reduce the risk of bad debt/fraud
• Standard Industry Classification (SIC) codes can be useful for marketing and sourcing new business
• Details of recent filings at Companies House.

Company Capitalisation
Offers a summary of the issued capital, and how that is distributed amongst the shareholders, together with information on the company ownership and group subsidiaries.

• Issue share breakdown illustrates how much capital has been put into the business. This is the limit to which the shareholders are liable should anything go wrong with the company, so it will give an insight into the faith the shareholders have in the business. This could be vital if you are deciding to work with, or trade with such an organisation.
• Share ownership breakdown shows you exactly who is behind the company. This could be one individual, a number of individuals, other companies or even a combination of individuals and companies.

Financial Analysis
Gives a complete overview of the company's financial status taken from the latest 5 years accounts filed at Companies House.

Ratios Section
Key figures and ratios (and importantly the trends in those figures) may help you decide if you feel the company is:

• Moving in the right direction - expanding or contracting.
• Liquid - do current assets out number short-term liabilities?
• Highly geared - are borrowings too high and company susceptible to fluctuations to economic conditions?
• Solvent - is the bottom balance sheet figure negative? This means that total liabilities are greater than total assets and the company is actually operating at that time from an insolvent position

All these factors could be vital if your considering working with that company.

Auditors
This section shows the auditor name, and the comment that was made by the auditor on the latest company accounts.

Report of Company Officers
This allows individual assessment, looking more directly at the people who manage and run the company. Using this information will allow you to take a look in greater depth at the past track record of the company officers of the company. Past performance is a powerful indicator to future activity, and if you are going to invest money, time and effort working with any company then this information may well play a vital role in your decision.

• Director/Company Officers' full name
• Address
• Date of birth
• Date appointed
• Position in company
• Other directorships

Gazette & Detrimental
Contains gazette information such as High Court Writs (claim forms), Winding Up Petitions, Meetings of Creditors, Receiverships, Administration Orders and Liquidations. This gives the ability to quickly assess the legal status of the company, the likelihood of failure, or those who are in difficulty. Also indicates efficiency of the company in settling supplier disputes.

Credit Profile
This section brings together vital credit profile information such as:

• Full CCJ data including date, amount, court, and status allows assessment of the company's ability and willingness to pay its suppliers
• Vital signs show "at a glance" view of trends over the last two filings
• Credit Score, Rating & Limit (Last 5 Updates)

Analysts Report
For those people who may not be so familiar with accounting and financial terms, this section brings out the key points. This section is also where you will see the credit opinion of our analysts. The credit opinion will give a good insight into the analyst view of the company. Remember, as companies will be all different sizes, what may seem a good limit for one company may not be for another. For example, a credit limit of £5,000 for a company with a final balance sheet figure of £50,000 is showing a better opinion than a £5,000 limit to a company with a final balance sheet figure of £500,000.

Non-Limited Companies

Business Credit Report

Obtaining business information on non-limited businesses is notoriously difficult as there is no requirement for these businesses to file accounts or other documents with Companies House. We recognised the importance of these non-limited businesses to their customer and, working with our data partners, have developed the "Business Credit Report", which offers as much information as possible on such businesses.

Our "Business Credit Report" is our most in-depth non-limited report, with all our other non-limited reports containing extracts from this report, as detailed in the matrix schedule below.

The following gives a summary of each section in the Business Credit Report.

Business Identification
The Business includes all known:

• Current address
• Phone and fax number
• Premises type information
• Staffing information
• Analysis

The Business Credit Report also uses a sophisticated scorecard to combine this data with other location derived attributes to provide a credit score and recommended credit limit on every business entity contained on the database - of which there are currently over 1.4 million.

Credit Data
Contains gazette information such as County Court Judgments, Bankruptcy data and Trade References. This gives the ability to quickly assess the legal status of the company, the likelihood of failure, or those who are in difficulty. Also indicates efficiency of the company in settling supplier disputes.

Credit Rating & Limit

Business Factfile
Provides better insight into the history of the business you are looking at and can reduce risk from bad debt/fraud.

• Previous addresses
• Business history

Bespoke Reports
Available to volume customers, our "bespoke" service allows reports to be designed to the specific needs of our customers. Please contact our sales team for more information.