Credit checking facilities

emsywoo123

Hi
Sorry if I have missed this elsewhere on the board............

I am looking for the best way to assess credit risk on potential new customers applying for credit accounts. I have used CreditSafe in previous employment, but wondered if there was better/cheaper available

Many thanks

YEOVILGOM

Well done first of all for understanding the importance of credit reports - far too few businesses do!

To be fair Creditsafe reports are very good but they are a pain to discuss price with - the first price quoted is never the price you pay!

If you do not like them let me know and I can provide you with a couple of other contacts who provide reports

What sort of volume are you anticipating? Business or consumers?

moneypooh

If you bank with Barclays you can opt for free credit checks with CreditFocus which is in association with Experian IIRC. Or pay a small monthly fee which includes solicitor letters if required.

emsywoo123

moneypooh wrote: »

If you bank with Barclays you can opt for free credit checks with CreditFocus which is in association with Experian IIRC. Or pay a small monthly fee which includes solicitor letters if required.

Someone else recc tham to me, but they seem too cheap (how non MSE!!) at £15 per month! Is there a limit on the number of searches? Are they accurate enough? And I am with HSBC :cool:

paulwf

Excuse my ignorance on credit checks but what do they actually provide? What you would need to check to lend a company £10K over 5 years is different to what you would check to allow £200 of credit over 30 days. Also how do you decide whether to allow credit or not for borderline cases?

Are there alternatives such as the usual 2 credit references, a quick check on companies house, the first order pro forma and then slowly build up the credit limit?

Apart from court judgements can credit check companies collect anything of real use? That's a genuine question. There must be loads of companies that are poor payers but don't let it reach court stage...can this be detected?

Anyway, push for payment up front whenever possible. I actually prefer paying when ordering with a debit card as it cuts down on admin, make it as easy as possible to pay up front and encourage it.

YEOVILGOM

hippyadam wrote: »

TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM

All about opinions! (and yours is wrong!!!:))

I find the info from Creditsafe accurate and useful. There is nothing dodgy at all about their renewal policy - when you sign the T&C it is made clear that if you do not give sufficient notice to cancel then the contract will be renewed for a further 12 months. If someone does not have the common sense to read what they are signing for then that is there look out!

Oddly enough when I was looking for a credit report provider I spoke to Creditsafe and Riskdisk. As soon as I mentioned to Riskdisk that I was also talking to Creditsafe the whole sales pitch was based on how rubbish Creditsafe were. Not good business (even if it were true!)

The above may make it sound like I am an employee of Creditsafe - I am not!

moneypooh

paulwf wrote: »

Are there alternatives such as the usual 2 credit references, a quick check on companies house, the first order pro forma and then slowly build up the credit limit?

The problem with this is it can be quite out of date. The company may have a couple of references they use with suppliers they pay well. No-one will give a duff reference provider. They may pay the pro-forma and have a few small orders to build confidence then hit you with a bit non-paid invoice.

Apart from court judgements can credit check companies collect anything of real use? That's a genuine question. There must be loads of companies that are poor payers but don't let it reach court stage...can this be detected?

A good credit refernce ageny will email you with any change in credit score. They do record bad debt and it's reviewed regularly. Credit focus have average payment days as well. They also let you know CCJ's and any pending insolvencies etc..

We have used Credit Focus for a couple of years and found them very accurate. We are sent regular credit scores and if there are any changes.

QUOTE]

We have unlimited searches and solicitors letters per month. If we send solicitors letters this will reflect on the companies score. So far all have paid within the seven days requested. It's all done online and takes a few minutes. We had one company that always paid poorly until we followed through with this and now they pay on time every time

SimonCass

I know im a little late with this comment but Riskdisk is one of the best online checking facilities in the UK right now, designed to help small to medium enterprises control poor payers & keep bad debt to a minimum.
Call 01623869843 & someone will even let you try it for FREE.

LianneCarlaS

Wonders who Simon works for.....