Credit Archives - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

Great News, Business Credit Has No Impact on the Business Owner’s Personal Credit

When done properly, business credit is obtained without the SSN being supplied on the application.

This means there is no credit check from the business owner to get approved. This also means that anyone who has bad, even horrible personal credit can still be approved for business credit.

Reports to the business credit reporting agencies, not the consumer reporting agencies.

So as it has no adverse impact on the owner’s consumer credit because it’s not reported to consumer agencies.

This means utilizing the account, even over 30%, won’t have any adverse impact on the personal scores.

And there are no inquires on the personal credit when you apply for business credit as long as you don’t supply your SSN.

30% of your total consumer score is based on utilization, so if you use your personal cards for your business and if you use those cards you will lower your scores. Using more than 30% of your limit WILL result in a score decrease

So if your limit is $1,000, having a balance above $300 lowers your scores. This means 40% of your total score is damaged. With true business credit, 0% of your score is affected.

10% of your total consumer score is based on inquiries, so if you are using your personal credit to apply for business loans and credit, your scores will go down as a result of those inquiries.

Plus, those inquiries can remain on your for an extended period of time affecting your ability to borrow more money.

And some unsecured business lending sources won’t even lend you money if you have two inquiries or more on your personal credit reports within six months.

The credit doesn’t report to the consumer agencies, so neither inquiries nor utilization have any effect on your consumer scores.

How to Devalue Your Business

Anyone who has sold or bought a business will tell you of the importance.

All potential buyers can easily obtain extensive information about your business, just by obtaining your business credit report… that anyone who wants it can get.

This means they’ll quickly know details about your business including:

• Credit scores

• High credit limits

• Past payment performance

• Employees

• Revenues

And much more…

Now that you know how easy extensive credit and financial information is to get for a company, if you were a buyer wouldn’t you get it?

Based on what’s on your business credit report, would you want to buy your company?

Does your report reflect that your company is “established”, does it show that you pay your bills, do you look like a successful company from your report?

If you could choose from two companies to buy that were the same in every way except business credit, which one would you buy…

… The one with a very limited or no credit profile… or one with a credit profile that reflects good payment performance, and one with available credit.

Credit Repair Business Plan

Here’s the executive summary of a Credit Repair Business Plan:

a description of your company, including your products and/or services
your mission statement
your business’s management
the market and your customer
marketing and sales
your competition
your business’s operations
financial projections and plans

For someone looking for a credit repair business plan, a simple description might be “Ace Credit restoration provides credit restoration services to help consumers attain good credit and therefore have more attractive financing options. The company provides credit repair on a fee-for-service model charging $800 to $2000 per client and reaches new clients via relationships by credit-dependent professionals (real estate, car dealers, etc.), financial professionals (tax, insurance, financal planners), consumer direct marketing (internet, radio, tv, postcards), and past-client referral cultivation.

Any business plan should then talk about management, which refers to your experience. If you have experience managing a team, attention to detail, and/or financial experience, this is relevant and should be included.

When writing about your client, the consumer, you’ll find there are about 70 to 80 million americans with bad credit, many millions of whom will need to finance a home or car or other purchase and will therefore be interested in purchasing credit repair services. While some people do attempt credit repair on their own, credit is becoming increasingly complex and important. Fewer people succeed or event attempt it, and like dealing with plumbing or auto repairs, most are willing to pay a professional to get it done right.

Next, you should include a specific marketing breakdown. We have found that at first, referral relationships are a great place to start. By offering “credit repair seminars” or “lunch and learn” events to local real estate agents or car dealers, you can quickly position yourself as an expert, develop referral sources, and help them sell more homes or cars. As your business grows, you’ll want to branch out into mass media, internet marketing to increase your visibility and scale up your operations.

The next section generally will cover competition, which of course varies by market. Currently, the credit repair business is still open and largely driven on referrals at time of need, meaning people often get their credit restored when preparing to buy a home or car, or after being declined for some type of financing (i.e. a credit card at better terms than they have presently). Longer term, the internet is a massive source of business that still has substantial opportunity. One still largely untapped area needing someone to execute their credit repair business plan is in the area of social marketing (i.e. Facebook) and joint ventures with point-of-need media i.e. a referral relationship with leading real estate websites, car dealer websites, etc. who depend on attractive financing.

Next, your plan should cover operations. You can run a credit repair home based business, or you can use office space. One under-used idea is renting a desk inside a busy real estate office. This can provide more than just a professional meeting place, but the proximity of agents who depend on their clients having good financing will virtually guarantee some clients are delivered to you. This can also help embed your credit repair business into the local ecosystem of potential referring businesses such as mortgage, insurance, and financial professionals. Most real estate offices would be open to renting a desk or office within or nearby the facility. Another option for your credit repair business plan is to run a home based credit repair business, but have a set schedule at local real estate offices or car dealers to review any new files and answer questions the agents or dealers might have.

Financial projections and plans in your credit repair business plan should address startup costs and revenue, and possibly even exit such as sale of the company. Since there are systems that provide more than just software, but complete turn-key systems (similar to a franchise) including training to make you the expert, unlimited paralegal support, annual conferences, marketing support, legal support, and much more you should investigate your options.

Obviously success varies by talent, work, resources and abilities with any business opportunity. That said, we know of affiliates who have taken their credit repair business plan and executed on that plan, grossing over $100,000 per month. If you like the idea of being your own boss and earning an executive level income, we encourage you to take look at your business plan as just the first step an an exciting new venture.

Working Capital Financing – Why Asset Based Lines of Credit Work

How can Canadian business owners and financial mangers secure working capital financing and cash flow financing for their business at a time when it seems that access to business financing provides significant challenges?

The answer is that a potential solid solution exists by the name of an ‘asset based line of credit ‘otherwise what we call a ‘working capital facility’. What is this type of financing is it new to Canada, and more importantly – how does it work and what are the benefits and risks?

Although asset based lenders tend to be specialized independent finance firms many business people are surprised to find that deep in the bowels of a few Canadian bank there exists small, somewhat boutique, divisions who specialize in asset based lending. Ironically they are many times competing with their peers down the hall in more traditional commercial corporate banking.

The most active assets these firms finance tend to be ongoing receivables and inventory, but in many cases, utilizing an expert advisor or partner you can structure a facility that also includes a component of equipment and real estate.

Generally speaking a good way to think of an asset based line of credit is one that for a temporary period, typically a year or so in our experience, allows you to margin up and get higher advances on receivables and inventory. That translates into more cash flow and working capital.

One of the main attractions of an asset based lending facility (insiders call it an ABL facility) is that your firms overall credit quality doesn’t play the largest role in determining if you can get approved for this type of financing. As its name suggest, financing is on your ‘assets ‘! And doesn’t really focus on debt to equity ratios, cash flow coverage, loan covenants, and outside collateral. Business owners who borrow from Canadian chartered banks on an operating or term loan basis are of course very familiar with those terms – in some ways we could call them ‘ restrictions ‘

Most lawyers and accountants will tell you that any type of business borrowing should in fact be entertained only with a respected, trusted and credible business financing advisor who can guide you through the roadblocks and pitfalls of any commercial financing arrangement. Missteps in business financing can lead to long term negative effects around such issues as being locked into a facility, giving up too much collateral, or being locked into pricing that isn’t commensurate with your overall asset and credit quality.

What are the key issues you should consider when considering such a financing facility? Primarily they are:

-Advances rates on each asset category (A/R, inventory/equipment)

– How is pricing defined (asset based lines of credit and ABL lending is general is more generous in overall facility size, but you should ensure you are only paying for what you use

– Contractual obligation – in a perfect world (we know its not!) you should be focusing on the ability to pay out at any time, or at a minimum with some form of nominal breakage fee

– Ensure that the asset based lending facility, which generally costs more, will allow to you remain or focus on profitability; we spend a significant amount of time with clients on how that can defer the additional costs of Abl facilities by several different strategies

So whats the bottom line. As always it’s simple – consider asset based lending and an ABL facility as a solid alternative for financing your business. Work with a trusted advisor as this type of financing is generally either mi understood or not too well known in Canada. Be selective in structuring your facility around issues that work best for your firm re benefits derived.That’s solid business financing sense.