Credit brief 07
The business credit scores, named.
Every service selling business credit assumes you know what PAYDEX is. Most owners have never seen their own business file, do not know there are 5 different companies keeping 1, and are surprised to learn that the score a bank looks at is none of the ones the monitoring services sell. This brief names each score, says who calculates it and who actually uses it, and tells you how to get your own file for free or nearly so.
Educational only. Sources reviewed September 18, 2026. Citadel Ridge does not sell credit repair, credit building products, or score outcomes.
The scores
6 scores, 5 companies, and who reads which.
A business has no single credit score. Each reporting company keeps its own file on the company and computes its own numbers from it, and lenders pull whichever they subscribe to.
| Score | Who calculates it | What it measures | Who commonly pulls it | How to see your own |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PAYDEX | Dun & Bradstreet | How promptly the company pays vendors that report to D&B, on a 1 to 100 scale, 80 meaning on time | Vendors and suppliers setting trade terms; some lenders | A D-U-N-S number is free; a report or monitoring is a paid subscription |
| Delinquency Predictor and Failure Score | Dun & Bradstreet | The likelihood of severe delinquency, and of the business ceasing operations, over 12 months | Lenders, insurers, larger customers running credit on vendors | Same D&B products as above |
| Intelliscore Plus | Experian Business | Risk of serious delinquency over 12 months, 1 to 100, blending business file data and, where linked, owner data | Non bank lenders, card issuers, leasing companies | Purchased 1 time report or annual subscription from Experian |
| Financial Stability Risk Score | Experian Business | Risk of the business failing or filing bankruptcy within 12 months | Lenders sizing exposure; larger vendors | Same Experian products |
| Business Payment Index and Business Credit Risk Score | Equifax Business | Payment performance on reported accounts, and risk of severe delinquency | Banks and lenders that subscribe to Equifax commercial | Purchased report from Equifax |
| FICO SBSS | FICO, from data pulled through the lender from several bureaus and the owner's consumer file | A 0 to 300 small business score blending the business files and the owner's personal credit; the SBA sets a minimum for 7(a) small loans in its lending rules | Banks, SBA lenders, and larger term lenders | Not available to the business owner directly; it is generated at the lender's request |
Two more names appear on lender paperwork: SBFE, the Small Business Financial Exchange, a data consortium through which member lenders share payment data with the bureaus rather than a score; and PayNet, now part of Equifax, which keeps a commercial lending payment history used by equipment lenders and leasing companies. The product names, prices and scoring ranges above are as published by the companies at the review date and change; go to each company for current terms.
Get your own file
What is free, what is paid, and what you cannot get.
Before you pay a service to tell you.
Dun & Bradstreet. A D-U-N-S number costs nothing and takes up to 30 days through the standard process; expedited issuance is a paid option. Seeing the file and the PAYDEX requires a paid report or a monitoring subscription. Vendors report to D&B voluntarily, so a company with no reporting vendors has a thin file, and that is a fact about the file, not about the company.
Experian. A 1 time business credit report and an annual monitoring product are purchased directly from Experian's business site. The report shows the tradelines, inquiries, public records and the scores above.
Equifax. A business credit report is purchased directly from Equifax. Coverage depends on which lenders in your history report to Equifax commercial.
FICO SBSS. You cannot order it. It is generated when a lender requests it and it draws on the owner's personal file, which is why the owner's consumer report matters to a business loan even when the business has its own history. The SBA's lending rules set a minimum SBSS for its small 7(a) loans; check the current rule, because it changes.
What to check when the file arrives. Legal name and address exactly as registered; the industry code assigned to you, which drives risk models and is often wrong; every tradeline, and whether the accounts you actually pay are being reported at all; inquiries you did not authorize; UCC filings, judgments and liens, including ones that should have been released. Worksheet 5 in the resource center is built for this review.
Disputing an error. Each company runs its own dispute process for business files; there is no federal statute equivalent to the consumer Fair Credit Reporting Act governing business reports, so the process is the company's own and you should keep records of everything submitted.
The personal guaranty
Why a strong business file still ends at the owner.
The claim most often made, and least often true.
Services selling business credit lead with the promise of financing "in the business's name, with no personal guarantee." What that phrase actually describes, almost always, is a net 30 vendor account with a small limit: a supplier extending 30 days of terms on office products or building materials. Those accounts are real, they build a D&B file, and they are not financing.
Term loans, lines of credit, equipment financing, SBA loans and merchant cash advances to businesses under roughly $5,000,000 in revenue carry a personal guaranty from the owner in the overwhelming majority of cases, and the lender pulls the owner's consumer credit alongside the business file. The guaranty is the lender's answer to the fact that a small company's balance sheet is thin, and no business credit score changes that answer. At institutional size, guaranties become negotiable, capped and carved out, which is a different conversation and 1 the firm's advisory desk has for a living.
What a good business file does is real and narrower: better vendor terms, lower deposits with suppliers, a cleaner read from lenders who pull it, and a company that presents as organized. It does not remove the owner from the loan, and anything that says otherwise is selling the vendor account, not the loan.
Credit builder and tradeline products. Installment accounts that report to the business bureaus, self reported tradelines, and vendor programs that report exist and some are legitimate. Ask 4 things before paying: which bureaus receive the data, the total fee over the term, whether the bureau reserves the right to reject the data (Dun & Bradstreet does), and what happens to the score if you stop. No product on the market can promise a score, and the companies that calculate the scores say so.
Start with the file
A straight read within 2 business days.
Send the basics through the intake form: what the file supports, what is missing, and the next step if there is one. If we are not the right desk for it, we say so.