D & B, Experian, And Equifax: A Job Analysis
How to easily see if your business is setup with D&B, Experian, and Equifax
Written by Janet Gershen-Siegel
When you are first starting out, even before you sell one product or service, your company exists, of course. Even if it’s just conceptual, there’s a company or a proto-company at least. But your small business hasn’t ‘arrived’ until it’s on Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax.
So, how do you determine if your company is in any of these credit reporting bureaus’ databases? Fortunately, that’s a simple matter.
Dun & Bradstreet
On Dun & Bradstreet, it is slightly tricky to find a business, just because the website does not spell that out completely and clearly. You navigate to here. Then you select Company Search in the upper right …show more content…
Note: if you search for more than one company, it can sometimes take a couple of tries before it clears the old name and/or state.
The search turned out to be well put together. I was about to locate a former employer from a good 30 years ago and I didn’t even have the correct company name anymore. However, once I went back to one name iteration just before the one I remembered, D & B could no longer find the company. Hence a company with several name changes might require a little Googling to get some business name choices.
Experian
Experian has an easy form which you fill out in order to see if your business is in their system, located here. For example, because I know Credit Suite is in Florida, I can search for Credit Suite in Florida. Adding the city (in this case, it’s Land O’ Lakes), was not necessary. Either way, I get the company on the first try. Easy as …show more content…
I did not have to add the ZIP code. Much like with Dun & Bradstreet, the system at Experian was smart enough to match an older version of the name to the successor name. However it, too, did not match up to the oldest name I could remember for this particular company.
Equifax
The Equifax form is a little bit more involved than the Experian form, but not by much. It is located here. In the case of Equifax, you can add street address and telephone number. However, just like with Experian, the only information you truly need is the company name and state. Equifax also offers a helpful search just under their identification number.
When looking for that same old employer, Equifax ran into the same issue, where there was one older name from about 22 years ago but not the one from 30 years ago.
Because all three credit reporting bureaus ended up (with some extra work on my part at Experian) agreeing on having the 22 year old name but not the 30 year old one for this business, it is also possible that there was no credit history back three decades (this is an insurance company’s inside counsel law firm and not a typical small business; it’s possible their credit transactions were through the insurance company 30 years
Written by Janet Gershen-Siegel
When you are first starting out, even before you sell one product or service, your company exists, of course. Even if it’s just conceptual, there’s a company or a proto-company at least. But your small business hasn’t ‘arrived’ until it’s on Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax.
So, how do you determine if your company is in any of these credit reporting bureaus’ databases? Fortunately, that’s a simple matter.
Dun & Bradstreet
On Dun & Bradstreet, it is slightly tricky to find a business, just because the website does not spell that out completely and clearly. You navigate to here. Then you select Company Search in the upper right …show more content…
Note: if you search for more than one company, it can sometimes take a couple of tries before it clears the old name and/or state.
The search turned out to be well put together. I was about to locate a former employer from a good 30 years ago and I didn’t even have the correct company name anymore. However, once I went back to one name iteration just before the one I remembered, D & B could no longer find the company. Hence a company with several name changes might require a little Googling to get some business name choices.
Experian
Experian has an easy form which you fill out in order to see if your business is in their system, located here. For example, because I know Credit Suite is in Florida, I can search for Credit Suite in Florida. Adding the city (in this case, it’s Land O’ Lakes), was not necessary. Either way, I get the company on the first try. Easy as …show more content…
I did not have to add the ZIP code. Much like with Dun & Bradstreet, the system at Experian was smart enough to match an older version of the name to the successor name. However it, too, did not match up to the oldest name I could remember for this particular company.
Equifax
The Equifax form is a little bit more involved than the Experian form, but not by much. It is located here. In the case of Equifax, you can add street address and telephone number. However, just like with Experian, the only information you truly need is the company name and state. Equifax also offers a helpful search just under their identification number.
When looking for that same old employer, Equifax ran into the same issue, where there was one older name from about 22 years ago but not the one from 30 years ago.
Because all three credit reporting bureaus ended up (with some extra work on my part at Experian) agreeing on having the 22 year old name but not the 30 year old one for this business, it is also possible that there was no credit history back three decades (this is an insurance company’s inside counsel law firm and not a typical small business; it’s possible their credit transactions were through the insurance company 30 years