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Part of Why a business credit card is usually lent to a person, not a company
What a serious credit cards checklist covers
Credit cards checklist to work through with a pen: what to gather, six questions to put to the issuer in writing, and the clauses to find in the agreement.
What to take away
- Settle the entity name, EIN, formation documents, address and true revenue figures before you fill anything in.
- Ask the issuer six questions in writing, starting with where the account reports, by name.
- Search the agreement for the fee, reporting, arbitration, guarantee and default clauses, and note each page number.
- Turn on autopay and alerts, add authorized users by name, and record the statement and reporting dates.
- Put the review on a calendar. Nothing here needs daily attention once it is set up.
Before you apply: the documents to have in one place
Work through this before you open an application. A mismatch between your answers and your registration causes trouble later.
- The legal entity name, exactly as registered.
- The EIN, or your Social Security number if you trade as a sole proprietor. The IRS explains what an EIN identifies.
- Formation documentsthe articles, the state certificate and the operating agreement. The SBA's register your business steps list what a lender may ask to see.
- The street address with any suite number, written the one way you have settled on, plus the business phone.
- A plain description of the business and the revenue figures you would give. True, not rounded upward.
- Owner details for any personal guaranteename, address, date of birth, and the personal credit file.
Gather Before You Apply
- Exact legal entity name, unabbreviated
- Trading name, written consistently
- Street address with suite, business phone
- Federal tax identification number
- Formation date and state
- True revenue figures, not rounded up
- Who signs, and their authority
Two lines cause the most trouble: a legal name that differs by a suffix from the registered one, and an address written two ways. Either splits one identity into two files. The foundations checklist covers why one inconsistent string causes disproportionate trouble later.
Six questions to put to the issuer in writing
Send them by email to the department that knows, not the sales line, so the replies exist afterwards.
- Is this account issued to the business, or to me personally as guarantor?
- Will you pull my personal credit file, and whose score sets the limit?
- Where does this account reportbusiness bureaus, consumer bureaus, both, or only on default? Which ones, by name?
- On what date each month do you report the balance, and which balance?
- What fees apply now and after any promotional periodannual, additional card, foreign transaction, late, cash advance?
- What happens to the reporting if I close the account, and how are authorized users handled?
Item three is the one people assume. Who a business card is actually lent to belongs with business credit cards, and a written answer beats a forum post from last year.
In the agreement: the clauses to find and page-number
Do not read it front to back. Search it, and note the page number of each clause.
- The fee schedule, with every fee listed and the date each promotional term ends.
- The reporting clause, if there is one. It may say nothing about bureaus.
- Arbitration and any class action waiver, which change what you can do in a dispute.
- The personal guarantee and liability section, which may not resemble the ones on a personal card.
- The default provisions, including what counts as a default, and the change in terms clause.
If a clause is unclear, ask the issuer to point at the paragraph that answers your question. That request is reasonable, and the response tells you something.
When the account opens: set it up once
- Record the statement date and the reporting date at opening. The answers on business credit scores show why a balance reported on the wrong day can look worse than the spending behind it.
- Turn on autopay, for at least the minimum and ideally for the full statement balance.
- Set alerts for balances above a threshold, for foreign transactions and for failed payments.
- Add authorized users by name, with a written limit for each and the date each was added.
- Name one person to read the statement line by line, and another who reviews it occasionally.
- Store the agreement, the written answers and the guarantee in one place.
Set Up the Account Once
- Schedule the payment, don't rely on memory
- Give each additional card its own limit
- Write down who holds which card
- Name one person to read statements line by line
- Name a second occasional reviewer
- Note statement date and reporting date
- Store agreement, answers and guarantee together
Put these in the calendar
| When | What to check |
|---|---|
| Before any promotional term ends | The date you noted, and what the pricing becomes |
| Before the fee anniversary | Whether the card still earns its keep on your actual spending |
| On a fixed interval you will keep | The user list, the limits, and any card held by someone who left |
| After anything structural changes | Whether the account details still match your one settled version |
Repeated applications in a short window are visible on the file. If a decline arrives with no explanation, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act is the statute to know.
Where account reporting turns into a tradeline
An account that reports to a business bureau becomes a tradeline. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why the answer to question three decides whether the card helps the business file at all.
Services selling tradelines are selling something else. Where real tradelines come from is worth reading before you pay anyone, because a purchased tradeline and a reporting account differ.
Ongoing work is minimal once the setup runs without you: autopay fires, alerts catch exceptions, the calendar review happens twice a year.
