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to monitor your credit reports in case any errors occur
that need to be corrected.
Are you growing fast enough? Factors such as your credit
mix (the mix of different types of accounts) can affect how
fast your credit grows, so it’s worth keeping tabs on how
fast your credit score is rising to see if its rate of growth is
meeting your expectations. If not, you might look at what
types of accounts you lack that could speed thingsup.
So now that you’ve started to establish business credit, it’s a
good idea to check at least some of your credit reports on an at-
least-quarterly basis. Many services also exist which will notify
you daily, weekly, or monthly of any changes to your credit
report.
It is also important to know that signing up for a credit moni-
toring service generally does not adversely impact your credit
score. While making a “hard inquiry” about your credit in
pursuit of opening a new credit line may temporarily hurt your
score, routine credit monitoring services do not have the same
effect.
Both free and paid credit monitoring services are available.
Paid services may have advantages such as increased frequency
of alerts, greater accuracy, and may include added features.
Fraud, identity theft insurance, and monitoring of the dark web
to see if your information has been leaked by hackers are two
common services offered by paid credit monitoring services.
For my money, if you can pay a few dollars per month for
tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in identity theft insur-
ance, that’s a good investment.
So which credit reports should you monitor, and why?
DUN & BRADSTREET
As we’ve discussed, Dun & Bradstreet is a useful report for cred-
itors and business owners because it provides a comprehensive
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