Potential client credit check ?

arrowloopboy

Hi Folks,Involved in a new start up ,just ready to seek out a lot of new clients both here and abroad ,just wondering ,focusing on Ireland first ,what paid service is the best at giving credit ratings to Irish registered companies,i don't need to delve too deeply into accounts etc ,just a service that gives a general synopsis of a companies financial health.

cheers,

Arrow

dbran

Hi there

What you ask is not possible with any certainty. You can always pull their accounts and view if there are any unregistered judgements against them, abandoned companies, etc but otherwise it is difficult especially if they are overseas.

Remember credit is not a given right to any customer and if you are unsure about being able to be paid then don't give away your stuff.

dbran

pedroeibar1

arrowloopboy wrote: »

Hi Folks,Involved in a new start up ,just ready to seek out a lot of new clients both here and abroad ,just wondering ,focusing on Ireland first ,what paid service is the best at giving credit ratings to Irish registered companies,i don't need to delve too deeply into accounts etc ,just a service that gives a general synopsis of a companies financial health.

cheers,

Arrow

You've lots of options.

You do not mention the level of credit limit or turnover involved, so it is impossible to give a precise response. You need to do a CBA to see what is financially feasible.

For a simple indicator of creditworthiness you could try the credit rating subsidiaries of the main credit insurers, Atradius, Coface and Euler. All have offices in Ireland.

For the more detailed reports on the Irish market you have two good options, Solocheck and Experian.

For export markets you have several options, one that I’d recommend is Graydon who are based in the UK, have subsidiaries around Europe and are part of an international alliance.

arrowloopboy

Cheers guys ,after due research , went with www.creditsafe.ie

pedroeibar1

arrowloopboy wrote: »

Cheers guys ,after due research , went with www.creditsafe.ie

They’ve been around about 20 years, started in Norway/Sweden and expanded very rapidly. Their reports are OK but I’ve always been a bit wary of them because of their claims – e.g. from their website

Creditsafe currently has the largest ‘owned’ database of company information in the world

I’d question that. The three credit insurers I names earlier each would have bigger databases. ‘Owned’ means proprietary, but that – generally - is not possible as credit agencies are aggregators – they buy data from elsewhere and compile reports from it. Ownership of the raw data remains with the original supplier

with access to reports on over 240 million companies worldwide.

Everyone has that level of access – anyone can buy filings from the CRO or its equivalents, so no big deal. Interpreting the data is the skill.

In fact we can access company information on any company in the world!

Of course they (and you) can, but it’s plain misleading. There are many countries where company data is limited and where there is no requirement to file financials (e.g.Australia, USA) and others where the info is either so inadequate or inaccurate that it is useless.

The key issue with any credit report provider is the price/quality ratio. The price part is easy – it’s what you pay. Quality depends primarily on ‘freshness’ which is the age of the data in the report. You buy a report on Joe Bloggs Ltd that is not in the provider’s database, they go off and collate the data, run their scoring model and respond. They make more or less nothing. However, your competitor also is interested in supplying Joe, buys a report and the profit is considerable because the work already is done. The danger is that the provider uses the same info for more than a year.

Best of luck with the expansion.

sysprogrammer

you seem to have found your answer.
I was going to suggest that you tell us the amounts of money involved, which will dictate your level of checking.

Personally , I like to see a current tax clearance cert , and a lot of lending institutions are now asking for this with all your other docs.
It is not a fail-safe by any means ,yet a handy barometer all the same.

hth,
Sysprog

arrowloopboy

Small amounts guys ,sub 5k ,but i'll be targeting 200/300 companies between here and the U.k its just a starting point ,to give me a rough gauge before I meet said companies ,and form my own opinions on them,and its also nice to be able to see how the competition are doing:D.

pedroeibar1

arrowloopboy wrote: »

....... i'll be targeting 200/300 companies between here and the U.k .

.22LR OP, not 12g No9's.

arrowloopboy

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

.22LR OP, not 12g No9's.

For what i'm hunting Pedro,i'll want everything from .450 Nitro Express solids down to .17hmrs