The Intelliscore Plus credit score is a business credit score created by Experian, which is one of the major business and consumer credit bureaus.
The newest version of the Intelliscore Plus has a range of 300 to 850, which aligns with most personal credit score ranges. But older versions, which are more commonly used by commercial lenders, range from 1 to 100, with a good score starting at 76.
If you want to build business credit, it’s crucial to understand the different business credit scores and how they work. Here’s what to know about the Intelliscore Plus.
Intelliscore Credit Score Ranges
The Intelliscore Plus credit score is designed to help lenders predict the likelihood of a business becoming delinquent on a debt or declaring bankruptcy within the next 12 months.
But what is a good Intelliscore Plus credit score? The most widely used version of the score ranges from 1 to 100, with varying risk classes and descriptions across that range. Here’s how they break down:
Intelliscore Plus Ranges
Score Range | Risk Class | Description |
76-100 | 1 | Low risk |
51-75 | 2 | Low to medium risk |
26-50 | 3 | Medium risk |
11-25 | 4 | Medium to high risk |
1-10 | 5 | High risk |
Source: Experian
According to Experian, the score is based on percentiles that compare your business’ credit history with others. If you have a score of 50, for instance, it means that your score is better than 49% of other businesses.
In general, you want to be in the risk classes of 1 or 2 to have the best chances of approval for a small business loan. But as with any other credit score, the higher your score is, the easier it will be to get approved, secure low-interest rates, and get low fees.
You can check your Intelliscore Plus directly with Experian for a one-time fee, or you can pay for an annual credit monitoring service that provides you with constant access.
One-time reports cost $39.95 or $49.95, depending on how much information you want about your credit report, and the annual subscription costs $189 per year.
With the annual subscription, you’ll also get real-time alerts when changes are made to your Experian credit report, tips to improve your Intelliscore Plus, and more.
How Is the Intelliscore Plus Credit Score Calculated?
As with other commercial and personal credit scores, the actual nuts and bolts of the Intelliscore Plus are proprietary, so we don’t have the full equation.
However, there are some general factors that Experian considers when calculating the credit score for your business. The scoring model uses more than 800 variables to determine your risk profile, with three main elements:
- Payment history: Your recent payment history is incredibly important because it’s a simple predictor of your ability to pay on time in the near future. This “recency” factor includes your overall debt balance, how many times you’ve paid late, and how many of your accounts are in delinquency status.
- Frequency: Similar to your payment history, this component looks at some of the more serious results of nonpayment. More specifically, how many times you’ve had financial accounts sent to collections, how many liens and judgments you have against your business, and whether you have any bankruptcies associated with your business or personal credit history. It can also include your payment patterns and whether you’ve been consistently on time or late, and whether your payments have trended in either direction.
- Monetary: The final factor that goes into your Intelliscore Plus credit score is focused on your credit utilization. It’ll look at how much credit has been extended to both you and your small business and how much of that available credit you’re using at a given time. It’ll also consider the ratio of delinquent accounts to credit limits.
Because business credit scores can take time to build, business owners with new companies can find it difficult to get access to credit.
The good news is that if your small business doesn’t have a credit history yet or if it’s still in its infancy, the Intelliscore Plus may rely more on your personal credit history to develop a score for you.
If you’ve handled your personal credit well, this gives you an advantage when you apply for credit to build your business.
How to Improve Your Intelliscore Plus
The process of improving your Intelliscore Plus credit score is similar to that of any other business and personal credit score: It all boils down to how you manage your credit accounts, particularly your payments.
Here are some steps you can take to build and maintain a good Intelliscore Plus credit score:
- Always pay on time: On-time payments are absolutely essential for improving your Intelliscore Plus score. Making a payment even one day late can reflect poorly on your business credit report, which is much less lenient than personal credit scores. Personal credit scores don’t count late payments until after 30 days. If you have made late payments in the past, get caught up as quickly as possible and try to maintain a positive trend going forward.
- Keep your debt usage low: The more credit accounts you and your business have, the less room you’ll have for more debt in the future. As a result, it’s best to try to keep your reliance on debt as low as possible. And if you have credit cards or lines of credit, try to avoid getting close to your credit limits.
- Use business credit: While it’s important to maintain a low reliance on debt in your personal life and your business, it’s still important to use business credit from lenders that report your accounts and payments to the commercial credit bureaus. The more established your business credit history is, the better your chances will be of gaining access to better financing options.
The process of building and maintaining a good Intelliscore Plus credit score can take time, but the effort can pay dividends for many years to come. If you’re just starting out, consider a business credit builder loan from Credit Strong.
You’ll be able to establish a long-term credit account with regularly reported monthly payments and no credit check required.
The Bottom Line
The Intelliscore Plus credit score is an important factor that commercial lenders use to determine your creditworthiness. It may also be used by vendors, investors, and other parties that you want to do business with.
As a result, it’s important to work on building and maintaining a good business credit score, especially if you have plans to borrow in the future to expand and grow your business.
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