Your 5 reporting tradelines may be a combination of net 30 accounts and revolving credit accounts. A revolving credit account is one that enables your company to pay a "minimum payment" due per month and not the full outstanding balance like a net 30 account. Revolving credit accounts normally report to Experian Business and sometimes Dun & Bradstreet and Equifax Small Business. Because of how they report, these accounts will help build your business creditworthiness on a larger scale than just having net 30 accounts alone.

What You Should Know Before You Apply

Without proper preparation and knowing what it takes to get approved, your business will most likely get declined for revolving credit accounts such as business credit cards.

These accounts will be checking to see that your business credit foundation is set and that your business credit reports are open with each of the business credit reporting agencies. That means that you need to have active trade lines already reporting on your files before applying for revolving accounts listed in this module.

By now you should have a business credit monitoring plan with all three business credit agencies so you can verify your active trade lines reporting. This will include Dun & Bradstreet, Experian's Business Credit Advantage Plan, and Equifax's Business Monitoring Plan.

You need to have access to all three business credit profiles in order to verify that you have at least (5) reporting trade lines across all three major company reports prior to applying for accounts listed in Step 5. (Module 5)

You will also need to have your D-U-N-S Number on hand because several of the card providers listed in this step will require it. Remember, only apply for accounts that you pre qualify for or risk getting declined which further hurts your chances for getting approvals on accounts you do pre qualify for.

Note: There are over 500 business credit cards in the U.S., but less than 70 of them report solely to the business credit reporting agencies. The majority of the cards being advertised in the marketplace report to the business owner's personal credit reports which puts your personal credit at risk. This defeats the whole purpose of building a creditworthy business profile.