Dun & Bradstreet is the world’s leading source of commercial information with over 237.7 million companies listed in its database and over 1.5 million updates per day. Many suppliers, lenders and leasing companies share and pull business credit reports from Dun & Bradstreet to assess the credit worthiness of businesses.

The D-U-N-S® Number is recognized, recommended, and/or required by more than 200 global, industry, and trade associations, including the U.N., European Commission, and the U.S. Federal Government.

Dun & Bradstreet assigns businesses a D-U-N-S® Number and a "rating". These are critical factors of the business credit building process. D&B is mainly used by vendors to determine if they will extend your company net terms, and landlords use them to approve office leases.

Experian Business is one of the dominant players in the industry with over 27 million companies listed in its database. One major difference is it does not allow you to self-report trade references like Dun & Bradstreet. The only way to get listed is by doing business with a creditor or supplier that furnishes data to this specific agency.

Experian Smart Business Reports is used by many credit card companies, vendors, non-traditional lenders, and banks.

Equifax Small Business is another agency that plays a significant role in the industry with over 80 million companies listed in its database worldwide. This agency is said to be one of the most difficult to get listed with and the majority of its data reporters are banks and leasing companies. Similar to Experian Business the only way to get listed is through a creditor, lender or business that supplies its payment data to Equifax Small Business.

The reason this is such a difficult agency to get listed with is because their requirements on the vendors and credit providers who would report your payment history are more demanding than Experian Business or D&B's. Equifax manages the "Small Business Financial Exchange" and it important to cash lenders such as banks.