How to obtain credit reports on prospective customers
Practical tips to reduce unpaid invoices — and to decide when to escalate.
Before granting credit terms to a corporate customer, it is essential to know whether it can pay. Extending credit indiscriminately exposes your business to financial risk it did not need to take. That is what a commercial credit report is for.
The main credit reporting agencies
Equifax Canada
Equifax offers commercial credit files (identification, payment history, risk signals, and certain legal items depending on the data available).
- Identification information (legal name, contact details, history).
- Payment history and trends.
- Risk scores and indicators (depending on the product).
- Public records (e.g. certain liens and registrations, subject to availability).
More information: Equifax Canada — business services.
Dun & Bradstreet (D&B)
D&B is a reference point in commercial credit. It is known for its scores (PAYDEX, among others) and for assessments that help set a credit limit and compare risk profiles.
- Strengths: broad coverage, widely recognized scores, useful for B2B suppliers.
- Limits: depends on the data available, products are paid, interpretation is sometimes complex.
Site: Dun & Bradstreet.
Experian
Experian also offers commercial credit products. Depending on the market, its scores combine trade data, public records and other signals.
- Strengths: varied data, online tools, useful for certain profiles.
- Limits: coverage and relevance vary by industry and territory.
Site: Experian — Small Business.
TransUnion
TransUnion likewise offers commercial credit products to assess creditworthiness, reduce risk, and support credit-granting decisions.
Site: TransUnion Canada.
Comparing the agencies
The right choice depends on your own situation: industry, type of customer, volume, and above all what data actually exists for the company you are looking at. What matters is understanding the scope and the limits of the report — and not mistaking an absence of information for good health.
A credit-check procedure
- Collect the basic information (legal name, NEQ, address).
- Obtain the authorization or consent your practices and the applicable law require.
- Order the report from the agency you have chosen.
- Document the decision (limit granted, terms, date, who approved it).
- Refresh it periodically — especially if volume grows.
When no report exists
If no agency covers the company, or the data is too thin to be useful, combine several approaches:
- Trade references (suppliers) and/or banking references.
- Online research (press, reviews, weak signals).
- Public registers (litigation, insolvency, bankruptcies).
- Financial statements, where available.
- A conversation with management (to understand the model and its stability).
Conclusion
Checking creditworthiness helps you reduce bad debt, set realistic credit limits, and decide earlier when to tighten terms. In practice it is never perfect — but it is usually a great deal better than moving blind.