Financial health check for your business

Credit Guardian® Dashboards give you a complete picture of the financial health, sales and trading patterns in your business and highlight where you might be at risk. Credit Guardian allows you to examine each area in detail, enabling you to make better and more informed business decisions.

The scenario  Find out where your business is most at risk

You can easily identify the areas where you are at most risk in your business. Credit Guardian monitors where your sales and purchases are coming from and automatically places customers and suppliers into high, medium and low risk bands.

• Red - High risk
• Orange - Medium risk
• Green - Low risk

The scenario  How others view your business

Right now, your customers, prospects, suppliers and investors could be credit-checking your company. How can you ensure that your company is presented in the best possible light to those looking to do business with you?

Credit Guardian® can help you see your business as others see it - as reported by the UK's leading business data provider, Experian. You are then in a position to influence your business's key performance indicators by changing your trading and payments patterns, all of which can affect your published credit rating - making your business instantly more attractive to others who wish to trade with you.

More sales. Less risk

Credit Guardian allows your sales team to focus on how you should trade with prospects and customers rather than the traditional approach of should we deal with them. It provides instant information throughout the whole of the sales cycle from prospecting through to repeat sales with the objective of not stopping you selling but letting you trade intelligently.

The easiest way to explain the concept of trading intelligently using Credit Guardian is to show you sales examples where Credit Guardian can be used to gain business:

The scenario  Prospect with a poor credit rating

• Your sales team receive an enquiry from a prospect but they have a poor credit rating – normal outcome = no deal.
• Credit Guardian shows that they are part of a group with a good rating – have the group underwrite the deal – result = good sale.

The scenario  Existing customer with a poor payment record

The customer has a poor payment history – sales teams normally only find out when they try to get the order past the credit controllers who turn it down = result no sale.

The account managers will have all of the information before they start the sales process , so the deal can be constructed differently e.g. using a finance deal, staged payments, penalty clauses or money up front = result sales.

The scenario  Negotiating the contract

You are negotiating a new contract; how do you ensure that you build in the best possible payment terms?

Credit Guardian gives you two ways to check - information on how quickly the customer pays their suppliers and also information on the average time it takes to pay within the customer's marketplace, allowing you to make informed decisions.

Working with stable suppliers

Credit Guardian® enables you to reduce the risks when you're purchasing goods, services or choosing suppliers.

Don't judge a book by its cover

When you buy any goods and services for business – even if it's a one-off purchase – you want the reassurance of knowing that the company you're buying from is stable. This is especially important if you're buying parts or components to fulfil your own customers' orders. Not having goods when you need them can jeopardise your company's ability to fulfil its sales orders and this can quickly affect the stability of your business.

The scenario  Choosing a new supplier

How do you choose between two suppliers who appear, on the face of it, to have similar offers? You may have seen a credible sales representative, the company has a comprehensive website, the product is exactly what you're looking for and the prices are comparable. It's often easy to be swayed by external factors, first impressions and a credible sales pitch.

Credit Guardian® allows you to take a look inside a company – at information that's published about its profitability, company size, track record, whether it's part of a group and about payment cycles to existing suppliers. With Credit Guardian® at your fingertips, you can make better and more informed choices.

The scenario  Monitoring an existing supplier

How can you tell if your current supplier's performance is deteriorating? You need a system that can easily monitor supplier performance so you can act quickly and recover any situation before any damage is done. Credit Guardian provides you with up-to-date business performance data about each of your suppliers and alerts you when there are major changes to their trading circumstances – forewarned is forearmed.

Improving your cash flow and saving you money

Credit Guardian® automatically blends information from your accounting system with credit risk, monitoring and company information from Experian, providing you with more meaningful information on which to make your financial decisions.

Credit Guardian® helps you to strike the right balance between paying suppliers on time and getting paid promptly by customers. The accounting team have a vital role to play in maintaining the company's risk and credit ratings as calculated by Experian.

The scenario  Suffering from bad debts

You need to minimise your exposure to the risk of bad debts by predicting and not just reacting to notification of business failure.

Credit Guardian® uses a number of predictive tools to highlight to you any company's worsening performance so you can take positive action before it's too late.

The scenario  Assessing payment terms to your advantage

How do you find out if you are being paid, or paying out, to your best advantage compared with other companies?

Credit Guardian® can show you how long each company you deal with takes to pay you and how quickly you pay your suppliers. You also see how your company compares against the average settlement terms for the industry.

The scenario  Your company has a lower credit rating than you want

Orders you are placing with suppliers are routinely being put on stop as you are exceeding your credit limit with a company.

Credit Guardian® gives you factual information from your accounting system, Experian's risk and ratings score and your trading record. Using this information enables you to better negotiate for more advantageous trading terms.