How to Check My Business Credit Score?

The business credit score is a primary thing to know about any company you are planning to do business with. In order to do that, you should first purchase a business credit report by following three simple steps mentioned below:-

Visit credit bureau’s website: - There are three different credit bureaus that compile data on business’ credit history: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. You can take help of any of these to get a business credit score of the desired company.

Conduct a search: After visiting the credit bureau’s website, your next step is to find a company whose credit history you want to search. To search, all you need is the company’s name, along with the state and the country where they conduct their business. The Dun & Bradstreet website searches for the company’s D-U-N-S number. It is an identification number that keeps the track of businesses. You can find the D-U-N-S number on the basis of company’s name and the place where it is operational. While on the Equifax and Experian website, you can check the credit history of the business by its name and address.

Make a purchase: Once you get the credit report of a company you are planning to do business with, all you are left to do is to purchase a report. While there are levels of details with respect to reports that you can obtain from bureaus, listed below is the price of the basic credit report as of 8-2016 of different credit bureau website:

• On Dun & Bradstreet website, the basic business credit report costs $61.99.
• On Equifax, the basic report costs $99.99
• And on Experian website, the cost of basic report is $39.95

Once you purchase the business credit report, make sure you understand the report. For example in Dun & Bradstreet report, the PAYDEX score, credit score, and financial stress score are some important things to look at.

• The PAYDEX score determines whether or not the company pays on time, based on the history of on-time payment. It is calculated from 100 to 1, with 100 being the best score and 1 being the worst.
• Credit score, however, predicts the future payments based on the payment history and comparison from other companies dealing with the same. It ranges from 1-5 with 1 being the worst and 5 the best.
• The financial stress score predicts the likelihood of severe financial difficulties in the next year. It ranges from 1-5 and is based on the net worth of the company, the proportion of on time payment, legal action taken against the company and the current debt on the company.
• On top of it, Dun & Bradstreet also suggest how much credit should be extended, and how risky it would be. 

Interesting Post: How to check an individual's credit score?

Equifax business credit score offers three different assessments for businesses

• The payment index: the payment index is similar to Dun & Bradstreet’s PAYDEX score. It determines the history of online payments.
• The credit risk score: It calculates the risk of the business becoming delinquent on payment based on company size, the utilized credit limit, the age of the account, etc.
• Business failure score: It measures the likelihood of your closing. It is calculated on the basis of credit utilized relative to the business credit limits, age of the oldest credit accounts and number of delinquent or late financial accounts.

Understanding an Experian business credit score

An Experian business credit report calculates age and size of the company deeply as compared to other business credit rating bureaus.

Calculating Loan Installments with an EMI Calculator

Prior to getting a car loan, home loan or any other loan, calculating loan installments is a must. It gives a clear idea about how much extra money you have to shed out each month as part of the loan installment. Generally, people use loan interest calculator or loan installment calculators to calculate the EMI. Reason being, these are easily available online, have a user-friendly interface, and provide instant answers to your queries.

But before using an EMI calculator, you must understand the loan APR concept. Banks in India not just charge the interest on loans. When getting a loan, a borrower has to pay several kinds of non-refundable fees including the processing fee, documentation charges, etc. when getting a loan. Loan APR, known as a yearly percentage rate thus represents the actual cost of the loan after considering these one-time costs associated with bowing money from the bank. It is, therefore, an all-inclusive measure that reflects the net effective cost of your loan on the yearly basis.

How to calculate loan installments using EMI calculator

You can find EMI calculator at the home page of various bank websites.  After entering the loan amount you wish to borrow, along with the interest rate (on that particular loan), and tenure, you can determine the EMI. The process is simple and saves a lot of time.

Other easy ways to calculate loan installments

Using Excel - You can use Microsoft excel spreadsheet to calculate EMI. However, the process here is a bit different than EMI calculators which are automated and deliver results quickly by entering some basic information. In Excel, the formula for calculating EMI is PMT (rate, nper, pv) where:-

Rate = rate of interest

nper= number of periods

pv = value of the loan or the present value

So now let’s suppose you bought a car in 2015 worth Rs 5.95 Lakh after making a down payment of 1.5 Lakh. You took the auto loan for the rest of the amount at 12% interest rate for four years. Then your EMI would be

=PMT (0.12/12, 4*12, 445,000) = 11,718

Let’s take another example, suppose you are paying quarterly installments on a loan of 10 Lakhs at an annual interest rate of 10% for 20 years. Then instead of 12, you should divide the rate by 4 and multiply the number of years by 4 to calculate loan installment. (In case of half yearly payment, you should divide the rate by 2 and multiply the number of years by 2 to get the result)

Using the Mathematical Formula- For those who have limited access to the internet or love doing simple mathematics, they can use mathematical formula (EMI = [P x R x (1+R) ^N]/ [(1+R) ^N-1]) to calculate loan installments.

Here, P stands for the principal or the loan amount, R stands for the rate of interest, and N stands for a number of monthly installments. You can use this simple formula for calculating EMIs.

The Bottom Line

Getting a loan is a common thing nowadays but to make sure that you pay back the loan amount on time, it is good to calculate the EMI installments in advance. Also, don’t apply for a bigger loan if you can afford to pay back on time. Do a thorough research on the loan type. Choose your loan term wisely (for longer loan tenure, you will be paying higher interest whereas, for a lesser term, the EMI payments will be high with lower interest payments).Understand your loan scheme properly before signing on the dotted line. Remember, every late EMI payment will affect your credit score and you may face problems while getting another loan in future. So calculate everything before making a final decision.

12 Interesting Facts About Gold

India’s infatuation with gold is not a secret. For centuries, the glittering metal has been an integral part of India’s history, culture, religions, and traditions. In spite of increase in gold rates, Indians have not stopped to buy or invest in this beautiful and valuable metal. India’s love for gold is so much that the recent survey report by the World Gold Council shows that in the first quarter of 2017, the gold purchases made from India were accounted for a little over one-fifth of world gold jewellery demand. Indians may have an undying relentless love for gold, however, there are many facts that the Indians and many people in the world do not know about it. They may know the current gold rate but there are various interesting facts on its production and consumption that will for sure leave them amazed. To know more, read on.

1.    It is the most malleable and ductile metal in the periodic table. Even at its highest purity of 99.99 percent, it can be readily cold shaped to prepare 10 mm thick wires or 0.2 mm thick foil. Since it is soft, it can be highly polished. It can also be beaten into a very thin translucent foil.

2.   When a ray of light is incident on the surface of the translucent gold foil, the foil acquires reddish/yellow tinge. The light that passes through it is somewhat blue in color.

3.   It is one of the least reactive elements and therefore resistant to most acids and rusting. However, this yellowish metal can dissolve in ‘Aqua Regia’ (a solution of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid) and the alkaline solution of cyanide (a solution used for mining and electroplating).

4.   To change the color and strength of the gold, it is often alloyed with other metals such as copper, which is used to change its color from gold to rose gold. Gold’s purity is measured in ‘Karat,’ which is denoted by the letter ‘K’. The word is derived from the Arabic word “qīrāṭ,” which means ‘the fruit of the carob tree.’ The word also means ‘weight of 4 grains.’ Even in the olden times, the word was a unit of mass but was used to measure gold. The 18K gold has 750 parts of pure gold per 1,000.

5.     The gold nuggets are hard to find. They are even rarer than a five carat of diamond. Till today, ‘Welcome Stranger’ is the largest gold nugget that has been ever discovered. The nugget is 10 by 25 inches in size and was discovered in Australia by discovered by John Deason and Richard Oates on 5th February 1869. It was found about two inches below the ground surface and at that time was reported to yield 2,248 ounces of pure gold.

6.   Since the starting of the civilization, about 175,000 tonnes of gold has been mined by the mankind.

7.     In Cabarrus, North Carolina, the first gold nugget discovered was of 17 pounds. Also in 1803, when more gold was discovered in North Carolina, the first gold rush in the United States began.

8.    The Amersham Corporation of Illinois use the tiny spheres of gold to tag particular type of proteins. It is a method to know their functions in the human body, which will further help in the treatment of a disease.

9.     China tops the chart of top ten producers of gold in the world. South Africa was the crowning glory of the list until China overtook this position in 2007. According to a report by the USGS, in the year 2015, China had mined 455 metric tons of gold. Other countries that follow on the list include Australia, Russia, United States, Canada, Peru, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan.

10.  As per a report by the USGS, the gold production worldwide has only increased over the years. In the report, the gold production in 1994 was about 2,300 tonnes per year and in the year 2014, it reached somewhere near to 2,860 tonnes.

11.  Worldwide, gold is most commonly used in the form of gold jewelry. Therefore, the world gold consumption is measured by the gold jewelry consumption. Among all the nations across the globe, India is the biggest gold consumer. According to the latest report by the World Gold Council, in the first quarter of 2017, the gold jewelry demand from India was 92.3 tonnes as compared to 22.9 tonnes in the U.S. another country that closely follows India in the race is China.

12.  The gold rates have only increased with the time. In 2005, gold was about 57 percent cheaper than platinum. Even though over the last decade, the gold rates have increased to nearly as high as the price of platinum, the metal has still remained more popular among Indians than platinum. Even when the current gold rate in India is high, there has been no significant decline in its demand.