Find Out About Equifax Reporting

Did You Want to Learn About Equifax Reporting?

It is time to learn about the business credit reporting agencies. More specifically, Equifax reporting.

But let us start with some definitions and background on business credit.

Business Credit

This is credit in the name of a business. It is not tied to the creditworthiness of its owner or owners. Instead, business credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Hence consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

Business Credit Benefits

There are no demands for a personal guarantee. You can quickly get business credit regardless of personal credit quality. And there is no personal credit reporting of business accounts. Business credit utilization is not going to affect your consumer FICO score. Plus the business owner is not going to be personally liable for the debt the business incurs.

Business Credit Details

Being accepted for business credit is not automatic. Building business credit requires some work. Some of the steps are intuitive, and some of them are not.

Fundability

Fundability is the current ability of our business to get funding. Some factors are within your control. Others (like your time in business) are not. Your online presence and data are one area which is at or close to 100% with your control.

Business Credit, Fundability, and Business Funding Applications

The better your business credit and fundability are, the more likely you are going to get approval for business financing. Today, let us concentrate on Equifax reporting.

There are Three Different Credit Bureaus – But What Differentiates Equifax Reporting?

What distinguishes the three biggest credit bureaus? And can you use that information to your advantage?

There are three main credit bureaus for business: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. CreditSafe and FICO SBSS are also players in this space.

In the business world Equifax and Experian are up there, but it is Dun & Bradstreet which is the major player.

Dun and Bradstreet has more than 10 times the records of the next closest reporting agency. For more details, see dnb.com/about-us/company.html. Even when talking about Equifax reporting, it makes sense to start with Dun and Bradstreet. You are going to have to start the business credit building process with them anyway.

Dun & Bradstreet

Go to Dun and Bradstreet’s website and look for your business, at dnb.com/duns-number. What happens if you can’t find it? Then get a free D-U-N-S number. You are going to always need a D-U-N-S number to start building business credit. Go here to get a D-U-N-S number: dnb.com/duns-number/get-a-duns.html.

D-U-N-S Numbers

A D-U-N-S number is how Dun and Bradstreet gets your company into their system. And a D-U-N-S number plus 3 payment experiences leads to a PAYDEX score. A payment experience is a record of a purchase from a business which reports to a credit reporting agency. In this case, Dun and Bradstreet. Once you are in Dun and Bradstreet’s system, search Equifax and Experian’s sites for your business. You can do so at creditsuite.com/reports.

Equifax Reporting

You can check out a sample of Equifax reporting at https://assets.equifax.com/assets/usis/small_business_sample_credit_report.pdf.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

The company gets its data from a data sharing agreement with the Small Business Exchange, Net 30 type industry trade credit information, and from a wide variety of suppliers that provide products and services to businesses on an invoice basis.

Equifax combines financial data with industry trade credit data. They add in utility and telephone data and public record information (bankruptcies, judgments, and tax liens).

Here’s what that report says.

Company Identifying Information

The first section is devoted to identifying information about your company, namely your business name and address and telephone number. This section will also include your Equifax ID. An Equifax ID is how Equifax can tell your business from similarly-named businesses.

Credit Risk Score

The next section is about the Credit Risk Score. This score runs from 101 to 992. Higher numbers are better. This section also shows key factors.

Key factors are positives and negatives about your business, such as how old your oldest account is, and whether you have any charge-offs, and the size of your business.

Credit Utilization

The next section shows credit utilization. This is shown as a pie chart. It graphically shows which percent of your available credit line you are using. It also has identifying labels to show how much each percentage truly is. But it is only for your financial accounts.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Payment Index

The next part is your Payment Index. The score runs from 0 to 100. Higher numbers are better. It also shows Industry Median.

There is also a table explaining the numbers:

  • 90+: Paid as Agreed
  • 80-89: 1-30 days overdue
  • 60-79: 31-60 days overdue
  • 40-59: 61-90 days overdue
  • 20-39: 91-120 days overdue
  • 1-19: 120+ days overdue

Days Beyond Terms

This is a line graph. It shows the average days beyond terms by date reported. It is for non-financial accounts only. Plus it shows any recent trends, so if you’ve improved your payment habits, it will show up here.

Business Failure Score

The next piece is on your Business Failure Score. This score runs from 1000 to 1880. It shows its own key factors, like recent balance information.

Inquiries

The next section is devoted to inquiries. It shows the date, and whether it was an inquiry on a financial or non-financial account. This is a rather short part of the report.

Bureau Messages

The bureau messages part, appears to be a free form field. It seems its purpose is to add notes to a profile. These can be notes on the number of locations, or business aliases.

Bureau Summary Data

The bureau summary data section contains a wealth of information. It shows:

  • The number of financial and non-financial accounts
  • Date the credit became active
  • Number of charge offs
  • Total dollars past due
  • Most severe status in 24 months
  • Single highest credit extended
  • Total current card exposure
  • Median balance
  • Average open balance

It also shows Recent Activity, which includes:

  • The number of accounts delinquent
  • New accounts opened
  • Inquiries and
  • Accounts updated

Public Records

The public records section has information on:

  • Type Status:
    • Bankruptcy
    • Judgments
    • Whether judgments are satisfied or not
    • Liens filed and opened, or released
    • Number
    • Dollar and
    • Most recent date filed

If there are none reported, then the date field will indicate as much.

Additional Information

The final section appears to contain somewhat miscellaneous information, which probably doesn’t fit in well anywhere else. such as alternate company Names and DBAs.

It also contains:

  • Owners and Guarantor Names (name, type, date reported)
  • Business and Guarantor Comments (seems to be another free form field) and
  • Report Details (this shows the date the report was generated)

Improving Your Equifax Report

Now that you know what goes into it, you can see that some of the more important pieces of data Equifax looks into are:

  • public records
  • credit usage
  • and how you handle your financial and nonfinancial accounts

Improve your Equifax score by:

  • Clearing your debts as quickly as possible and not going delinquent
  • Keeping credit utilization within reason, as that makes it easier to pay your bills
  • And avoiding late payments

Whatever improves your Equifax report is bound to improve your reports at D&B and Experian. Paying off accounts pays dividends, as does avoiding bankruptcies.

Disputing Issues with Your Equifax Report

Equifax will not change your scores without proof. They are starting to accept more and more online disputes. Include proofs of payment with it. These are documents like receipts and cancelled checks.

Fixing credit report errors also means you specifically spell out any charges you challenge. Make your dispute as crystal clear as possible. If you need to snail mail anything in, then use certified mail so that you will have proof that you sent in your dispute. Correct Equifax issues at: equifax.com/small-business-faqs/#Dispute-FAQs. Be specific about the concerns with your report.

Monitoring Reporting

Use Equifax Complete. It currently costs $19.95 per month, after an offer of 30 days for $4.95. See equifax.com/equifax-complete/Equifax.

Monitoring Your Business Credit Scores and Reports at the Major Business CRAs

Add monitoring for all three big CRAs together for a year and it costs $468 for Dun and Bradstreet, $189 for Experian, and $224.40 for Equifax (with the special). So this is for a grand total of $881.40!

Monitoring Your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax Credit Scores and Reports

You can monitor your business credit at Dun and Bradstreet, Equifax, and Experian through Credit Suite, for considerable savings over what it would cost you at those different credit bureaus. And this is all in one place! Credit Suite offers monitoring through the Business Finance Suite (through Nav). See what credit issuers and lenders see so you can directly improve your scores and get the business credit and funding you need. See suitelogin.com and creditsuite.com/monitoring.

Equifax Data Breach

No blog post on Equifax reporting would be complete without at least mentioning the recent data breach. The company does seem to be better about making sure that consumers can get monitoring without having to jump through quite so many expensive hoops.

In addition, any pursuit of the company through Congress seems to have ground to a screeching halt. However, that may be due to the 2020 pandemic and election.

Will Equifax’s current and former management end up back in the hot seat again? Only time will tell.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Equifax Reporting: Takeaways

Equifax gets much of its data from the Small Business Financial Exchange.

Monitoring reports from all three of the bigger business credit reporting agencies is expensive. But you can save 90% by monitoring your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax scores through Credit Suite.

The post Find Out About Equifax Reporting appeared first on Credit Suite.

New comment by CommentSoldDevs in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2021)"

CommentSold | Senior Software Engineer(s), Senior DevOps, Senior Product Designer, Senior Data Engineer | Full-time, Remote, US | https://people.commentsold.com/

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Our Product team stays close to our customers, building the tools to deliver on our promise to make running their business easier. We make decisions fast, and priorities change as we adapt to the needs of our industry so we welcome folks that relish in the challenges of pace. We believe in quick iteration and in the moment feedback, so we can work collectively to build the best team and product.

Senior Software Engineer: $125k-$150k/10% Bonus/Benefits
Senior DevOps Engineer: $160k-$180k/10% Bonus/Benefits
Senior Product Designer: $120k-$140k/10% Bonus/Benefits
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Want to talk to a human? Email britni.worley@commentsold.com

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12 Useful Open Graph Meta Tag Types for Facebook and Twitter

What You Need to Know About Open Graph Meta Tags for Total Facebook and Twitter Mastery

Marketers create a lot of content. Yes, content is king, but that king is powerless without followers.

So, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you want to reach a broader audience with your awesome new blog post?

Sharing on social media, of course. The massive audiences of sites like Facebook and Twitter make them some of the best sharing, but do you know how to optimize that outreach potential?

Open graph meta tags were designed to do just that. But what are they, why do they matter, and — most importantly — how do you use them?

What Is Open Graph and Why Was It Created?

Facebook introduced Open Graph in 2010 to promote integration between Facebook and other websites by allowing posts to become rich objects with the same functionality as other Facebook objects.

Put simply, it helps optimize Facebook posts by providing more control over how information travels from a third-party website to Facebook when a page is shared (or liked, etc.).

To make this possible, information is sent via Open Graph meta tags in the <head> part of the website’s code.

Now, other social media sites also are taking advantage of social meta tags.

Several other major platforms, including Twitter and LinkedIn, recognize Open Graph tags. Twitter actually has its own meta tags for Twitter Cards, but if Twitter robots cannot find any, Twitter uses Open Graph tags instead.

Why Marketers Should Care About Open Graph

Social media sites are the major drivers of most of the web’s traffic. Consequently, the ability to harness the power of social meta tags is a vital skill for today’s marketers.

Most importantly: open graph meta tags can have a massive impact on conversions and click-through rates.

Have you ever shared a link on Facebook only to find that the thumbnail was missing, or there was a totally different picture than you expected?

Knowing just a little about Open Graph tags can help you tackle these problems and improve your social media marketing.

Adding Open Graph tags to your website won’t directly affect your on-page SEO, but it will influence the performance of your links on social media, so that means it’s worth looking into. Let’s take a look at the most important meta tags for Facebook and how to optimize them for better sharing.

Understanding Facebook Open Graph Meta Tags

Facebook has several open graph meta tag types. Let’s cover the different types, then I’ll cover how to use them.

Facebook HTML Tags open graph meta tags guide

og:title

As you might guess, this is how you define your content’s title. It serves a similar purpose as the traditional meta title tag in your code. In fact, if Facebook doesn’t find the og:title tag on your page, it uses the meta title instead.

Keep in mind that the text shown on a Facebook feed is in bold and extremely eye-catching. It must be compelling, just like a good post title.

There is no limit on the number of characters, but it’s best to stay between 60 and 90. If your title is longer than 100 characters, Facebook will truncate it to only 88!

Example:

<meta property=”og:title” content=”Your eye-catching title here” />

og:url

This is how you set the canonical URL for the page you are sharing. What this means is that you define one page that all your shares will go to. It’s useful if you happen to have more than one URL for the same content (for example, using parameters). Important note: URL provided is not shown on Facebook newsfeed, only domain is visible.

Example:

<meta property=”og:url” content=”http://www.yourdomain.com” />

og:type

This is how you describe the kind of object you are sharing: blog post, video, picture, or whatever. The list to choose from is long. Here are some examples:

Web based:

  • website
  • article
  • blog

Entertainment:

  • book
  • game
  • movie
  • food

Place:

  • city
  • country

People:

  • actor
  • author
  • politician

Business:

  • company
  • hotel
  • restaurant

You can see the full list of types here.

This tag is important if your page has a “Like” button and represents a real-life object (like a book or a movie). It determines if your content will appear in a user’s interest section of her profile in the event she “Likes” it.

In most cases, you will use the “website” value, since what you are sharing is a link to a website. In fact, if you don’t define a type, Facebook will read it as “website” by default.

Example:

<meta property=”og:type” content=”website” />

og:description

This meta data descriptor is very similar to the meta description tag in HTML. This is where you describe your content, but instead of it showing on a search engine results page, it shows below the link title on Facebook.

Unlike a regular meta description tag, it won’t affect your SEO. (So, don’t spend too much time figuring out how to sneak in keywords.) However, it’s a good idea to make it compelling because you want people to click on it.

You are not limited to a character count, but it’s best to use around 200 letters. In some cases, depending on a link/title/domain, Facebook can display up to 300 characters, but I suggest treating anything above 200 as something extra.

Example:

<meta property=”og:description” content=”Your entertaining and descriptive copy here, if your meta description is good, use it.” />

og:image

This is the most interesting Open Graph tag for many marketers because a picture always helps content stand out. This is how you ensure that a particular thumbnail will be shown when your page is shared. It can be very helpful for your conversion rates.

Make sure you set the og:image you choose, otherwise Facebook will show something stupid like an unwanted ad banner scraped from the page, or nothing at all (as below). We definitely don’t want that!

FB no thumbnail open graph meta tags

It’s important to remember that if your page is static and you don’t use any sort of content management system (CMS) (like WordPress), you need to change the og:image manually for each of your pages.

If your website is controlled with a CMS and you installed the relevant plugin, the og:image tags are assigned automatically for each page. Look for the list of plugins further down.

The most frequently recommended resolution for an OG image is 1200 pixels x 627 pixels (1.91/1 ratio). At this size, your thumbnail will be big and stand out from the crowd. Just don’t exceed the 5MB size limit.

FB my full open graph meta tag example

If you use an image that is smaller than 400 pixels x 209 pixels, it will render as a much smaller thumbnail. It’s nowhere nearly as eye-catching.

FB little thumbnail for open graph meta tags

Keep in mind that the picture you use as an Open Graph image can be different from what you have on your page.

Why wouldn’t you leverage that opportunity to stand out even more?

For example, if your title is good, but the picture you are using is not very exciting (not an infographic or a good-looking person, etc.), consider using an image with a good line or two of copy instead (see example below).

One thing you need to remember if you do this: lace your text, or the most significant part of it, in the middle of the image. This matters because Facebook trims the sides of thumbnails.

FB thumbnail centred with text open graph meta tag

Example:

<meta property=”og:image” content=”http://www.yourdomain.com/image-name.jpg” />

Advanced Facebook Open Graph Tags

The Open Graph tags above are the ones you really need to know (og:description not so much, but it is useful). There are other, more advanced, tags you can use to provide even more in-depth specifications.

  • og:locale – defines the language, American English is the default
  • og:site_name – if the page (object) you are sharing is part of a larger network
  • og:audio or og:video – to add additional audio or video files to your object
  • fb:app_id – for linking to a Facebook application (e.g., FB Comments) with the object

Check Your Open Graph Tags

To make life easier, Facebook has created a tool called Sharing Debugger. It has two very helpful functionalities.

First, when you type in the link you want to check, it returns any errors and suggestions for OG tags, if there are any. You also can check what the og:image looks like, what your description is, and so on.

Second, it clears the Facebook cache. Imagine this: you post a link to Facebook, but then you see a mistake in the thumbnail, so you go back to your site and adjust the OG tags, and you post it again on Facebook.

Probably, nothing will happen. The thumbnail will stay the same. This is because of the cache. The Facebook Sharing Debugger will refresh the cache on your links after any adjustments, so remember to use it each time.

Facebook Object Debugger open graph meta tags

Open Graph Meta Tags for Twitter: Twitter Cards

Like Facebook’s Open Graph tags, Twitter Cards let you stand out from the crowd of tweets. They allow some additional content to be generated from your 140-character tweet.

This doesn’t show up on people’s feeds automatically, but it adds a little “View summary” button below the tweet.

Evolero 2 twitter open graph meta tag examples

When you click it:

Twitter Card Tags open graph meta tags example
Twitter Card Tags open graph meta tags example

It’s a tempting thing to click and provides a handy summary of the shared page—the Twitter Card. Surprisingly, not many sites take advantage of these tags. This is a big opportunity to make your tweets stand out in crowded Twitter feeds.

The best way to get them is to install one of the WordPress plugins. WordPress SEO by Yoast, mentioned above, does the job. If that’s not an option, ask your web developer and give him the ready-to-implement Twitter Card tags. Here’s how you’ll make them.

twitter:card

This required tag works in a similar way to og:type. It describes the type of content you are sharing. There are 7 options to choose from: summary, photo, video, product, app, gallery, and “large version” summary.

Depending on the type of content you choose, the link at the bottom of your tweet changes. You can get “View summary” for summaries, “View photo” for photos, etc. If this tag is not set, Twitter reads your link as a “Summary” by default.

Example:

<meta name=”twitter:card” content=”summary” />

twitter:title

This basically does the same thing as its OG counterpart. You specify the title for your article that will show up in bold. It’s smart to avoid repeating the same text you have in your tweet. Make the most of the space provided and let the two pieces of copy play on each other to reinforce the message. Use up to 70 characters.

Example:

<meta name=”twitter:title” content=”Your title here” />

twitter:description

Use this tag to write a descriptive lead to the page you are sharing. As with Open Graph tags, don’t focus on keywords because they won’t matter for your SEO. Create compelling copy that nicely complements your tweet and the title. Twitter limits this part to 200 characters.

Example:

<meta name=”twitter:description” content=”Your 200-character description here” />

twitter:url

This sets the canonical URL for the content you are sharing. (For more information, review the description for the equivalent Facebook Open Graph tag above.)

Example:

<meta name=”twitter:url” content=”http://www.yourdomain.com” />

twitter:image

Yes, you guessed it. This is how you set the picture to go with your tweet. Twitter allows two options, a card with a smaller or a larger picture.

You decide which one you want in the type tag. If you go for the large option, make sure it has a resolution of at least 280x150px and that the file size is not more than 1MB. You can consider using the same trick as with the Facebook thumbnail: add some text to the image to boost the message.

Example:

<meta name=”twitter:image” content=”http://www.yourdomain.com /image-name.jpg” />

Request Approval from Twitter

Keep in mind that, before you can fully benefit from Twitter Cards, you need to request approval for your page from Twitter. Fortunately, this doesn’t take much time and can be done easily using their Card Validator. Once you get approval, Card Validator serves exactly the same purpose as the Facebook Sharing Debugger, allowing you to check your links before you commit.

Twitter Card Plugins

Just like with Facebook, there are plenty of plugins available for implementing Twitter Cards. Here are a few:

How to Implement Open Graph Meta Tags

How do you implement OG tags? Basically, they belong to the <head> part of your page’s HTML. If you don’t manage the code, you’ll need to ask your web developer for help. You can prepare the whole package yourself using the tips above to save his valuable time.

If you are using WordPress, just install one of the plugins that neatly implements the code for you. I like to use WordPress SEO by Yoast, but there is an official Facebook Plugin and others to choose from.

Wordpress SEO by Yoast for open graph meta tags

Here are other OG plugins/extensions/add-ons for:

Open Graph Meta Tags Conclusion

The final code for both Facebook and Twitter should look more-or-less like this:

final code screen open graph meta tags conclusion

It might seem a bit confusing, but luckily there are several tools that make the process easier — you don’t need to know how to code.

It’s surprising how few people optimize these tags. It’s worth doing because it helps you stand out and draw more clicks and views, and it can even help improve your SEO —all things that lead to more profit.

Have you implemented open graph meta tags? How has it impacted your site?

Indy to fete Sato during introductions for '20 win

To help give Takuma Sato his due, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will break from tradition Sunday and single out Sato during driver introductions for his 2020 victory, when there were no fans in attendance. The post Indy to fete Sato during introductions for '20 win appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals … Continue reading Indy to fete Sato during introductions for '20 win

New comment by heythisisom in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2021)"

Dive | SDET 2 | India | Remote | Full Time | https://www.letsdive.io/

Dive is a fun space for remote teams where team members can socialize. You can see who’s online, call a group, play games, watch movies together, or bond on common interest areas. You can talk, screen share, and do video chat with a click.

We are growing rapidly and are looking for a SDET to join our early stage engineering team. We are seeking someone who has experience building automation test frameworks and executing extensive test strategies across both Frontend and Backend components of web applications. You’ll be responsible for placing guardrails for the dev team to build quality software products and to makesure the platform is reliable, scalable and of high-quality for thousands of people using dive during their everyday lives.

We’re a relatively small team of about 4 people – meaning your work will have a lot of impact. We truly encourage being yourself at work and it shows in the creative code we write 🙂

Our Customers love us. Our users are from 32+ countries and teams from Facebook, Google, Gitlab, Uber, Airtable etc. who absolutely love using Dive.

We use: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, gRPC, Django, Go, Node.js, Cassandra, MariaDB, Redis, React, Redux, Javascript

If you are interested in joining our small and passionate team drop me an e-mail to om[at]letsdive[dot]io – come chat about what we’re doing, or if you have questions!

More Info: https://www.notion.so/letsdive/SDET-2-544a5597a41a489ba983f5…

Etleap (YC W13) Is Hiring VP of Product Marketing

VP of Product Marketing We are looking for a product marketer with previous top-down product marketing experience from a startup who is ready to step up and lead product marketing at Etleap. About Etleap Etleap’s mission is to transform the way businesses drive analytics projects. We started Etleap out of frustration with the exorbitant amounts …

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