Your business can have its own credit file.
Most owners fund their business on personal credit because nobody ever told them there was another option. There is. Business Access Now is where you build it — and this page explains what it is before you go anywhere near a sign-up.
The assessment, and what it actually tells you.
This is the part people mean when they ask whether they qualify. It is a readiness assessment inside the platform — questions about your business, answered by you. It does not pull your credit, it is not an application, and nothing about it obligates you to anything.
What it looks at
How the business is structured, how long it has operated, how it banks, what it earns, what it already owes, what industry it is in, and what state its business credit file is in.
What you get back
An Access Stage from 1 to 5, and — the part that actually matters — the specific gaps sitting behind that placement, in the order worth fixing them.
What happens next
At Stage 5 a preliminary funding application opens for review by the funding team. Below that, you get the work list instead. Neither outcome is a credit decision.
What you generally need in place first.
You can run the assessment at any point — finding out that these are missing is itself a useful result. But these are the basics nearly every funding option expects, and they are what the early Access Stages are measuring:
- ✓ A registered business entity with its own EIN — not a sole proprietorship trading under your own name
- ✓ A business bank account, with business income actually running through it
- ✓ A business address and phone that belong to the business
- ✓ Any licences or registrations your industry and state require
- ✓ Documented revenue, if you are going for a revenue-based option — some startup pathways do not require it
- ✓ A clear picture of what the business already owes, and to whom
- ✓ An awareness that the owner’s personal credit may still be reviewed, especially early on
Meeting these is not an approval and not a guarantee of anything. They are the baseline that makes a file readable. The funding page goes through the products and what lenders weigh in more detail.
The trap almost every owner starts in.
To get funding, a lender wants to see the business has borrowed before and paid it back. To have borrowed before, you needed funding. Most owners break that circle by putting everything on their own personal credit — and it works right up until it doesn't. Utilisation climbs, the personal score drops, and now the business still has no credit of its own and the owner has damaged the file they were leaning on. Building the business its own file is how you stop running it out of your own pocket.
What business credit actually is.
It is a credit file that belongs to the business rather than to you. It is built under the business's own identifiers, it is reported to business credit bureaus rather than consumer ones, and it is evaluated on its own when the business asks to borrow.
Personal credit
- › Belongs to you, tied to your Social Security number
- › Held at the consumer bureaus
- › Can only be pulled with a permissible purpose
- › Built by your own accounts and payment history
- › Follows you whatever happens to the business
Business credit
- › Belongs to the business, tied to its EIN
- › Held at the business bureaus, which are separate
- › Generally open for a supplier or lender to look up
- › Built by accounts in the business name that report
- › Stays with the business and can outlast your involvement
The two files are separate, but they are not sealed off from each other. A personal guarantee, and some business accounts, can still reach your personal file. Which ones do is something to check before you open them, not after.
Three bureaus, three separate files.
Your business does not have one business credit score the way you have one personal score. It has a file at each bureau that reports it, and those files can disagree — because an account that reports to one does not necessarily report to the others.
- › Dun & Bradstreet — identifies businesses by D-U-N-S number, which is free to request and which many suppliers and contracting processes expect you to already have. Its payment-behaviour scoring is built from how promptly reported accounts are paid.
- › Experian Business — builds a file from reported trade accounts, public records and business background, often without you doing anything to open it.
- › Equifax Business — maintains its own business file, again fed by the accounts and records that choose to report to it.
Each bureau sets its own scoring and changes it when it wants to. We don't publish score thresholds or promise a number, because nobody outside those bureaus can.
Six access paths, read on their own terms.
Capital is one of six. The platform reads your business against each path separately, because funding readiness and a registration status are not the same kind of question and do not average into anything true. There is no single overall rating, by design.
- › Money Access — the capital and funding path. Where you stand for the capital you are working toward, what is holding it back, and what to fix first. The platform scores this lane internally, and that reading is what your Access Stage reflects.
- › Government Contracts — the steps that prepare a business for federal and state contracting opportunities.
- › Commercial Real Estate — how prepared the business looks to pursue a commercial property deal, and what is still missing.
- › Business Acquisition — how prepared you look to buy a business, at the point you have actually reached.
- › Certification Access — WOSB, MBE, DBE, 8(a) and state or local programs: what each publishes, what your file already covers, and where you have got to.
- › Supplier Access — corporate and institutional supplier programs, what buyers publish, and where each relationship stands.
What you work with.
- › Business File — one record of your business that every path reads, so you answer it once rather than six times.
- › Access Map — all six paths side by side, and where you stand in each one that has something to read. A path nobody has asked you about says so instead of showing a zero.
- › Next Steps — an ordered action list across the paths you are working on, each item labelled with the path it belongs to.
- › Betty AI — your guide inside the platform. Betty explains your own position in plain language, so a reading is something you understand rather than something you have to interpret alone.
- › Money Access score — the platform’s internal reading of the capital and funding path, and what your Access Stage reflects. It covers that lane only. It is an internal readiness measure, not a lender decision and not a credit score.
- › Document Checklists — what each path asks for, and what you have marked ready.
- › Business Marketplace — resources and providers for filling the gaps the map finds, checked against the published source.
- › Capital Roadmap — capital and credit education, in order, inside the product.
Getting started is four short steps — your business, your ownership, your money roughly, and what you are working toward. No documents at that stage.
These are capabilities inside one platform, not six separate products.
How you actually use it.
Get access through an authorized account
The platform is a separate authenticated system from this website. Reaching this page does not create access — an account does.
Run the readiness assessment
Answer questions about the business. You come out with an Access Stage and, more usefully, the list of what is holding that stage down.
Work the foundation
Entity, EIN, business bank account, business address and phone, licences, a real web presence, D-U-N-S registration. Dull, and non-negotiable.
Open accounts that report
An account only builds the file if it reports to a business bureau. Plenty don't. This is the step most people get wrong on their own.
Build depth, then reassess
A file with history and more than one reporting account reads very differently from a file with one new account on it. Re-run the assessment as the file changes.
Who this is for, and who it isn't.
This is for you if
- ✓ You have been funding the business on personal credit and want that to stop
- ✓ You have been declined and were never told what was actually wrong
- ✓ Your business is newer and you want the foundation built in the right order
- ✓ You want to know where you stand before you apply anywhere
- ✓ You are willing to do the unglamorous parts
This is not for you if
- › You need money this week — building a file is not an emergency tool
- › You want a guaranteed amount by a guaranteed date, which nobody can honestly sell you
- › You want someone else to do all of it while you are not involved
- › You are looking for personal credit repair — that is a different page
Business credit FAQ.
How long does it take to build business credit?
Longer than the people selling timelines want to tell you, and it depends entirely on where you are starting, how fast you complete the foundation and whether the accounts you open actually report. We don’t publish a number of days, because a number of days is a promise about third parties we do not control.
Do I need an LLC or corporation, or can I stay a sole proprietor?
A sole proprietorship is generally not treated as separate from you, which is the whole thing business credit depends on. A registered entity with its own EIN gives the business an identity that can carry a file. Which entity type is right for your situation is a question for an attorney or accountant, not a website.
Can I build business credit if my personal credit is bad?
You can start the foundation regardless — entity, EIN, bank account, address, D-U-N-S, accounts that report. What personal credit affects is which accounts and funding options will approve you along the way, because many still look at the owner. The two tracks run in parallel, which is why Expert Dispute exists alongside this.
Does business credit show up on my personal credit report?
Usually not — that separation is the point. But it is not automatic, and it is not universal. Some business accounts report to consumer bureaus, and a personal guarantee can put you on the hook personally even when the account itself reports only to business bureaus. Check how an account reports before you open it.
Do I need a D-U-N-S number?
If you want a Dun & Bradstreet file, yes. It is free to request directly from D&B, and you should never pay a third party to get one for you. Many contracting and supplier processes assume you already have it.
Will business credit mean I never sign a personal guarantee again?
Not immediately, and possibly not ever on every product. A guarantee requirement tends to loosen as the business builds its own profile, revenue history and track record, but whether one is required on any specific offer is the lender’s decision. Treat reduced personal exposure as the direction, not as a promise.
How is this different from applying for funding?
This is the building side; funding is the asking side. The platform is where you work on the file and find out where you stand. The funding review is where a file that is ready gets prepared and submitted for consideration. You can do both, and plenty of people need the first before the second goes anywhere.
How do I get access to the platform?
Through an authorized account on the Business Access Now system, which is separate from this website. Landing on this page does not grant access, and nothing here collects your platform credentials.
Henny Lo and Business Access Now are not banks or lenders and do not make credit decisions. Nothing on this page is a guarantee of funding, approval, a credit score, a credit limit or a timeframe. Business credit bureaus, suppliers, lenders and providers each set their own criteria and change them at will. Entity and tax questions belong with a qualified attorney or accountant.
Build the business its own credit.
The foundation is not complicated. It is just specific, and it has to be done in order.
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