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One of the most common forms of business financing that nearly every successful entrepreneur will encounter is credit cards. Business credit cards come in a wide variety of forms, including different lenders, different benefits, and different levels of security (there are both unsecured and secured credit cards). In this article, I’ll try and help you with finding and keeping the credit card that is right for you.
The first thing to know with business credit cards is that they do not pull from personal credit, but rather the credit of an independent, legal business entity. This means that you will first have to create one in order to qualify; if you haven’t yet gone through with your lawyer and established a business entity that has an EIN and can file with Dun & Bradstreet, now would be an excellent time for doing it. When you have your business registered, you will start generating small amounts of credit by virtue of paying your merchant trade lines.
However, one of the best ways to generate credit early on is with a secured business credit card. Business credit cards for new entrepreneurs are difficulty to find, as they will often require a sizable amount of personal credit that has to be taken in order to qualify. Getting a secured business credit card is simply much easier. You will need to put up some money in a savings account and maintain it, but the business card that they issue you will certainly be linked exclusively to your business credit. Once this is underway, you are all set! You will generate business credit properly and will have no difficulty in the future applying for bigger and better business credit cards.
