When you review a credit application on Nuvo, you can explore the applicant's financial history through insights from multiple data sources, including Creditsafe, Equifax, and Dun and Bradstreet. This article focuses on what you'll find in a Creditsafe report specifically.
Summary
The Creditsafe report opens with an overview of the applicant's business — its legal name, registered address, date established, website, and other identifying details such as its Secretary of State registration number and industry classification. Where the business is part of a larger organization, this overview can also surface its corporate structure, including parent companies, subsidiaries, and ultimate beneficial owners.
Trade Payment Dashboard
Next is the Trade Payment Dashboard, a graphical view of the company's trade payment history. It shows active trade lines, total balances, and how consistently the business pays relative to its agreed terms — a measure Creditsafe calls Days Beyond Terms (DBT). This gives you a quick read on cash flow patterns and lets you compare the applicant's payment behavior against industry norms.
Credit Status
The Credit Status section translates that DBT data into a simple read: whether the applicant's payments are on time, delayed, or overdue. This is one of the clearest single indicators of how a business actually behaves with its existing creditors, separate from its overall score.
Credit Rating & Score
Creditsafe scores the business on a 0–100 scale, weighing its payment history, financial data, and public records, and translates that score into a rating band:
71–100 — Very Good: strong creditworthiness
51–70 — Good: solid creditworthiness
30–50 — Creditworthy: acceptable, standard risk
21–29 — Credit Against Collateral: elevated risk; consider requiring collateral or other safeguards
0–20 — Caution: extend credit at your discretion
A business may also come back with "No Rating" if its financial statements are too old, or if it's been liquidated, dissolved, or has a petition filed against it — worth a closer manual look if you see this.
Limit Recommendation
Based on the applicant's score and financial position, Creditsafe also provides a recommended credit limit. This isn't just derived from the score — it factors in the business's net worth, working capital, net cash flow from operations, debtor and cash holdings, and (for larger companies) turnover. The recommendation is a starting point endorsed by many trade credit insurers, but the final decision is always yours, so choose whatever limit feels right for your relationship with the business.
Negative Information
Towards the end of the report, you'll find any negative information on file for the company: bankruptcies (Creditsafe reports these for up to roughly 9 years), tax liens, and lawsuits or judgments (reported for up to roughly 6 years). These windows are set by Creditsafe's own reporting standards and can vary by record type and jurisdiction, but their presence is often the single biggest red flag in an otherwise clean report.
Need help?
Our team is always happy to help. Reach out to Nuvo Support at support@nuvo.com or contact your Account Manager anytime with questions about your Creditsafe reports.