User:Colin smith UK/Company monitoring

--Colin smith UK (talk) 12:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)== Corporate Company and Business Monitoring ==

All Companies in the UK with a limited liability have traditionally been credit checked, by way of purchasing and appraising the company accounts that had been filed at Companies House. Limited Companies through Company Law, (which has been in place for over 150 years) require such companies to file their financial accounts at Companies House. All documents filed are treated as information that is in the public domain and available to anyone.

Company Reports

Credit reference agencies also known as credit rating agencies use a company's financial accounts to construct the backbone of a 'Company Report', the accounts information is transcribed into electronic data, which is then subjected to various algorithms to calculate a credit limit and credit rating. Other information included which can affect the limit and rating of a company is; the amount of years a company has been trading, the number of current directors and other directorships they hold, CCJ's (County Court Judgement), the industry in which a company trades, many agencies now also include invoice payment history regarding how often a company pays its invoices within the agreed terms, this data is at best limited to the number of companies who provide such information to the credit reference agencies. Even bad press can also affect a company's credit status. Company reports are no doubt essential when checking a company's current status prior to making any important decisions, but a company's standing can often change very quickly and notification of any important changes immediately as they occur is essential for keeping a tight control on potential credit risks.

Company Monitoring

With today's technology 'Monitoring a Company' for any changes that could affect its credit rating or potential risk has become as much an essential part of credit control, as the company report itself. Companies who have an interest in many companies are now able to receive daily updates of changes to monitored companies with assessed risk potential. These changes include all aspects of the information which makes up the company report, allowing credit controllers to immediately reconsider a company's credit worthiness upon the detection of any anomalies.

Informed of potential risk factors at an early stage can have a dramatic affect on a company's cash flow in two ways. Firstly it can often prevent being exposed to a higher level than may normally have had occurred and secondly knowing the level to approach any outstanding bad debt at the correct time, can make the difference of receiving payment or not. On many occasions companies with obvious signs of failing, enter into receivership long before being pursued for much of their outstanding debt.