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A credit check is not
one search. It is
seven.

Typing a company name into a search box is not a credit check. A credit check that protects you covers seven areas of the public record. Here is each one and why it earns its place.

1 / IDENTITY & STATUS

Match the 8-character company number, not just the name, and confirm the status: Active, Dormant, Liquidation, Dissolved. A dissolved company cannot contract with you.

2 / FILED ACCOUNTS

Five years, read as a trend: profit direction, net assets, gearing, cash. One good year proves nothing; three years of direction does.

3 / THE COURT REGISTER

County Court Judgments show whether other creditors had to force payment. Count, amounts, dates, and satisfied or not. See what a CCJ means.

4 / INSOLVENCY EVENTS

Winding-up petitions, administration and strike-off notices from The Gazette. An active petition outranks everything the accounts say.

5 / CHARGES

Security granted over the company's assets, usually to lenders. Heavy charges mean the assets you rely on are already spoken for.

6 / THE PEOPLE

Directors' histories across other companies: repeated dissolved or liquidated entities are a pattern worth a closer look. See phoenix directors.

7 / FILING BEHAVIOUR

Late accounts and overdue confirmation statements are among the earliest distress signals, visible the moment a deadline passes. A company that manages Companies House badly usually manages its debts the same way.

What to do with the result

A credit check without a decision rule is paperwork. Set the rule before you search: what score or rating means normal terms, what means shortened terms or a reduced limit, and what means payment up front. Then let the check answer the question instead of confirming what you hoped. The Black Flag Alert profile gives you both halves: the R-Score and risk rating as the summary, and every underlying signal if you want to see why.

When to re-check

A credit check describes the company on the day you run it. Companies deteriorate between checks, which is why ongoing customers deserve monitoring, not just onboarding. The events that change a decision, CCJs, petitions, overdue filings, appear on the register in real time, and a watchlist catches them as they happen rather than at the next annual review.

The common mistake
Checking once, at the start, and assuming nothing changes. Most bad debts come from customers who were fine when you onboarded them.

All seven areas of the check, on every profile, free. And watchlists for the period after.

Create Free Account → Search a Company