A lot of small to medium-sized business owners use credit cards in course of business. The problem is, many make the mistake of their personal credit cards.
There are a couple of major problems with this:
• First, if you use your personal credit cards for your business you are blurring the line between business and personal finances. The better separation you can achieve between your business finances and personal finances, the better off you will be. For this reason, a business credit card in your business name is the best route.
• Second, using your personal credit cards for your business puts your personal credit at risk. If the debt belongs to the business, shouldn’t it be on the business’s credit?
Most people don’t think this is a big deal until they run into problems and no longer have their personal credit to fall back on.
The recession of 2008 put many business owners behind the proverbial “eight ball” with their personal credit and hopefully we’ve learned from our mistakes.
Maybe you’re thinking that your business won’t struggle, or that you don’t use credit cards much anyways. What’s the point, then?
Using a business credit card in your business does have some real advantages aside from the two big ones above. For example:
1. Streamline operations and automate expense tracking. Paying expenses can be much easier to manage with a business credit card, and reports can be generated monthly or annually in many cases to help categorize and analyze expenses.
2. Business cards have “rewards” programs too! If you have a lot of regular monthly expenses for your business that can be paid with a rewards card, you could easily get $500 to $1000 per year (or more) in cash rewards, or even free airline tickets if you use a travel rewards card.
3. Manage employee spending. Business credit cards can be set up to have spending limits for employees, which can aid in managing expenses for in-the-field employees.
4. Using business credit cards helps you build credit for your BUSINESS, which is of utmost importance in today’s economy.
As you can see, there are several big advantages to using an actual business credit card for your business.
A helpful hint for those wishing to establish business credit:
Try to get approved based on your business’s creditworthiness rather than your personal creditworthiness.
This means avoid providing your social security number on credit applications for your business credit card. If you don’t get approved based on your business credit alone, then you can try applying for a business secured credit card. I know of circumstances where a business put down $300 and received a business secured credit card for $1,000. This card also reported to the business credit bureaus and helped the business owner establish business credit.
There are a host of ways to start building business credit that is separate from your personal credit. I’d be more than happy to discuss this topic with anyone interested.
About the Author - Kim Carpentier is Owner and General Manager of Valley Credit Builders (www.valleybusinesscredit.com). He is using his 35 years of successful business ownership, and transition, to help small business owners build business credit so they can separate the financial responsibilities between business and personal credit. He specializes in helping business owners establish excellent business credit scores and then leverages those scores to access cash and credit for their businesses without their personal guarantees. The Business Credit and Funding Suite is the leading business cash and credit access system in the world today.
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