- 1). Apply for a corporate or small business credit card after you have incorporated your business. If this is your first business, it's possible that you will be showered in corporate credit card offers shortly after incorporating, particularly if you have relatively good personal credit.
- 2). If additional financing is necessary, approach a bank or other lending institution with your business plan and a request for a line of credit. Business lines of credit are significant risks for banks, and you will need to present a qualified business plan detailing why financing is needed, how long it is likely to be needed for and how risky the business venture is.
- 3). Building corporate credit is similar to the process of building personal credit. Pay back all business loans on time or early and try to carry low balances if any at all on business credit lines by the end of every payment period. Improving your personal credit will also improve your business credit rating.
- 4). Establish a corporate history to improve access to a business lines of credit. A profitable history of more than two years will greatly increase the business' access to credit. In addition, it may be better to seek out lines of trade credit before looking for more general credit lines that can be used to pay for anything. Trade credit is usually used for trade supplies and inventory but can't be used for real estate costs, wages or taxes.
- 5). Consider purchasing a business already in operation rather than starting a new one. As long as the business itself is the entity establishing the line of credit, the longer a business has been in operation profitably, the easier it will be to acquire a line of credit to finance continuing operations or simply to insulate it from risk.
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