The Credit tab allows you to track your customer's credit report and credit score information over time.
The information you enter in this section may depend on the database or service you and your customer use to pull your customer's report (TransUnion Direct, Annualcreditreport.com, etc.).
AnnualCreditReport.com, for instance, provides access to the three credit agencies' reports (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) but no credit scores. Additionally, many online credit monitoring services provide the Vantage Score, rather than the FICO Score - it's important to understand which report and score you and your customer are looking at, and enter that information in the appropriate fields below.
Entering Credit Information:
To add a New Credit Report, click on the blue plus sign in the upper right corner.
Enter information from the credit report including:
- Date Pulled - The date the credit report was pulled.
- Credit Status - Choose between Credit Visible (indicating that the customer has a credit report and/or score), Credit Invisible (indicating that the customer has no credit history on file), or Credit File Too Thin (indicating that the customer has some credit history, but enough to pull a credit report).
- FICO Score - Depending on the system you and your customer use to pull your customer's report, you may be able to view their FICO credit score (a number between 300 and 850). Leave this blank if you are not able to access the customer's FICO score, or if you indicated the Credit Status as Credit Invisible or Credit File Too Thin.
- Vantage Score - Depending on the system you and your customer use to pull your customer's report, you may be able to view their Vantage credit score (a number between 300 and 850). Leave this blank if you are not able to access the customer's Vantage Score.
- Agency - Choose between the three credit reporting agencies, TransUnion, Equifax or Experian. Your customer's credit reports may differ between the three agencies, so it is important to log each agency's report separately. Additionally, the FICO Score and the Vantage Score will contain different scores for each agency.
- Review Results - Select what has been identified after reviewing the credit report. You may choose No dispute, Outdated/incorrect information, or Identity theft.
- Dispute Status - Indicate whether the customer wishes to request changes or not, if there is a need for credit reporting agencies to make changes to the report, if the request for the credit reporting agencies have been notified to make changes, if the agencies have made changes, if changes have been made, or if no changes are necessary.
- Pulled By - Indicate whether the report was pulled by the customer, by you, or by both together.
Tracking Credit Over Time:
Each time you view a new or updated report and score with your customer in subsequent meetings, add the new credit report into the platform. This will allow you to track their credit progress over time.
NOTE: Clicking the Copy Previously Entered Data button WILL NOT copy any credit line items from previous months (like it does for Assets, Debts, and Spending Plan line items). This button does need to be clicked to create Date Records for all months in between the previous month and the current month.