One of the most important questions a business can ask itself is "How quickly am I getting paid?" 

Experian’s Payment Performance Scheme is a membership scheme that involves members sharing ledger data each month. In return, you receive monthly updates to the companies you are monitoring that helps you to understand your customers’ payment patterns, compare how you are being paid against other members, diagnose the quickest and the slowest payers, identify customers experiencing cash flow problems, monitor potential customers’ payment habits, and helps you protect your business from bad debt.

As more companies file abbreviated accounts at Companies House, it becomes more difficult for risk assessors to form opinions about the stability of companies. However, if payment performance information is available, this can greatly affect their overall credit rating, which is then updated more frequently. 

Having collected sales ledger data for over ten years, Experian has the largest database of up to date commercial payment data with over 6,500 ledgers and 20 million commercial transactions processed monthly - the equivalent of £12 billion worth of transactions every month. 

You need to agree to the Payment Performance terms and conditions in order to receive updates. Sign up can be completed from within the Credit Guardian software.