How would you know if a major supplier of yours is planning to go out of business?What steps are you taking for minimizing business risk?Are you having trouble deciding whether to do business with a company?These are all important questions to address and conducting small business credit checks offer a viable solution that will help you make better-informed financial decisions. Why business credit checks?We all know that knowledge is power and there are many reasons why you want to have power when it comes to making business decisions. As a business owner it's critical to minimize your risk as much as possible especially when extending credit to customers. Some of the typical ways include requiring a down payment on orders and offering terms as low as ten days but these steps alone do not cover as much ground as you could with a business background check.Here are ten compelling reasons for you to conduct business credit checks:1) Have full confidence in deciding whether you should to do business with a company by receiving complete business background information.2) Protect your business from customers or suppliers who may be suffering financial or legal trouble. 3) Get a clear picture of a company's business practices by viewing its banking, trade and collection history. This will give you greater insight into how the company manages its finances.4) Before granting a credit increase to an existing customer you can review the risk factors to avoid any future surprises.5) Quickly determine whether you can make a credit decision by knowing if a company has past liens, judgments, and bankruptcies.6) Find out what your credit position will be prior to extending credit to customers by viewing the company's Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings.7) Ensure that your key suppliers will be around to continue supplying your company the products/services it needs.8) Avoid the hassle and cost of collection procedures by making better-informed financial decisions.9) Monitor your own company credit to manage what decisions other creditors and suppliers will make about your payment terms, credit lines, and interest rates.10) Stay on top of what your competitors are doing by monitoring their credit.You can definitely benefit by conducting business credit checks but you have to know what to look for when choosing a business credit reporting service. For starters you'll want to consider the size of its database, reporting tools, accessibility, and reporting frequency. The two largest repositories in the country are Dun and Bradstreet and Corporate Experian.