Keeping Business Credit and Personal Credit Separate

It’s important to keep your business and personal finances separate for a variety of reasons. One area where you’ll want to keep this separation as much as possible is in the area of credit. With that said, it can be difficult to get credit for a small business without a personal guarantee or cosigner.rnMost of the time business credit cards cosigned by an owner will not show up on the owner’s personal credit report. Banks CAN report this data since the owner cosigns, but currently most of them don’t when the card is a business credit card for business use. But how can you avoid being personally liable for the business’s debts? Here are a couple of ideas that should help: 1. Don’t use the company credit card for long term financing. Use it, rather, for convenience. Make purchases and pay it off each month. In this way you will avoid as much as possible any risk to your personal credit. If you must use a business credit card to finance business expenses, use it wisely and for short term financing only. 2. Use the personally guaranteed business credit card as a building block. Use it to build credit, and work towards getting credit that does not have the personal guarantee requirement. Even small businesses can do this with some effort. 3. Utilize vendor credit and other credit resources (those that don’t require a personal guarantee or cosigner) to the greatest extent possible. If you must lean on the use of credit cards or other credit lines that have personal guarantees, make sure they are last in line.