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What Is a Good Credit Utilization Ratio?

Credit utilization is the total amount of your established credit limits that you are using. Whenever you make a purchase using a credit card or borrow against a credit line, your utilization goes up, and your available credit decreases.

The balance between the amount you owe and the amount of credit you have free is called your credit utilization ratio (CUR). CUR signifies your company’s fiscal strength to potential lenders and business partners. Experts generally agree that it is better to keep your balance below 30%; however, lower is better.

Why CUR Being Too High and Too Low Is Bad for Business

If your CUR is too high, it may mean you are “maxed out” on your cards and lack the means to cover your expenses. This over-leveraging is a red flag to creditors and will cause your credit score to drop.

However, it is also possible to go too low with your CUR. When it reaches zero, this could be another signal of fiscal mismanagement. It means you are not using any of your available credit and probably not making the most of your opportunities or making smart business decisions.

So what is a good credit utilization ratio? Is there an ideal number for which you should strive?

What Is the Ideal Credit Utilization Level?

So we know that a ratio of over 30% is too high, while 0% is too low.

Until you reach zero, lower ratios will continue to translate into higher credit scores. Therefore, a 30% utilization ratio is good, 20% is better, and under 10% is ideal. A good rule of thumb is to aim for single digits since consumers with the most substantial credit scores have an average credit utilization ratio of only 7%.

How to Calculate Your Credit Utilization Ratio

Rather than reporting your credit card debt as a dollar figure, a credit utilization ratio is expressed as a percentage. This number is calculated by dividing the amount that you owe on your credit accounts by your overall credit limit on these same accounts.

Assume you have a credit card with a spending limit of $20,000 and a current balance of $5,000. Your credit utilization ratio for this card is 25% (5,000 / 20,000 = 0.25).

If you have multiple credit accounts, be sure to add all of them together when making your calculation.

• Card #1 — $4,000 balance and $10,000 limit
• Card #2 — $2,000 balance and $10,000 limit
• Line of credit — $0 balance and $10,000 limit
• Total of all accounts — $6,000 balance and $30,000 limit
• $6,000 / $30,000 = 25% CUR

What the Ratio Means for Your Credit Score

As mentioned above, potential creditors can deduce a lot about your business’s financial health by looking at how much available credit is being used. For this reason, credit bureaus place a lot of weight on your credit utilization ratio in the credit scoring process.

There are multiple credit scoring models in use today; however, one of the most prominent is the FICO score. This number ranges between 300 and 850 and is used as a summary of your credit report.

FICO uses the following system to calculate your number:

• 35%: Payment history — Whether or not you pay your debts on time is the most crucial component in your score.
• 30%: Amounts owed — This is where your CUR comes into play, accounting for nearly one-third of your score.
• 15%: Length of credit history — The more credit history you have, the higher your score.
• 10%: Credit mix — A balanced blend of revolving and installment accounts is better than only having one type of account.
• 10%: New credit — Having too many new accounts indicates financial instability, which will trigger a drop in your credit score.

Now that you know how vital credit utilization is to your overall score let’s explore tips for improving your creditworthiness by getting your ratio in the ideal range.

How to Achieve a Good Credit Card Utilization Ratio

What can you do if your debt loads are pushing these calculations over the max? What is the best strategy to improve and maintain a good ratio? Here are some steps you can take:

• Pay down your balances — This is the most obvious way to influence your ratio calculations. Make it a priority to reduce how much you owe by paying more than the minimum due each month.
• Pay cash instead of charging it — If your ratio is already near or over the 30% limit, try to avoid using your credit cards for new purchases.
• Pay off your balance each month — Once your card is zeroed out, try to only use it for purchases you can pay for each month. Credit should not be used as a long-term loan but rather as a convenient, short-term resource.
• Keep revolving credit accounts open — If you pay off a card and don’t plan to use it again, you may think closing the account will help your credit score. It may surprise you to learn that exactly the opposite is true. When you close these accounts, your available credit limit goes down, and your CUR goes up.
• Keep using your cards — Try not to let your utilization disappear altogether. Use your cards responsibly, making small purchases that you pay off each month to maximize their impact on your credit score.
• Request higher credit limits — It may not occur to you to ask your card issuer for a credit limit increase if you don’t need it. However, raising your limit while paying off the balance is an effective way to widen the gap between these two numbers and improve your ratio.

Don’t get discouraged if your scores fail to register an immediate bump after implementing these steps. It often takes time to get your ratios into the ideal range. And even then, it can be another month before card issuers report your new lower balances to the credit bureaus.

What is the Revenued Business Card?

The Revenued Business Card is not a credit card, it’s a purchase of future receivables and utilizes revenue-based financing to provide a prepaid debit card. Although not a credit card, the Revenued Business Card can be used for purchases in store or online similarly to a business credit card. Funding is delivered on a just-in-time basis as card transactions occur. Instead of looking at traditional factors like a personal credit score or business credit score, Revenued looks at your business revenue to determine eligibility. Because of this, it can be an excellent option for business owners who have a limited business credit history or a poor or fair personal credit score.

What is revenue-based financing and what makes Revenued different from a credit card?

Traditional lenders like banks and other credit card companies look at a number of different factors when determining how much credit a business deserves. Usually, a large part of their decision making is based on the personal credit history of the business owner. Because of this, many business owners who have poor credit are unable to access capital through those companies. This is true even if their business is producing revenue or if the primary reason their personal credit score is poor is because they’ve used their own funding resources to build their business.

Revenue-based financing works differently. Instead of determining eligibility based on a business owner’s personal credit score, Revenued looks primarily at the revenue of the business itself. We purchase a portion of your future receivables at a discount in exchange for providing working capital to you when you need it fast.

Unlike many credit cards, the Revenued Business Card does not require a hard credit inquiry, so there is no temporary dip in the credit score of the business owner. Additionally, the card’s spending limit increases with a business’ revenue, making it a great option for businesses who are seeing rapid growth and need access to more funding for their operations.

Using the Revenued Business Card to Establish Your Business Credit History

Although the Revenued business card is not a credit card but a purchase of future receivables, it does report timely payments to business credit bureaus and can be used to establish or build an existing SBFE business credit profile. Many people are aware of their personal credit scores, but business credit scores are becoming more and more useful in accessing better rates, expanding available funding options, and improving a business’ credibility to future investment opportunities.