Credit Network Help Guide

Opt–In Process (for Administrators)

The administrator for the workspace must first go through the opt–in process to allow the users on the workspace access to the Credit Network. To opt–in to the Credit Network, admins should select the DNBi Credit Network link on the Admin Tab and follow these three steps:

  1. Click the checkbox for ‘Enable Participation in the Credit Network’. This will cause D&B’s Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) to appear. Review the Ts&Cs carefully to ensure that your company can comply with the rules set forth for the Credit Network. Selecting ‘I Accept’ and pressing the ‘OK’ button constitutes opting into the Credit Network. Please note that other users in the workspace will need to review and accept the Ts & Cs before gaining access.
  2. Select the industry to which your company belongs, and what other companies you do not wish to participate with (e.g. restrict due to competitive reasons).
  3. Establish privacy settings for users in your workspace, including whether or not to allow users to show their company name, their user name, email ID, or role within the company.
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Requesting Trade Experiences

You can request trade experiences from other members of the Credit Network by selecting the ‘Request’ icon in the Credit Network (Beta) tab.

On the Request Trade Experiences form, select the company of the inquiry by clicking the ‘Find Company’ button. On this screen, enter as much information as possible (the company name is required) and select Get Results. Choose the company from the list provided.

Next, select the appropriate target to receive the request using one of three options:

  1. As a list of companies you create (see below for Creating a My Network List) as well as companies from D&B’s database.
  2. Companies within an industry and/or state
  3. One or more specific companies from D&B’s database

The more companies that are chosen to receive the request, the greater the likelihood of a response. Only companies that have opted into into the Network will receive any given request.

Before submitting the request, review the request, provide a due date for the response. D&B defaults the response to 5 days, however you can choose any date from 1 day up to 30 days in the future.

Once submitted, responses to your request can be tracked from the Credit Network (Beta) tab. Locate the request in the ‘Responses to My Requests’ section. Pending requests will be shown as ‘Waiting’, whereas Expired requests will be highlighted in red and shown as ‘Expired’. If a user responds to a request, this causes the item to appear in BOLD with a status of ‘Unread’.

When a response to a request has been submitted, click on the ‘Last Post’ column to view this response. If multiple responses are submitted for a request, the ‘# of Responses’ column will show the number of responses received. Clicking the number in this column will then take you to a list of responses where you can select any one of the responses to view.

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Requests to Share my Experiences

When you receive a request to share your experiences from another Credit Network member, you will see that request appear in your ‘Requests to Share My Experiences’ section on the Credit Network (Beta) tab. If you have information on the requested company, and choose to respond to the request, click the green icon (Share Trade Experience) in the ‘Actions’ column.

Selecting this icon will cause the Share Trade Experiences form to appear [Note – This form can also be accessed to provide an unsolicited submission to the Credit Network by just selecting the &lsqo;Share’ icon on the Credit Network tab]. On this form are ten (10) fields for you to complete. Only the first two fields are mandatory for submission however

  1. Status of Relationship (*) — Required
  2. Length of Relationship (*) — Required
  3. High Credit
  4. Amoung Owing
  5. Amount Past Due
  6. Amount Current
  7. Days Beyond Terms (*)
  8. Date Last Sale
  9. Payment Trends (*)
  10. Unearned Discounts (*)

The fields marked with an asterisk have drop–down menus with the following options:

Length of Relationship

Status of Relationship

Days Beyond Terms

Payment trends

Unearned discounts

After filling out ‘Status of Relationship’ and ‘Length of Relationship’, and completing as many of the other non–required fields on the form, press the ‘Submit’ button to send your response to the requestor. You may also choose to preview your entry before submitting to the Credit Network, simply choose the Preview button on the form.

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Expired Requests

An expired request can be re–submitted by selecting the ‘Resend Trade Experience Request’ icon to the right of the expired item on the Responses to My Requests section. You may want to consider both the due date of the original request and the distribution list used, as the original request may have been sent to a narrow audience or not given enough time for users to respond.

Also, during this ‘Beta’ period, it is important to note that requests may expire without a response because there are a limited number of users on the network and those DNBi users that could potentially answer a request may not have opted in to participate with the Credit Network yet.

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Creating a My Network List

D&B gives users the option to create a list of other companies with which to exchange trade information. From the My Network Lists section of the Credit Network tab, select ‘Create New List’. This will open a dialog box where you can first name the list, and then select specific companies to add to your list. Note that these lists can be updated at any time by clicking the Edit List icon, and even deleted after they have been setup by clicking the Delete List (‘X’) icon.

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