Checking the credibility of your new customer (Polish example)

Do you want to start working with a new customer? He offers attractive prices, good cooperation conditions? However, you want to make sure that it is a reliable business partner. Sometimes, the promising business cooperation in practice turns out not to be so attractive. The customer does not meet its payment obligations, the goods and services it offers do not meet the quality standards you agreed before signing the contract. It is worth minimizing the probability of such problems and verify the credibility of the potential customer before starting cooperation. How to do it?
There are several ways to verify:

1. KRS – National Court Register

2. Arrears in the Tax Office and Social Security

3. BIG – Economic Information Bureau

4. Exchange of debts

5. Business Intelligence

6. Opinions about the company on the Internet

7. References from companies with which a potential customer cooperates or cooperated

KRS – National Court Register (https://ems.ms.gov.pl/)
In the National Court Register, you confirms confirm that the company is actually registered. You can check what is the date of registration – the longer our candidate for a partner operates on the market, the more reliable it is. You will see who is the owner (or owners) of the company and who is authorized to represent it. PKD codes ( codes of business activity) will help you to verify if the area of ​​cooperation we talk about with the company is consistent with the scope of services that a company can perform according to the law. In the National Court Register, you can also find out whether the company’s activities are not suspended and whether bankruptcy proceedings are pending or not.
On this page you will also check whether the company is not listed in the Insolvent Debtors Register. Doing business with companies that are registered here is a very high risk.

Arrears in the Tax Office and Social Security
Information that the company is in arrears with its financial obligations tells us that we may be dealing with an unreliable financial payer.

The Tax Office and the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) issue a certificate of non-payment to them with payments respectively – concerning tax liabilities and social insurance contributions. An application for such a certificate may be submitted by the company concerned. So, in order to obtain such information, we must ask our customer to apply for a certificate from the Tax Office or Social Security. You can not check it independently, you have to ask your customer to provide clearance certificate.

BIG – Economic Information Bureau (Commercial Debt Register)
If you want read more click here