The first thing to check for accuracy when you get your credit report is:

Name

Direction

Phone (if listed)

Place of employment (if listed)

Credit Score *must be at the top or toward the top)

Commercial lines: 

You will see the creditor’s name and below (or next to) your account number. Very near the beginning, you should see a Date the account was opened. Scrolling to the right, you’ll see a High Credit (the highest balance that item has ever had), Credit Line (your maximum credit availability on that item), and Current Balance. Then moving further to the right you’ll see a DLT/DLP (everyone calls it Date of Last Transaction/Payment somehow – most will use transaction from what I’ve seen) and a DLA/DLR (Date of Last Action /report). If there is a term loan as a fixed amount that is slow for you and you are scheduled to make X payments at $X.XX, you will find it on this line somewhere. It will say something like 48 months/$250. You should also see something showing what status you are in on the account (ie I-Individual and C-Cosigner).

Monthly Aging:

So you should see something like this:

211111111114

311111111111

This is a 24-month report on your payment history. The way to read this is that the top line on the left is the last report from the creditor. This monthly report is correlated with the DLA/DLR. Which means this is the last time the creditor reported your account to the bureau. This date is not always this month’s date; Some creditors have (or used to have) quarterly reporting schedule contracts with the agencies. When you go into default, when the creditor may have financial problems, or when a creditor is bought; you may see a delay in these dates and reporting. Then, from the top left, count down in months to the right to the end of the line. Then start again at the bottom left and count to the right.

Example, using the above as a reference:

The 2 would represent this month (assuming the DLA is 10/09), then the 4 would be 11/08, then the 3 would be 10/08, and finally the 1 at the end of the bottom right line would be 07/11. It is an aging of 24 months of your account.

What do these numbers mean?

1 = paid as agreed (you are no more than 29 days past due, from the date of the creditor’s billing cycle, which means that if your bill is due on the 15th, you have paid every month before the 14th of the following month) .

2=30 days late (paid after the 15th of the following month but before the 14th of the following month)

3=60 days late

4=90 days late

5=120 days late

6=150 days late

9 = charge off

0 = too new to qualify or no activity that month

X = no activity, closed, cancelled, canceled (this is quite a wide range but relevant to the current state of your account. I’ve seen it on new cards meaning no activity, I’ve seen it loaded) off means closed and dead card in collections. So it really depends on your card status when you’re looking at this.)

 Classification:

You’ll see a rating on each line item, either at the front (far left) or at the bottom (far right). There are 2 aspects of the rating system.

1.Account type:

O = Open line of credit, can fluctuate up and down (typically these are exclusive loans that you can continually draw money from as you pay it back, or an equity line that works the same way); normally this is a loan.

R = Revolving, not to be confused with O because they are usually credit cards. They work much like the O, but the O is usually a loan.

I = Installment, this has a fixed loan amount and cannot normally be used as an O or and R. The more you pay this, the lower the balance, but you cannot increase this loan. Typically these are mortgages, car loans, and household items.

M = Monthly, this status is not used much anymore, but it is more or less the same as I.

2.Number qualification:

This is a bit more difficult to define. Branches will rate their performance in that line of business. The X below represents the account type as described above.

X0 – means too new to qualify

X1 – best possible rating

X2 – country afternoon occasionally

X3 – has some late countries

X4 – country late more often

x5 – collections

X9 – Cancellation

That is practically all. There is a lot of information here, but you can use this as a reference guide. The credit report you request must include a complete definition of terms. There are a few other items thrown in there that I may have mentioned, but those are rare cases.