USE CASE · LEND & COLLECT

Check a business customer before you give it credit

When a business customer asks for 30 or 60 days to pay, you are lending to it. The API returns the register facts a credit team weighs, in one schema across 29 countries, and then watches the customer for you. Facts, not a score.

What a credit check needs, call by call

Wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers, factoring and pay-later companies all ask the same five questions before they extend terms. Each has a call, a price in credits and a coverage you should know before you build on it.

Filed accounts: where they exist

Accounts are the part of a credit file that varies most by country, so here it is without rounding. Full statements as filed for the UK (electronic filings, about three in four; small companies often file no profit and loss account), France (none for companies that declare their accounts confidential, about 45% of filers), Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Latvia and Finland (digitally filed statements only). Headline figures from the filed accounts of Estonia, Romania and Lithuania; companies supervised by the Superintendencia de Sociedades in Colombia; SEC filers in the US. Filed accounts of listed companies only in Spain, Poland, Croatia, Belgium and Brazil. Australia has tax records for large companies instead. Figures come in the filing currency and in euro at the ECB annual average of the fiscal year. In the UK, Denmark and Sweden the accounts come from digital filings, which mostly small and medium-sized companies make: several large groups have none held, so try your own customer list on the trial first. The details are on the company financials page.

One customer, start to finish

A credit file for one customer in three calls. Store the answer with the date: a credit decision should show what was known when it was made.

import requests

BASE = "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api"
H = {"Authorization": "Bearer rk_live_your_api_key"}

def credit_file(country: str, number: str) -> dict:
    """The register facts behind a credit limit for one business customer."""
    r = requests.get(f"{BASE}/companies/search", headers=H,
                     params={"country": country, "company_number": number})
    r.raise_for_status()
    hits = r.json()["data"]
    if not hits:
        return {"number": number, "decision": "refer", "reason": "not in the register"}
    c = hits[0]
    out = {"name": c["company_name"], "status": c["status"], "founded": c["founding_date"]}

    # Filed accounts (Scale plan, 25 credits). A null figure was not stated in the filing; it is never zero.
    f = requests.get(f"{BASE}/companies/{c['id']}/financials", headers=H, params={"years": 3})
    if f.ok:
        out["accounts"] = [{"year": s["fiscal_year"], "type": s["statement_type"], "revenue": s["figures"]["revenue"],
                            "equity": s["figures"]["equity"], "total_liabilities": s["figures"]["total_liabilities"]}
                           for s in f.json()["data"]["statements"]]

    # Published corporate insolvency procedures, fifteen markets (2 credits)
    i = requests.post(f"{BASE}/insolvency/check", headers=H,
                      json={"items": [{"country": country, "company_number": number}]})
    i.raise_for_status()
    out["insolvency"] = i.json()["data"][0]["status"]   # found, none, ambiguous or error
    return out

print(credit_file("NO", "923609016"))

For a whole customer book, send the insolvency check in batches of 100 and resolve the numbers first with POST /companies/lookup; each item counts as one request, and a batch larger than what is left of your allowance is refused up front instead of half-run.

After the limit: keep watching

A limit is only as good as the facts behind it on the day you set it. Subscribe the customers you give terms to, and an alert arrives when the company changes status, is dissolved, appears on a sanctions list or files a register event (in Spain the full stream from the BORME, including insolvency; in the UK Companies House filings and Gazette notices). Monitoring covers every live country except France and costs no credits.

# Once the limit is set, watch the customer (0 credits; alerts in GET /monitor,
# or POSTed to your webhook on Professional and above)
curl -X POST "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/monitor" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"company_id": 923609016, "label": "customer-4711",
       "webhook_url": "https://example.com/hooks/credit"}'

The free trial monitors 3 companies, Starter 25, Professional 250 and Scale 2,500. Alerts are always readable in GET /monitor; delivery to a webhook starts with Professional. For the insolvency markets where we hold no register (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands), re-run the batch insolvency check on a schedule: the pattern is on the customer insolvency monitoring page.

When a customer fails: collections

A published insolvency procedure is where collection changes. It usually stops individual enforcement and starts the period for filing your claim with the administrator or the court, under a deadline set by law or by the court in each country. Finding the notice the week it is published, rather than when the next invoice bounces, is most of the value: you stop shipping, you file on time, and each notice carries a link to its publication (notice_url) for the claim file.

What this is not

• No credit score, rating or recommended limit. Your credit policy turns the facts into a limit.
• No payment behaviour. Days beyond terms, trade references and unpaid-debt judgments are not in the registers we read.
• Companies, not consumers. Personal insolvency is never served; sole traders appear only where the register publishes them as businesses (Norway and France).
• Insolvency notices are corporate and published. A procedure that never reached a public notice, or a market outside the fifteen, will not show; outside them, the company status still shows bankruptcy and liquidation where the register records it.

What it costs

A credit check with accounts is 28 credits (search 1, financial statements 25, insolvency check 2); without accounts it is 3. Errors cost nothing. Starter is €9.99 a month for 1,000 credits, Professional €29.99 for 10,000 and Scale €99.99 for 50,000; financial statements are part of Scale and above, with 10 calls a month on Starter, Professional and the trial. The free trial is 500 credits over 14 days, card required and nothing charged during the trial. See pricing.

Questions

Does Prometiam give a credit score or a recommended credit limit?
No. The API returns the register facts behind a decision: status, age, filed accounts, published insolvency procedures and filing behaviour. Your credit policy turns them into a limit.

Which countries have filed accounts?
Financial statements in full for the UK, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland (digitally filed) and Latvia; headline figures for Estonia, Romania and Lithuania; for Supersociedades filers in Colombia and SEC filers in the US; and for listed companies only in Spain, Poland, Croatia, Belgium and Brazil. They are on the Scale plan and above.

Which insolvency procedures are covered?
Corporate insolvency notices in fifteen markets: France, Germany, the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Spain, Latvia and Estonia. Personal insolvency is never served.

What does a full credit check cost in credits?
A search is 1 credit, a set of financial statements 25 and an insolvency check 2, so a check with accounts costs 28 credits and one without them 3. Errors cost nothing.

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