Credit application template for B2B customers

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A B2B credit application is what a business fills out when it wants to buy from you on terms, net 30, net 60, a revolving limit, instead of paying at time of sale. You use it to decide whether to extend credit, how much, and on what terms, before the first unpaid invoice goes out the door.

The fields that belong on it

Business identification

• Legal business name and any DBA (doing business as) name
• Business structure (LLC, corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship) and state of formation
• Federal tax ID (EIN)
• Physical and billing address, if different
• Years in business and a brief description of what they do
• D&B number if they have one, useful if you pull a commercial credit report

References

• Two to three trade references: other vendors they currently buy from on terms, with contact name, phone and the approximate credit limit extended. Trade references are usually more useful than they sound, calling one and asking "do they pay on time" tells you more than most credit scores do.
• A bank reference: bank name, account type, and contact information, used mainly to confirm the account is real and in good standing, not to pull detailed balances.

Request and terms

• Requested credit limit and the payment terms being requested (net 30, net 60, etc.)
• Authorized signer's name, title, and signature, confirming they have authority to apply for credit on the company's behalf See contract signing authority for who should sign.

Consents, and the personal guarantee wording (have this reviewed)

Every application should include a consent clause authorizing you to contact the listed trade and bank references and, if you use one, pull a commercial credit report on the business. This is standard and low-risk language, most B2B credit application templates handle it adequately without custom legal review.

The personal guarantee is a different matter entirely. A personal guarantee is a separate promise, signed by a specific individual (usually an owner or officer), that they'll personally cover the business's debt if the business itself can't or won't pay. This matters because an LLC or corporation normally shields its owners from being personally liable for business debts, that's the whole point of forming one, and a personal guarantee deliberately undoes that shield for this specific obligation. If you require one, the person signing needs to understand exactly what they're agreeing to, and the wording needs to clearly identify who's guaranteeing, what's covered, and whether it's limited to a dollar amount or unlimited. Get this specific clause reviewed by a lawyer before using it, not because the rest of the application is risky, but because this one clause, if written loosely, either fails to actually bind the guarantor when you need it to, or binds them to something broader than either side intended.

One more thing worth knowing: in the US, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and its implementing regulation generally apply to business credit applicants too, not just individual consumers, which means if you deny or reduce a credit request you may have notification obligations depending on your business and how the application is structured. This is genuinely a point to confirm with a lawyer if you're extending credit at any real volume, rather than something to guess at from a template article.

A filled-in example

Business: Riverside Fabrication LLC, formed in-state, 6 years in business. Requested terms: Net 30, $15,000 revolving limit. Trade references: Two suppliers listed with contact names and current limits extended ($10,000 and $8,000 respectively, both noted as "pays on time"). Bank reference: Business checking account, 6 years, listed in good standing. Authorized signer: Managing member, signing both the application and a personal guarantee limited to $15,000, the exact amount of the requested limit, reviewed by the company's own attorney before signing.

What to actually check before approving

Filling in the form is the easy part, deciding whether to approve it is where most of the real risk sits. Call at least two of the listed trade references yourself rather than taking the application's word for it, and ask a specific question, "do they pay within terms, or do you usually chase them," rather than a vague "are they a good customer." A reference that hesitates or won't answer directly is itself useful information. Confirm the business entity actually exists and is in good standing with your state's business registry, a quick, free lookup that catches a surprising number of applications listing a business name that's been dissolved or never formally registered. If the requested limit is large relative to your own exposure, or the business is new enough that trade references don't exist yet, that's exactly when a personal guarantee earns its place in the application, rather than being requested reflexively on every account regardless of size. How to check a customer before opening a credit line lists the checks in order.

Set a review cadence too, not just an approval process. Revisit credit limits every six to twelve months, or sooner if a customer's payment pattern changes, since an application approved two years ago on different trade references and a different financial picture isn't necessarily still an accurate read on the account today.

Sending and storing it

Once a customer fills this out, you need their signature on both the application and, if required, the guarantee, and you need a dated, stored copy you can actually produce later if a collections question ever comes up. QuickSigner, a web-based electronic signature tool that lets you send a document for signature from any device without the signer creating an account, works well here, since new customers applying for credit are rarely eager to print, sign and scan a form before you'll even approve them. Build the application as a fillable document, add signature and date fields to both the application and the guarantee section, and send it through QuickSigner. It keeps a timestamped audit trail of who signed what and when, which matters specifically for a personal guarantee if it's ever disputed later. QuickSigner's Professional plan, $15 a month as of this writing, adds API access if you want new applications flowing directly into your own records rather than being handled one at a time, confirm current pricing on QuickSigner's site before relying on this number. Getting the application signed before the first order ships covers timing and follow-up.

How I'd approach this

For most small businesses extending credit to a handful of customers, this template, filled in and signed electronically, is enough, and I wouldn't build anything more elaborate than that. Where it starts to make sense to build something custom is once you're approving credit regularly enough that you want applications, trade-reference checks and credit limits tracked in one connected system tied to your invoicing, rather than a drawer of signed PDFs you're cross-referencing by hand when a payment falls behind. Best e-signature for B2B distributors and manufacturers compares tools for distributors and manufacturers.