Account History
Your account history is the meat and potatoes of your credit report. This is the detail section that is used for much of the summary information described above. It shows you, and your potential lenders, more of the raw information that your creditors report about you.
This section can be really easy or really difficult to read, depending on where you get your credit report. The credit-reporting companies have taken steps to improve readability, but there is still a ways to go. Some credit reports have the account history nicely formatted, with bold account names, and colorful payment history sections. Others are pretty much just text.
As with your summary information, the account details might be broken up into sections. You might find individual accounts grouped by type: mortgage, revolving, auto loan, and so on. However, not all credit reports do this. The ones that have gone to the effort to format things nicely are more likely to categorize for you as well. If your accounts are not broken into sections, you'll just see them listed one after another.
What is a trade line?
A trade line is an account that appears on your credit report. You probably just call them accounts or loans, but your lenders may refer to them as trade lines. This is just another way of talking about a loan's attributes, like your balance, status, credit limit, and so on.
Your account history section shows you a few important details about all of your accounts. They tell other lenders and credit-scoring computer programs all about the loan in question. You should see the following bits of information:
Account Name. Also known as Creditor Name, this field tells you where the account is located. It might say the name of the bank or credit card company that issued you a loan. If an entry has an error, this is the organization that you need to contact.
Account Number. You might have several accounts with the same lender, so it is important to know which account is being reported in case of errors or disputes.
Account Type. You already know this from the summary section. It tells you whether or not this is a mortgage, auto, revolving, or other type of loan.
Date Opened. How long ago did you open the account? As you may know, it's good to have some old ones lying around. Check here to make sure your account age is accurate.
Balance. How much the credit reporting company thinks you owe. This information comes from the lender, but it is not updated in real time. Therefore, recent payments and purchases may not be reflected.
Account Status. Also known as Pay Status, this field notes whether or not you are paying as agreed. If not, it may have additional details about your delinquency. See that these are updated if you have recently made amends with a creditor.
Remark. Sometimes a Comment field, this is where you will often see a remark that your account was “closed by consumer” if you have requested that they close the account.
Date Updated. This is the last time the creditor reported information about you to the credit-reporting company. This can help you figure out why any recent activity is missing.
Responsibility. This section states what your responsibility is to the account. You might be the only user on the account, or you could share it with others.
Terms. Here you see the terms of your agreement. If it's an installment loan, how many payments, and how frequent are the payments? If it is a revolving loan, this section may be blank. Sometimes you'll see a minimum payment here.
Past Due. This displays the dollar amount that you are behind on. Ideally you want to see a “0” here.
Credit Limit. The maximum amount you are allowed to borrow for that account. This is most important on revolving accounts. This number is used to determine how much of your available credit you are using. In addition, high credit limits on your report can show that some lenders trust you.
High Balance. This is like a high-water mark for revolving loans — it notes the highest balance you've ever had on the account. For installment loans like mortgages and student loans, this number is the original loan amount.
Scheduled Payment. This shows your minimum payment due.
Actual Payment. The last payment that you actually sent in before your account details were sent to the credit-reporting company.
Your account history makes up the bulk of information that the credit-scoring models use to determine your credit score. You need to make sure all of this is accurate in order to ensure a reasonable score.
