Nice one, Bella! 
Like others have said... for the majority of card issuers, if you want to make sure your account is reported with a zero (or minimal) balance each month, you need to pay it down to where you want it to be before the statement cuts - you need your payment to have cleared and be reflected on the account in the final statement balance when it closes for that month. It can be quite hard work, but you'll definitely notice the (good) effect it has on your scores if you play it right! Especially if it's money you'd have been paying anyway, it can make a HUGE difference what day of the month you pay it on.
Like others have said... for the majority of card issuers, if you want to make sure your account is reported with a zero (or minimal) balance each month, you need to pay it down to where you want it to be before the statement cuts - you need your payment to have cleared and be reflected on the account in the final statement balance when it closes for that month. It can be quite hard work, but you'll definitely notice the (good) effect it has on your scores if you play it right! Especially if it's money you'd have been paying anyway, it can make a HUGE difference what day of the month you pay it on.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:The easiest way to know for sure is to get a credit monitoring service that lets you pull updated credit reports daily. (TrueCredit, etc.; ignore the FAKO scores.)
Just posted the basic updating timetable yesterday:http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=creditcard&message.id=115022#M115022
Essentially, they almost all update on the statement drop date, with the main exceptions of HSBC/ Orchard bank cards and of American Express (noted in the link).
Yep... if you're trying to get it just right, being able to check your credit reports daily is pretty much essential (assuming you're using the cards - if they're sitting in the sock drawer with a zero balance, you don't really have to worry about them reporting too much utilization by accident!) - check daily and keep a list of what reports when. The ones that you can tell report on the statement closing date, look back at your past statements and see what kind of range the closing date falls in - some cards will close on the same day each month (that's rare!), others will fall within a range of 3 or 4 days (which you can't even count because the statement period seems to vary from, say, 28 days to 32 days, so you can't always predict), some vary even more wildly than that. Some will show when you log in to your account when your statement closing date is, others will apparently keep that information secret unless you ask them outright... anyway, you'll soon be able to see which cards need paying down by which date (and locking away safely where you won't inadvertently use them until after the statement has cut)... you should be able to see some decent score increases just from managing your reported utilization like that. And I'm sure someone's said it, and I'm sure you know already, but... you ideally want less than half of your cards reporting a balance (even if that balance is $0.01) each month for maximum score benefits - and of course, if the balances that do report are 4.9% utilization (for the card and overall) or less, so much the better!
Congrats, again!
(Hm, just quoting Hauling there 'cos I agree with her - but hopefully obvious that the reply is actually to Bella!)
Message Edited by fevmlo on 09-17-2008 08:45 PM
Bella1980 wrote:
My Experian score has jumped 41 points in a little over 2 weeks just because two accounts have updated with the correct lower balances. The reporting balance game really seems to make a HUGE decision. I still have 5 accounts reporting balances that are high to the credit line that are actually $0 so I am hoping for another nice jump when those accts report correctly. How do I know what balance is being reported to the bureaus. Is it the balance on the statement, the end of the month or the balance on the date they report??
Keep up the good work!