reporting date question

[samantha1178]

Does anyone know when Applied Bank reports to CRA's? I would like for this card to show a zero balance. I have two cards, Orchard and Applied, and I figured i'd let orchard report a small balance and applied a zero balance. Does this sound pretty good? Applied charges 6.95 to make a payment and I would like to simply pay my balance once a month in full. For what its worth, my scores are in the mid-500's.

[samantha1178]

anyone?

[Anonymous]

My research, though it may not be absolutely accurate, it that both your close-out, or statement date, and your reporting date vary from month to month.  The best you can do is to call and ask when the close out date for the current cycle is.  I haven't gotten an exact date as far as reporting ever when I asked that question.  From what I gather from talking to my credit card companies is that they each report once a month to the credit bureaus after your statement due date.  In short, if you pay your balance in full every month and don't carry a balance, then the card company will report a zero balance.  If anyone finds error in this post, please let us know!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
In short, if you pay your balance in full every month and don't carry a balance, then the card company will report a zero balance.  If anyone finds error in this post, please let us know!

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You can pay your balance in full and not carry a balance but still have an amount reported to the CRAs.  If you charge $100 on your card, and the statement closes, you then have until the due date to pay; but the statement balance, in this case, $100, is what is reported.  So the trick is to pay in full BEFORE the statement closing date, not after.

I will pay my Chase cards, which my wife uses so the balance is difficult to game, often up to 3 times a month, but I treat the statement closing date as my personal due date.  I will pay the total balance in the morning on that date and it posts later in the evening.  Unfortunately, sometimes my wife has (or even I have, on occasion) charged something that posts the same day, so I'll end up with a statement balance of those charges that just posted.  And that means paying it off before the due date to avoid interest.  While I'm paying it anyway, I might as well pay the total amount outstanding, in addition to the amount that's due.