While often not shown on most commercial credit reports available to consumers, creditors report monthly balance history as part of their reporting, and thus a creditor can determine prior balance/payment profiles.
With respect to mortgage loans, lendors traditionally go beyond CR reviews, and also look at debt to assets ratios, which directly takes the same info into consideration through the reduction in cash assets that were used to pay any debt. I imagine they could choose to do both if their manual review was that detailed.
