New Zealand’s largest commercial credit bureau, CreditWorks Group, is delighted to announce the support of NZ’s largest and most successful building group, G.J. Gardner Homes, for its new Checkmate commercial credit reporting tool.
CheckMate is a web-based platform that helps people make informed decisions about who they do business with by running a fast, yet comprehensive, commercial credit report on any New Zealand company. Each CheckMate report provides a Credit Score out of 1,000, the likelihood of failure in the next 18 months (as a simple percentage), as well as other useful information.
Grant Porteous, G.J. Gardner Homes New Zealand’s Managing Director, said he was excited to learn of the launch of CheckMate, by long-term partner Creditworks Group.
“CheckMate’s launch has come at an ideal time, as the building industry experiences unprecedented levels of uncertainty. Builders with poor systems and weak balance sheets (retained funds capital) will struggle in these times as we sadly so often see,” say Mr Porteous.
The launch also comes just as the team at G.J. Gardner Homes proudly won the Reader’s Digest 2022 Most Trusted Brands award in the Home Builder category for the sixth year in a row, and they celebrated 25 years as NZ’s most successful builder.
In again winning the award, G.J. Gardner noted it has always been committed to a policy of certainty, trust and transparency, absolutely believing every person who builds a new home should be able to enjoy the experience and have confidence their home will be fully completed, and all commitments met by the builder.
“Trust is the foundation of our brand, and we place enormous value on winning this award, as recognition of how well we continue to perform as a group in the eyes of our customers,” says Mr Porteous.
“The launch of CheckMate is very timely as we continue to see ongoing failures of housing companies in both New Zealand and Australia.”
“We’ve been advised it is particularly bad at this time in Victoria, Australia, where even large housing companies are falling over and leaving a trail of heartbroken customers, who will no longer realise their dream of home ownership,” says Mr Porteous.
He believes that CheckMate will provide customers in New Zealand with an easy way in which to check the credit position of their building partner and is confidently looking forward to having his members ‘checked’.
“CheckMate aligns beautifully to our commitment to transparency, and I know our G.J. Gardner franchisees throughout New Zealand are going to perform well as we work very hard as a group to be excellent trading partners,” says Mr Porteous.
“Builders and housing companies that are good operators will have nothing to hide, and like us, will leverage CheckMate to provide enhanced levels of certainty and trust with their clients,” he adds.
G.J. Gardner is not surprised that it is CreditWorks Group behind the CheckMate tool.
“CreditWorks has been at the forefront of commercial risk reduction in New Zealand for years, and no one has done more to make the market a safer place to trade,” says Mr Porteous.
For more than 20 years CreditWorks Group has been working tirelessly with a growing number of industries to share positive commercial credit data, with the aim of reducing financial risk. The company now has the largest commercial trade database in the country, with visibility across 36 unique industries.
“We’re able to help people leverage millions of unique commercial data records and get fast and reliable reports that help them decide whether they should extend credit/services or be involved with a company based on the report,” says Ronnie Tan, CreditWorks Group Founder and CEO.
“For a long time, we’ve worked directly with major contributing data users from key industries across New Zealand. With their help we’ve made those industries a safer place in which to trade. It’s now very exciting to be able to make other parts of our vast commercial credit risk data available to all New Zealanders on a one-off CheckMate report basis,” he adds.
CheckMate should be of particular interest not only to all trade suppliers and sub-contractors in the construction sector, but anyone engaging the services of builders and other trades, given the fact that more than 25% of all company failures in the last 12 months were building companies (over twice that of the next highest sector, Accommodation & Food Service,at just 12%).
“Before you do business with a contractor, check them out, or if you’re doing business already, monitor their ongoing activity and credit exposure in the marketplace as circumstances may change, and not necessarily through their own actions,” says Mr. Tan.
Like G.J. Gardner Homes, CreditWorks firmly believes the key to better financial risk management is greater levels of transparency, something that has been, up to now, difficult for people to enjoy.
“We’re thrilled that G.J. Gardner Homes has taken a leadership approach with CheckMate and will be leveraging it as another positive way in which to differentiate its brand in New Zealand,” says Mr. Tan.
“We hope other builders and group housing companies will follow suit very soon, and CheckMate will become the most trusted way in which to better understand your risk position when building or renovating in New Zealand,” he adds.
A CheckMate credit report carries a cost of just $37 which is a small price to pay for peace-of-mind before you start trading with someone new, kick off your house build or renovation, or sign up a new commercial tenancy. Visit www.checkmate.nz to learn more about how to leverage CheckMate to better understand your commercial risk position.
