I recently spoke with a small-business owner who was telling me how she launched her business a few years back. As a first step, an SBDC counselor suggested she should check her personal credit report to make sure it was clean.

When the entrepreneur did so, she discovered to her horror that her identity had been stolen. “It took me an entire year to clean that up,” she told me—during which time, her business startup plans had to be put on hold.

Checking your personal credit is a smart step for anyone contemplating starting a business, but once you’re up and running, keeping tabs on your business’s credit report is equally crucial.

Credit expert Gerri Detweiler has a useful blog post on this topic on AllBusiness.com. Checking business credit is a little more complex than doing so for your personal credit, says Detweiler, who guides through you the steps to getting your business credit reports from the major credit agencies. Take a look; it’s well worth the read.

“Little things” like neglecting to keep tabs on your credit can quickly become big problems that derail your business. These days, no one can afford a glitch in their financial records—or those of their business.