Before you sign with a new partner, ship on account or extend payment terms, a quarter of an hour spent on what the public registers say about them is time well spent. In Finland there are plenty of them, and most are free.
1. Find the company in the Trade Register
Start from the Business ID — seven digits, a hyphen and a check digit. It is the company's primary identifier, it does not change, and it is not reissued to anyone else after the company is removed from the register. If you only have a name, search on that and make sure you have the right company: similar names are common.
Look at three things: whether the company is registered or in liquidation, when it was registered, and its legal form. A company founded yesterday is not a bad sign in itself, but it does mean you have no history to judge it on.
2. See who stands behind it
The Trade Register records board members, the managing director and who may sign for the company. These are not part of the PRH open data, but an electronic trade register extract is free from the Virre information service. Two questions matter: whether the person negotiating with you actually has authority to act for the company, and whether the board has changed recently. A change on its own says nothing — a change immediately before a large transaction is worth asking about.
3. Check bankruptcy and restructuring
The Legal Register Centre's register of bankruptcies and restructurings shows whether proceedings are pending against a company, and the search is free. The same events appear in the Trade Register's registered notifications as entries for the start of bankruptcy, restructuring proceedings and liquidation.
An opened case changes everything: payments can later be clawed back, and your claim joins a queue.
4. Check VAT registration and tax debt
If a partner invoices you with VAT, they must be entered in the VAT register. The registration shows in the Business Information System, and the VAT number itself can be checked in the European Commission's VIES system.
Check the tax debt register at the same time: it says whether the company has at least €10,000 of tax debt or has failed to file returns. There is a separate article on it.
5. Read the annual accounts
Financial statements are registered with the Trade Register and are public. Look at revenue, at the result for the period, and above all at equity: if it is negative, liabilities exceed assets and the board has a duty to register the loss of share capital.
The absence of accounts is itself a signal. They must be filed within eight months of the end of the financial period. A trading company that has filed nothing for years is a question worth asking.
What it adds up to
No single one of these is a decision. Together they give a picture clear enough to decide whether to ask for payment up front, shorten the terms, or simply go ahead. And all five are public — you need nobody's permission to look.