# CDFI credit reporting launch checklist

The concrete steps a mission lender works through to go from zero to a clean, recurring Metro 2 file at all four bureaus. Work top to bottom; most items are one-time setup.

- [ ] **Confirm your furnisher obligation and member status** — Decide which bureaus you will report to and confirm you can meet the FCRA accuracy and dispute-investigation duties of a data furnisher before you send a single record.
- [ ] **Obtain subscriber / furnisher codes from each bureau** — Apply for a subscriber code with Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis. These identify you on every record and are required before any file is accepted.
- [ ] **Pin down your reporting cycle date** — Choose a consistent monthly as-of date. Bureaus expect a regular cadence; an erratic schedule looks like a furnisher problem and confuses borrower files.
- [ ] **Inventory the data your loan system actually stores** — List the columns you can export: balances, payment history, open and close dates, terms, and identifiers. Gaps here become mapping gaps later.
- [ ] **Classify your products to the correct account type** — Mark credit-builder loans, installment loans, and lines of credit with the right Metro 2 account type so each tradeline reports as what it is.
- [ ] **Set ECOA association codes per borrower** — Assign individual, joint, authorized-user, or co-signer ECOA codes correctly. The wrong code misstates who is responsible for the debt.
- [ ] **Establish your DOFD policy and capture the date** — Define how you set the Date of First Delinquency, store it on every delinquent account, and never let it drift or reset once set.
- [ ] **Validate the full file against the CRRG before sending** — Run the complete export through the 240-plus rule engine and resolve every error and warning, not just the fatal ones, before generation.
- [ ] **Preview the generated file in the viewer** — Open the bureau-ready file in the free in-browser Metro 2 viewer to confirm header, trailer, and segment counts look right at a glance.
- [ ] **Test deliver to one bureau first** — Send a sandbox or first live file to a single bureau, confirm acceptance and the response file, then expand to all four.
- [ ] **Set up dispute and response-file handling** — Decide who reviews CRA response files and dispute notices each cycle, and how corrections flow back into the next file.
- [ ] **Document the monthly motion for your team** — Write down the upload, validate, ship steps and who owns each, so reporting survives staff turnover at a small organization.

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From the Metro 2 Furnisher Launchpad — https://metro2.switchlabs.dev/launchpad