Part of rebuilding your credit is proving that you can pay your bills on time. If your bad credit episode left you without any credit cards, you’ll have to open new ones.

FICO stands for the Fair Isaac Corporation, and you can thank them for the credit scores that most major lenders use to determine if you’re worthy of a mortgage. FICO takes the scores from all three major credit bureaus and combines them into one score. The credit score is a big part of the formula when it comes to determining whether you get a loan. A low score can get you in the door, but a high score will get you much farther.

In an effort to clean your cluttered finances, you close three zero balance credit card accounts. Lightening your wallet feels good now, but the potential hit to your FICO Score could weigh you down later.

CoreLogic and FICO partnered last year to offer lenders an alternative credit score for more predictive scoring, which includes data previously not used in credit scoring, from a borrowers cell phone bill, utilities, payday loan activity, to child support judgments, evictions, property tax liens, the status of homeowner’s association dues, whether or not a borrower is underwater on their current home, or whether a borrower owns other properties that credit agencies typically miss.

Any information that is inaccurate should be corrected so that potential creditors, employers, insurance companies and other organizations see an accurate picture of our credit profile when they request copies of our personal credit reports.