Are you really giving it your all when it comes to your online credit monitoring tasks? The time to start watching your credit history was yesterday, but today is not a bad place to start — at least it’s definitely better than tomorrow or the day after. The fact of the matter is that securing a good credit score is not just about always paying your bills on time. That’s probably the most important thing, but that alone is not enough. On-time payments and identity protection together will secure you the score you want and deserve. Online credit monitoring is part and parcel of online identity protection.

Ask around and people will start to tell you the same thing: the fastest way to get a superb credit report and score is to pay your bills on time and to be meticulously consistent about it. Most upfrontly, those that are the credit lenders of our lives like to pay particularly close attention to your most recent credit transactions and behaviors. More past transgressions are still looked at, but their prominence in predicting immediate future behavior is moved down towards the back of the line. This means that all those hoping to improve their credit report scores must make a big effort to pay current bills when they’re due. Any payments that are made late within the time period deemed to be the “recent past” prove to be more detrimental than out-of-shape accounts from even deeper still in the land of yesteryore.

But, pay attention. Keeping track of your credit’s progress, as it’s reported will be pivotal if you plan on keeping its accuracy and completeness in good form. Credit reporting bureaus are surrounded by a thick cloud of infamy that bespeaks their tendency to include errors in the credit reports they are providing to everyone from your next boss to future landlord. Since you have easy access to your reports, make the most of them. If you don’t have a copy of yours, you can request one right now online. Credit cards, that is to say payments for them, are not the only thing they’re tracking, remember. Credit reports also keep tabs on everywhere you’ve lived, all the names you’ve opened accounts under, and information concerning any joint accounts you share with someone else. Take care of your credit.

Sam Walters is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her writing appears in print and online.