Add ability for quarterly billing and payments for all new and existing customers

That's interesting. Where does this term Grandfather Rule 😅 come from? I’d heard it was because they didn't have E-mail.

If they wanted to make certain changes to their payment method then, which I suppose might include taking a fixed tariff,  they'd be as well changing supplier?  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause

But as mentioned, fewer and fewer suppliers offer Quarterly Bills/Payments these days. They’re ultimately dying out.

Turning attention to Energy billing matters 4 times a year instead of 12  seems as good a reason as any, like eg. the price cap changes that are still quarterly.

Except the Price Cap used to be six-monthly. It was changed purely to help alleviate unrelated issues.

There is only ONE valid reason, use case and/or benefit for Quarterly Billing these days - as a legacy Grandfather Rule/Grandfather Clause for those who insist on not letting go.

The benefits of Monthly Billing are much greater:

• Better - and faster - supplier cashflow
• More accurate bills
• Reduced risk of Bill Shock
• Issues get spotted faster
• More accurate DD calculations
• More accurate energy buying power - which means less wastage
• Better Price Cap compatibility i.e. less confusion over what meter reads cover which cap - remember that most peoples billing cycles do NOT start on the 1st of the month!!!
• Better - and smoother - customer cashflow
• Better predictability
• Better budgeting

And a bunch more.

You’d need a seriously compelling use case if you wanted to campaign for Quarterly Billing to stick around long term. I just… Can’t see it happening when Monthly is superior - and used for basically everything else under the sun.

Additionally, I’m gonna be brutally honest with you here. We put this Idea up as a tracker two years ago to gauge interest in how many Forum users would want this. To date, only six upvotes have been cast (this Forum does not permit Downvotes) would suggest that there’s possibly very little interest in bringing this into fruition. As a Forum Volunteer, I also read literally everything that gets posted here and based on my records, there has been very few users posting comments or threads demanding the return of Quarterly Bills, or even discussing them. It would appear that - based on what we see on the Forum at least - it’s a thing that most people don’t seem to want.

If you feel strongly, you are better off lobbying ofgem or keeping an eye out for one of the many ofgem consultations that might reference billing in any way.

I can't see any supplier ever going back to quarterly billing unless told to do so. The industry is moving in completely the other direction, local time of use tariff are likely to dominate with increased near real time data on billing as heat pumps and Electric vehicles become the norm in the next few decades.

I started this thread not because I personally thought quarterly billing was a good idea but because I valued choice for consumers.

However the sector has moved on and even British Gas don't give the option of quarterly billing when switching now, unlike one of the previous posts in this thread that I added.

We need to get people more interested in energy, when and how much they use, anything quarterly makes that difficult.

I think at this point, this particular idea is basically permanently dead and buried. I won’t ask for it to be locked because I don’t think that’s necessary. We created it purely as a tracker two years ago to see if anyone actually wanted it and the answer is clear - it appears the answer is no.

There appears to be no remaining suppliers that I - as one of the Forum Volunteers - can find that offer Quarterly Billing and/or Quarterly Payments to new customers. I think that probably makes the industry position clear - it’s dead and won’t be revived.

However, to anyone else reading these words, please heed the advice we have given in this Idea thread - long story short it’s not going to happen. If you’re on OVO and you currently have Quarterly Bills and/or Payments, you’ll be allowed to keep it that way until further notice, otherwise you will be on Monthly Billing and Monthly Payments only. The exception is PAYG, but then it’s pretty clear that on PAYG you’d top-up as and when you need to anyway so the concept of Monthly or Quarterly Billing is impossible to execute or implement - you’ll just get the annual statements instead.

With that being said, we must stress that if you make ANY changes that results in you moving to Monthly Billing/Payments, there will be no undo button and no going back to Quarterly later. You’ll get a warning first of course, but if you don’t rollback while you have the chance, Monthly will be what you commit to after that.

And with that, I think this Idea has reached the end of the road.