I give meter readings each month, why is my bill still based on estimates?

The 12 Aug and it's estimated 

Yes but how does that relate to your billing times?

From their website 

If you send on another date, they will estimate the rest of the billing period

When I send a meter reading there is always an added on estimate. 

When I get the bill covering the period they don't use my actual reading as the ‘opening’ but their estimate ? This seems wrong. And renders meter readings almost pointless as they are not used in any of the calculations for my bill. 

So, I send in a meter reading. They add on an estimate at the end then for the next bill use that estimate and make another one and bill me based on that difference. My actual reading is utterly pointless. 

Can anyone explain why this is even allowed ? 

Hi ​@Feel fed up ,

Meter Readings you send in ARE used to update the bills and DO get factored in. It’s just that the system then uses estimates to make up the remaining time before the billing cycle ends. This does, however, get automatically corrected the next time you submit a reading so it cancels out the estimates anyway.

Two solutions are available for this:

1. Recommended: Get a Smart Meter upgrade so that the readings are submitted automatically at the right time - having it run in Half-Hourly mode is best and will eliminate estimates
2. Alternative: If you still want to do manual reads, please submit them on the first day of the next billing cycle - this will then do Actual Readings for the entire cycle that just went by

Hi, and thank you for your reply. Please be patient ! 

I understand that the estimate is added on at the end of the bill. To make the remaining time before the billing cycle finishes. But there is no correction and no cancelling of the estimate on my bills.

The end ‘estimate’ becomes the ‘estimate ‘at the start of my next bill. And ends with a new estimate. 

None of it makes sense. If I send in a meter reading the next bill should start with that; not with an ‘estimate’ ? 

Smart Meters submit the reading the day after i.e. the Meter Reading for the 1st February is submitted on the 2nd February to cover the entire day. OVO’s billing platform is designed to be Smart Meter First in this regard, so all meter readings are treated this way.

While you won’t see the “estimate” being removed retroactively (legally speaking it MUST stay this way) you can remove the issue by either getting a Smart Meter, or doing the reading on the day I suggested in the cycle. It’s worth noting that if an Actual Read wasn’t submitted for the day the cycle reset, then OVO cannot start the next cycle with an Actual Reading anyway.

Either way, the next time an Actual Reading goes in, your billing will update and recalculate everything up to that point using the Actual Reading, thus cancelling the estimates out. You won’t necessarily see this, but it will trigger.

This is a feature, not a bug.

That’s the way it has to be. One billing period must necessarily start with the previous period’s closing figure, however it was arrived at. This will happen each month when you don’t submit a reading on the first day of the billing period.

Can you see your meter readings in your online account? Or the billing details for the current period? I’ve had a smart meter for so long that I just can’t remember what life was like before ... 

Yes you can, it’s on ‘Meter readings’ at the right of the online account, and on the billing itself.

Below is a clip from my gas bill last year when I still had a dumb gas meter so had to send in gas readings.

​@Feel fed up 
My billing period is the 24th to 23rd of each month, as you can see below I sent a reading on the 24th of each month, (the first day of the billing period), and so there are no estimates on the amount billed.
This is for gas, but it works just the same with electricity, that is:
To avoid estimated billing you need to send a reading on the first day or a billing period and not the last day.

When you send in a reading it gets allocated to the midnight at the start of that day, in other words it is allocated to the full day before the reading sent.
So by sending in my readings on the 24th they were allocated to the end of the 23rd, which is the end of my billing period.
If I had sent my readings on the 23rd instead, then the would have been allocated to the 22nd, and there would be a 1-days estimate for the 23rd.

Being charged every month from estimate although I send actual readings 

Welcome to the forum! 

Does it happens every single time? Does the estimate approx the same as the submitted readings or is it completely different? Do you submit the readings on the date it is requested?