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Updated on 01/09/23 by Abby_OVO

 

Here at OVO, we’re always on the lookout for ways to make managing your energy account easier. This is why we developed a new billing system in-house and have now moved the vast majority of OVO customer accounts over to this new platform. As part of this we’re changing the way that we calculate your energy costs and the frequency this is displayed on your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS). This means that when you login, you can now see your account balance update daily, based on the most recent reading you’ve submitted manually or we’ve received automatically from your smart meter.
 

Traditional Energy billing model


Traditionally energy companies would receive meter reads either

  • From customers reading their own meters and submitting a read.
  • From smart meters directly.

 

On a specific date each month or each quarter, they’d look at the latest meter read they had received to bill you and generate a statement. This might have been based on the latest smart meter read, it might have been based on the last read you submitted manually or it might be based on an estimated meter reading if there was no meter reading received for that day.

 

This model makes anticipating and budgeting your energy costs harder as you’re only able to see how much your usage is costing at certain intervals throughout the year.
 

So how does live-billing help?


We started developing this up-to-date billing solution as OVO customers told us that the traditional model of issuing a monthly or quarterly statement can make it difficult for them to feel in control of their energy costs. Particularly at times of increased usage, having to wait until the next statement was issued can cause increased anxiety and may result in customers restricting energy usage or worrying about the next payment due. With up-to-date billing you now get a clearer idea of how much your energy use has cost every day and keep track of your balance throughout the month.

 

This means that the balance shown on your online account is always an accurate reflection taking into account

  • The cost of your energy usage, as calculated and billed with each time your smart meter sends us a reading or you submit a reading manually.
  • Daily standing charges.
  • Payments and refunds.

 

Monthly Summaries

 

Along with the way your charges are shown on your online account, you’ll also notice a difference to the statement that’s emailed or sent to you each month. We’ve streamlined the information we give you into a monthly summary. This will be emailed or posted depending on your communication preferences. All previous monthly summaries can also be downloaded on the ‘’Billing History’ page of your online account:

 

Exact appearance may vary


How to get the best out of the new online account

 

As we’re able to calculate your charges whenever we receive a reading, the live-billing platform is ideal if you’ve got a smart meter set to send us readings either daily or half-hourly. We’ll then adjust your balance based on actual usage figures each day at midnight. If you’ve not yet got a smart meter installed this might be the perfect time to take the leap.

 

If you’ve already got one installed but it’s currently sending us monthly readings, we’d recommend contacting our Support Team to request an update to your smart meter reading schedule.

 

Got any more question about how your account billing works? Comment below, we’re happy to help.

 

OVO member but not got a smart meter yet? - Book today!

 

Interested but not yet an OVO customer? - Check out our plans!

 

@Chic64 thanks for posting the feature idea. 

 

Can I ask: to achieve your aim of seeing a day by day split of usage for your billing cycle visualized in the online usage chart, would toggling between any months that the billing cycle straddles not allow this?

I always pay my standing charge on a daily basis in order to help reduce my ultimate gas/electricity bill at the end of each month. 
 

On occasions, this daily change increases several fold, eg if I pay £1.05 say, per day, sometimes it’s increased to say, £5, £6, or £8. 
 

OVO say…

 

“In regards to your standing charge, it doesn't change, what changes is your daily energy/gas consumption and thus the daily charge can vary.”

 

However, I don’t submit readings until the end of the month , so how can OVO say it can change daily based on my energy consumption? 

 

I have problem loging. No I have namber account 

Hi @djshields , if you have a smart meter then the daily readings will be used to show usage. If you don’t have a smart meter or if it isn’t communicating fully, then your reading might be estimated to give you a daily usage total. 
This is OVO’s ‘live billing’ system that does confuse several users

 

 

Thank you  BPLightlog 🙏

I'm new to this app and I don't know where I can find my invoice. help me find it

Invoice for ?

If you’re looking for your energy usage, try looking at this guide 

 

Has anyone else experienced this?? We were requested last month via email to pay our £83 bill. I went online and paid and this put us back to zero. This month we have used hardly any energy but have been requested we pay £415 in 14 days! No idea where this has come from as our usage says we owe them £83 again. Every time we go online our bill and history of bills seem to change and for some reason we now owe them money again. We have seen this a few times but now we have had enough! Can anyone help please? 

Hi @JS2024 , as no one here has access to your account, we can only guess. 
Are there any earlier bills which were from a switch? Were you moved from SSE?

Do you have copies of the previous bills to compare and see what exactly has changed?

From that, it might be possible to get to the bottom of the problem. 

Annoyingly we don’t have much evidence. We do have the emails requesting the 83 that we owed which shows we only owed that amount on our account last month. I also have the payments coming from our account which I could see if they match the online bills or not. 

Is it a + symbol for or a - symbol for credit here?  I can't seem to find any information on it.

Where exactly @chris_baylis2000 ?

Unfortunately, OVO use both in different situations. 
You should see a + where there is a payment into your account but you might also see a ‘negative charge’ (so a - -) on the charge side

So what about when I log in to my account and on the home screen.  It's shows a + balance.  Is that credit or debt?

So what about when I log in to my account and on the home screen.  It's shows a + balance.  Is that credit or debt?

That should be showing your account in credit

 

 

… when I log in to my account and on the home screen.  It's shows a + balance.

 

That sounds like the app. Yes, there a + sign indicates credit. If you log in to your account via a browser, the figure on the home page is clearly labelled in credit (if it is, of course 🙂).

Does the advice from out Community Members help @chris_baylis2000? 🙂

Yes it does.  Thank you

I have noticed that there are 2 estimated gas reading on my bill... for example from Jan 26 to Feb 25.

 

Jan 26 estimated 8238.970

Feb 22 my reading 8418.000

Feb 25 estimated 8432.710

 

Why estimated, can someone tell me why... should I be given reading on the 26th and 25th?

Hi @Bri4life , assuming from what you’ve said that your billing period is to 25th, they would estimate any additional usage after your earlier manual reading. 
Without a smart meter or reading on the exact start and finish day, that’s what happens

OVO use a live billing system to help show usage throughout the month

Should I give manual readings for those dates or leave them estimated?

Should I give manual readings for those dates or leave them estimated?

If you want better bills, we’ve seen it best to give a reading early on the day after your billing date. So if you’re billed from 26th to 25th then send a reading early on 26th .. that mimics what the smart meter does and the reading is taken as a ‘midnight’ reading for the previous day. 
You can enter a manual reading at any point to update the system if you prefer. 

Just been trying to work things out again the above totals in 1st post and noticed metered volume... that is 103.740 which is the estimated totals on the statement.

 

8328.970 estimated

8418.000 reading

8432.710 estimated

Metered usage 103.740 which is using estimated totals I believe 

1188.444 kWh totals units...

Could anyone tell me if the manual reading is even taking into account?

It’s probably not as it’s ‘in between’ start and end for the month - it might be a point used to take the estimate for 25th. 
From the metered total, that is then converted to kWh 

 

Does BPLighlogs advice help @Bri4life? Could it be the calorific value? The following topics might be helpful to you:

 

 

Very helpful thank you

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