I’m on a variable rate plan .1 because OVO ‘s direct debit offer far exceeds the amount of energy I use for the last 4years.So.  looking at my account on the app which shows a nice healthy balance of £36+.But when I go to charges and payments my account shows a balance of -£1.72. Most misleading as I like to keep up to date with my account 

I’m much the same as malcolmchambers paying my energy bill monthly on demand so there is notthis build up of credit caused by a flat rate Direct Debit. A variable DD like with telecoms suppliers would be much better but OVO Energy des not currently offer this.

With regards the descrepancy on balances this may be due to credit showing from the last bill cycle to the amount of energy used since. In this case it would be £36.00 + £1.72 = £37.72 giving the -£1.72 balance owing.

Hey @DavidWSR @malcolmchambers 

It sounds like what you’re both seeing is the live balance updating.

Can I ask do you both have smart meters that are in communication with us? If so, these will be updating the live balance but if you’re paying on demand of the bill instead of Direct Debit, you only need to pay what’s instructed on the bill when you receive it.

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.

Without a smart meter, we’ll only be able to estimate your usage in between readings, and when you submit a reading, we’ll be able to update that live balance. Similarly when we issue a bill, it’ll adjust that balance amount as we’ve likely estimated the usage since your last reading if it wasn’t on the day of the bill.

I’m sorry for any confusion being caused, I hope this clears things up a little for you both but let me know if you’ve got any other questions.

Yup got a smart meter.

Can someone explain if you have current balance of a few hundred pounds on your balance on the last billing day You then send in readings and you then pay that amount also on the last billing day separately from your credit Why does the balance after paying on that day go to Zerro  Balance and the previous credit of few hundred pounds completely disappears 

Oh dear, here we go again. Your descriptions of what’s happening with your account don’t really help us understand what is actually going on. Could you please share screenshots of your billing details pages, for the current period and the one before that. Include everything from Balance changes down to Payments. If payments you’ve made aren’t dated, add a note saying what date they were made on.

Let’s see if we can simplify this question without the complexities you have a positive balance  X amount. You pay the exact bill that you receive after your readings  All previous bills paid precisely as you receive your bill on last billing day. So if you have a positive balance and you pay your exact bill you still have your positive balance ( you haven’t used your balance) the bills have been paid now and previous it therefore stands to reason that the positive balance should be still show as today’s balance as previously ( irrespective of the technical workings of the billing system) unless there’s something wrong with the billing system 

I don’t know what your bills look like, so I don’t know what you mean when you say “You pay the exact bill that you receive ...”. That’s why I asked for some screenshots to help us understand what you’re talking about.

I pay by direct debit, so it’s not quite the same. I don’t get a bill (a demand for payment), just a statement of account. This is what it looks like:

The billing details page has a bit more detail, so it’s easier to see what’s going on. 

Again, I’ll point out that “the positive balance should be still show as today’s balance as previously” is a misunderstanding. If there are no intermediate readings, OVO might estimate your usage from the start of the billing period to today and show its corresponding cost, including the daily standing charge, so you see (an approximation of) your account’s state today. They will be deducted from the opening balance to arrive at the current one. 

You say live billing, yet since 2022 when i had a smart meter installed, it didn’t even manage to show my usage properly for 2 years let alone the “live billing” that you are proudly bragging about? Ovo then in a very obvious manner changed all the old bills to suddenly reflect my actually usage beginning of this year, leaving me racked up with a huge thousands of pounds bill. When I then call to raise a complaint about this, i keep being gaslit into thinking the bills were reflecting the correct usage all along, whilst all my attempts to contact ovo and submit readings were ignored. Saw at least one other forum article of others complaining about their usage not reflecting in the ovo app or bills; this is what makes it frustrating, smart meter engineer appointment to fix the issue then gets cancelled on me last me, then today i chatted to an agent who just kept saying its not in their control and there is nothing he could do about it, the question is , when will this get sorted and why it hasn’t been sorted for more than 2 years, cause that’s how long it took for my bill to reflect my correct usage and yet recently it started lagging behind on usage again, i can’t be blamed for not contacting ovo cause that’s what i literally did earlier and chatted to their agent and they said they can’t do anything about it!

Hi @pinkfloyd198,

I’m really sorry for the issues you’ve been experiencing, that’s definitely not the experience we want for our customers.

I’m going to have our Forum_Support team reach out to you so they can help you further with this. Look out for a private message here soon: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/inbox/overview

thanks Shads, they can’t have excuse now cause i have requested chat log with agent to be emailed to me so that I keep as evidence that I did reach out to let ovo know

Hi @pinkfloyd198,

I’ve responded to you via this thread forum.ovoenergy.com/my-account-140/meter-readings-not-updating-account-balance-15454