OVO Energy Live billing platform and monthly summaries - What do I need to know?

By my calculations it did increase the balance, but got countered by that £57 charge. If you hadn’t made the payment, your balance would be at least £57 lower than what you’re showing us.

I cannot find a fault with this. But I’ll call in a third and fourth opinion from @BPLightlog and @Firedog as well. They know their number crunching better than almost anyone else here.

I will also comment that your balance is awfully high. I’m not saying you should refund every penny, but I would recommend pulling back at least some of it.

Let’s break this down based on the screenshots provided.

You started with £1706.27 migrated into the OVO account from SSE - this would have been your final SSE balance after the SSE Final Bill was paid off.

You then made a £50 card payment into the OVO account, we will ignore what kind of card and any fees incurred by OVO etc as we don’t need to worry about that here. This took the balance up to £1756.27 as a result (ignoring the live billing here just to make this post easier to write).

You then paid a £224 Direct Debit into the OVO account, making it £1980.27 total incoming funds for the period.

OVO withdrew £74.53 recently to contribute to bills (most likely via the Live Billing model), making the final balance £1905.74.

If you hadn’t made that card payment, I think your balance would have instead been £1855.74 .

The £57 was what I pulled from your live chat screenshot, which was probably from a few days ago.

It looks like this is another example of the ‘live billing’ that OVO use being misunderstood. 
There is a charge against electricity and a credit (showing as -) on the gas so it looks like all is ok and the debits per day are showing as live billing does

Your previous screenshot showing the consumption charge is made up from gas and electricity unit charges, standing charges and vat, these are itemised in your monthly bill. You can download your bill to view or save it. That will show how your charges are made up (the most recent bill charges will be £74.53), also on the bill you’ll see your running balance, ie the amount brought forward from the previous bill plus your payments in (ie direct debit and that £50). The amount carried over to your next billing period. OVO use a ‘live billing’ system so when you look online it’ll show the amount in your account in real time (so to speak). 

Hi @cejgreen , not sure about your question or SSE in particular. OVO call centres are UK based and they use a ‘live billing’ system so that you can see your costs daily. 

This forum is mainly other customers trying to help as so isn’t a direct route to OVO but has hits lots of information which you can search and find

Hey @Pilgrim2 

We use a live billing system at OVO to provide as much information on usage and billing throughout the month. If you have a smart meter that sends regular reads, we’ll use these to update the balance daily.

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.

Hi @gordonash

I am just a customer like you

Have you ever logged onto your account to get previously bills? 

https://account.ovoenergy.com/billing-history

Last month after the investigation into my large bill, I was told I was £350 in credit. Now when i check my app im -£350. You people are giving me an aneurism. The app just seems to say whatever it wants. I overpayed you a few months back thinking i had accrued massive debt and it turned out I hadn’t. This is either gross incompetence or a calculated move to say that I owe money so I can’t switch providers. 

Hey @Daryl1234,

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

Do you have a smart meter installed? It means you won’t have over or underestimated bills in future, which should prevent these issues and mean your direct debit is more accurate. 

If you have a smart meter but don’t think it’s working as it should, this topic may be helpful:

It’s one of the strange parts of their system @NewHome . If you look at the charges, they are negative and so actually a credit (2 negatives make a positive ) - must be an adjustment of some sort. 
So with your payment shown, the account will be in credit as you say

Hi all, looking to see if this has happened to anyone else, and what to do:

electricity only

smart meter

pay the amount owed when I get the bill.

November - 51p in credit  - bill was zero said not to pay anything, so didn’t

December  -1.24 in debit - over christmas - fogot to pay

January - 119.05 in debit (reads 57.62 in debit)

I’m so confused. the bills don’t add up?

thanks

Now OVO keep telling me my billing cycle is from the 13th off each month to the 12th off the next month. So why do they not show this on there app, i can see what i have used from the 1st off said month to the 30/31st off same month , then i have to to an indivual add up off days to see what i paid from the 12th off month to the 30/31st off same month . Why not just show u what u have really used over the billing period . 

I know the whole month is in usage tab so why can't ovo start it from the start off billing cycle ie start from 13th to 12th next month rather than jimping through hoops to find it in payments . To me thats a rather simple request but i guess it't diffcult for Ovo