Why is my online account credit balance dropping every day?

I am concerned that I have tried to watch what I use to keep costs down on both gas and electric and managed to keep with my monthly D/debit amount with a good surplus

i up my monthly payment myself hoping this would cover my expenditure

i was surprised that £370.56 was deducted in my March to April bill. This was without any explanation. Why was this?

Cost of gas.    £370.56.     This is on bill March to April

My direct debit is £110 and my usage last month was £74.74 so I was £36.74 credit I've just received my quarterly bill and I'm £19 in debit I really find this billing system totally confusing I've read all the threads and find it so hard to understand.

So my charges would have been the £33 credit and the £19 debit so around £50 for charges time to look else where knew where I was with SSE this ovo I ain't got a jar.

Hi @chubsterpug

I am just a customer like you. 

Has this been going on since you joined ovo or did it start later? 

No that's not the case

I have decided to move away from OVO. I paid my bill in full yesterday and I've logged on today and it's asking me for another £60?????

Only paid my balance of 100 odd pound a few weeks ago 2 days ago noticed my bill was £700 odd pound checked today its £848.94 what is going on?

However when i look at my billing history it says a owe £181

please help

thanks

Might be a daft question…

I pay £188.00 DD per month for electricity and use less than this (average cost per month is around the £100) I give weekly meter readings. However my credit balance keeps going down...which is the bit I'm confused about. If I'm not even using £188 per month...how does it work that my credit is going down?. Many thanks in advance if anyone could explain this

If it's your online balance then it's simply a what it says online, with the daily balance reducing as you use electricity (and the standing charge) and then when a DD payment is made each month the credit balance goes up again.

Ie. A credit balance online will go down daily but then shoot up again when a monthly payment is made.

Is your balance based on estimated readings? It shouldn’t be if you have a smart meter and your account is set to at least a daily reading schedule. Do you see daily readings, e.g. on this page: Meter readings history - OVO Energy? 

Not me. Can you show us what is happening?

The daily balance is calculated from consumption since the start of the billing period as reported by the meter, so the only way that the balance can fall by an unexpected amount is if consumption increases by an equally unusual amount (another possibility is that the cost of gas used has been recalculated in response to a revised calorific value, but this isn’t likely to be at all regular.) 

If you shared screenshots of your readings page(s) covering the last time this happened, we may be able to spot something. 

Hi @LWHAMPTON ,

That’ll be because OVO’s system runs on something called Live Billing. Rather than having to wait for a bill to arrive to see what you spent, you can see it in near real-time as the account balance updates every day to reflect what you’ve spent so far in the current cycle.

The monthly bills you get sent however, do not change and will show the final cost for any particular cycle.

It’s just a bit of a different way of showing you your balance daily rather than only telling you monthly/3-monthly like most other energy providers currently do.

So it is a bit different to what you may be used to with other energy suppliers, but it’s actually a better way of doing it; once you understand it.

I expect that most, if not all, energy providers will start to do it eventually.

Think of it as working more like your bank statement and bank balance do.

• There is a Statement at the end of your last billing period, which shows the Closing balance for that period, which is also your Opening balance for the next period.
• Then there is a 'live' balance that changes daily to reflect what energy* and standing charge* you have used each day (what you have spent). That usage will decrease your ‘live’ balance.
• It also changes to reflect any payments that you have put in (say a Direct Debit if that’s how you pay).. That payment will increase your ‘live’ balance.
• Then at the end of your billing period you get a new statement for the month just gone showing your new Closing balance, Which is also the Opening balance to start the next period.

Just like with your bank, - you get a statement once a month, but if you want to then you can also see your (live) balance of what is going out/in daily.

In both cases, your bank and OVO, that 'live balance' is just extra information so that you can see how your account stands day-by-day rather than having to wait until the end of each month for a statement..

*PS. If you don’t have a Smart Meter, or aren’t sending daily usage readings, then the ‘live’ balance will still change by the daily standing charge.