Billing period is 82 days?

maxmiler

Hello,

I've just noticed that my electricity billing period is either 80 days or 82 days. (Scottish Power).

Surely a "quarter" is about 90 days. The average of an 81 day period means that there are 4.5 bills each year. Furthermore, as I pay by the calendar month, it means that some of my bills of 80 days only have 2 credits.
This makes my payments appear to be inadequate on some of the bills.

Is this usual, or is it a way for Scottish Power to keep my credit balances high, as I have been up to £434 in credit, but only a maximum of £30 in debit.
A few months ago my payment was increased by £13 a month, (but I am on a fixed tariff and my consumption remains the same).
This increase looks like it is because only 2 payments were credited against the bill immediately before this increase.

I would like to hear if anyone else has noticed this 80 day bill period, and is it right?

Thanks!!

Premier_2

A quarter is 365/4 = 91.25 days.

Obviously, the exact periods changes a little from bill to bill, but not normally by >10 days.
As you've had more than one, perhaps SP have been readjsuting you meter reading schedule. Suppliers do that occassionally to improve their operational efficiencies.

Don't worry about it. The bill will state the period it covers, and your monthly payments will not be affected by this.

Pont

I've just had my BG bill - thought I'd done everso well with economising - until I realised it was for 71 days!

Terrylw1

This does cause confusionj, but there can be reasons for it:

1. Since you billing window has a tolerance or - x days & + x days, any reading that comes in from you or agents will trigger a bill for the date of the reading
2. As Premier said, reading schedules get changed or re-aligned. This just means that the reading agencies cycle might have been out of synch with your Supplier, so they alter your cycle date in their records to make sure you get a better chance of accurate reads used on your bills.
3. If you have just moved in or changed Supplier, your first bill will be pro rata'd in many cases so could be more or less days.

Quarters are normally 89-91 days depending on billing systems. However, if you bill is regularly covering shorter times, as long as they don't move your cycles with it (so, your bills creap forward over a couple of years), then it probably won't be an issue. They use -x days + x days to capture a read from your or agents. Then at the end of this window, an estimate gets produced.

notbritishgas

maxmiler wrote: »

Hello,

I've just noticed that my electricity billing period is either 80 days or 82 days. (Scottish Power).

Surely a "quarter" is about 90 days. The average of an 81 day period means that there are 4.5 bills each year. Furthermore, as I pay by the calendar month, it means that some of my bills of 80 days only have 2 credits.
This makes my payments appear to be inadequate on some of the bills.

Is this usual, or is it a way for Scottish Power to keep my credit balances high, as I have been up to £434 in credit, but only a maximum of £30 in debit.
A few months ago my payment was increased by £13 a month, (but I am on a fixed tariff and my consumption remains the same).
This increase looks like it is because only 2 payments were credited against the bill immediately before this increase.

I would like to hear if anyone else has noticed this 80 day bill period, and is it right?

Thanks!!

I think Scottish Power do deliberately do this.
I joined them on 15 June this year and was informed my DD would commence on 16 July and my next bill was due 15 september.
I of course worked out that by 15 Sep only 2 DD's would be taken, the next one due a day later.
So I changed my DD day to the 10th of the month to make sure that 3 DD's were taken. SP however were too clever for me because they then changed the bill date to 6 Sep which meant only 2 DD's were taken. I gave up then, a beaten man.

Meadows

I have not had a full 1/4 bill for years now and the days change by quite a bit on each one.

mattcanary

Also, if you change supplier your address may initially get placed within the wrong meter-reading route. It is likely to be then get p[laced into the correct meter-reading route at a later time, causing the meter to get read at a different time during the quarter.

maxmiler

Just to confirm, I am going back through my bills and its been like this for over 4 years.
I haven't got every bill in the 4 and a quarter years that I've been with SP, but I did save a few as pdfs and they all show about 80 days. Never anything like 90 days and never ever more than 90 days. Always about 80.

So this has nothing to do with meter readings shifting the billing dates (although I don't think that it would anyway).

Am I beginning to smell a scam???

As SP's website doesn't go back any further than 14months, I would advise everyone to save the PDFs. Otherwise there is no comeback.

I certainly will be from now on.

Do we have a SP rep on this forum?

brewerdave

When I was with SP a couple of years ago I suffered from the "2 DDs for 3 months supply problem" on a bill. They consequently wanted to increase my DD from £120 to £175 pm!!
I phoned the C/S line to argue the point BUT by that time a third DD was showing against my account;the rep. I spoke with, couldn't understand why my DD had been increased and put it back down to the original figure! Another case of "computer says so..."

dogshome

I monitor the Elec & Gas billing for a friend who's with Scot. Power on an Online Account - Despite the 6 day window given for Online reporting of a meter read when it is requested, if SP have not had it within 3 days they will issue an Estimated Bill, which is then short of the Qtr with only 2 D/D's showing.

I combat this by numbering the Bills, and as each bill comes in I add it's number of Days and Kw used to those on the previous 3 - This always comes up short of the full 365 days, but by adding the use per day on the last Bill, times the number of days short, I can get an accurate annual use figure with which to beat Scot Power over the head when they want raise the D/D level

Scottish_Power

Hi maxmiler

I appreciate that if you are told you're going to get a quarterly statement, then working on exact days this should be around 91 days. There have been changes to the number of statements that are issued to customers over the past few years and for customer's that pay by monthly Direct Debit, a statement will only be issued to you when there has been a change to your payments or tariff. If there are no changes then we will issue you with an annual statement showing all charges for the previous year. It is not possible to read customers meters every 91 days and we try our best to do this. A meter reader may come round slightly earlier than the 91 days and the statement is generated to this reading.

The exact period of statements is not something that will affect the payments that we require from you and is only to help you understand what you are using. Everytime we receive an accurate meter reading on your account, our billing system reviews your annual consumption and compares this with the monthly payment you are making. It does not matter whether the account is billed up to the day before a payment is taken or the day after. It is the charges during that specific period that matters. Because of the fluctuations in use over the year, comparisons should always be done over a 12-month period so that you are covering the warm and cold months of the year.

If you have internet access in the house and can read your meter, would you be interested in setting up an online account and generating statements as often as you wish? If you want an exact 91 day bill then you can create this by updating your own meter reading and generating the bill online. I used this service when I moved into my new property and generated a statement every month for the first year so that I new exactly what was being used during summer and winter months.

If you have any further questions please let me know and I will be happy to help.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower