British gas take meter readings - how long before appearing on the bill ?

Ogre_De_Flamme

From experience this year only, can British gas customers tell me how long after the company reads their gas or electric meter does this appear on the bill ?
Put it another way, what is the minimum days that must elapse before that meter reading can appear on a bill.

Terrylw1

In terms of minimum, you need to understand the process.

Once the reader enters it into his handheld, it has to pass through the Data Collectors validation to determine whether it is valid or not. Once validated, whether valid or failed, it passes to the supplier. The supplier has to receive it through a "gateway" which unbundles the file full of different customer readings and then they will be routed to the billing system to perform bill validation & production.

So, allow a day for each part of the process from the day after they visit your property.

However, there can be all sorts of reasons why it can be passed to an exception report requiring manual intervention. This can take longer so could prevent it even hitting your bill if there is something complex to resolve.