How do I work out credit on statement?

Vicky123

I'm looking to switch suppliers, so on my statement dated till 8th August I was £12 debit but when I log on to my account from webpage I'm £150 credit with £160 due out on 3rd Oct.
I don't want to switch and be faced with a large bill from current supplier, how do I find out what the final bill will be as the DD is based on a years usage and I gave a reading last time which lifter it from £130 to £160.

footyguy

Vicky123 wrote: »

I'm looking to switch suppliers, so on my statement dated till 8th August I was £12 debit but when I log on to my account from webpage I'm £150 credit with £160 due out on 3rd Oct.
I don't want to switch and be faced with a large bill from current supplier, how do I find out what the final bill will be as the DD is based on a years usage and I gave a reading last time which lifter it from £130 to £160.

You won't know what the final bill will be as you cannot know what the final meter readings will be on the day the actual switch occurs. Also in many cases, you will not now what date the switch will occur until sometime after you applied (and even where suppliers do indicate the date, it is not guaranteed)

dogshome

The only true figure of your accounts Debit/Credit status is the one on the bill, but that accuracy only applies at the date on the bill - If the next D/Debit is due the day after the bill was issued, it alters the figure

In a way the Credit shown on your online account is a phantom figure, as it is simply cash you have in the account to pay toward the next bill

Vicky123

dogshome wrote: »

The only true figure of your accounts Debit/Credit status is the one on the bill, but that accuracy only applies at the date on the bill - If the next D/Debit is due the day after the bill was issued, it alters the figure

In a way the Credit shown on your online account is a phantom figure, as it is simply cash you have in the account to pay toward the next bill

Yes, I don't like the not knowing, seeing as I really don't want to be lumbered with a pay now bill then I can't see me switching Obviously if the £150 credit on line went towards the £160 due out on 3rd Oct then that's fine but the DD figure is based on entire year of usage.

dogshome

From your posts I would guess that you only opened the account this year , and don't have enough billing data to cover 12 months.

What I find a little worrying is that it is Summer and yet your D/Debit which accrues to appx £ 1,800 a year, only barely covering your use - In the Winter your energy useage and costs will rise considerably, and your D/Debit with it

Which supplier are you with, and what tariff are you on?
If you are still with the encumbant supplier to your home, and have not changed the tariff you were put on when you moved in, you are on their very expensive 'Standard' tariff

Vicky123

dogshome wrote: »

From your posts I would guess that you only opened the account this year , and don't have enough billing data to cover 12 months.

What I find a little worrying is that it is Summer and yet your D/Debit which accrues to appx £ 1,800 a year, only barely covering your use - In the Winter your energy useage and costs will rise considerably, and your D/Debit with it

Which supplier are you with, and what tariff are you on?
If you are still with the encumbant supplier to your home, and have not changed the tariff you were put on when you moved in, you are on their very expensive 'Standard' tariff

I've been with them 3yrs, it's EDF standard variable but that's just changed from Blue price protection, it's a big house and I'm a very cold person, quite draughty in places, downstairs absolutely freezing in winter.

dogshome

Get off EDF's Standard tariff as quickly as possible, it's costing the earth

EDF are still offering Blue Price promise tariffs, but be aware that some of them now have exit fee's - Now is the time to explore the Switch sites useing your annual consumption in KWh, not what you pay in ££'s

teddysmum

To get a rough idea of how much you are in debit or credit, take readings on the next dd payment date .


Work out the cost of power since your last bill (count the number of days for standing charge calculation) and add this to the amount due on the last bill and subtract the total of any direct debit payments made since that bill (including the one made on the calculation day).


This won't give your final billed value, as you don't know how much fuel will be used before changeover, but it will give an idea of size.


eg If you had a bill for £50 , have used £170 worth of fuel and have paid 2x £100, then you owe £220 less the £200 paid ie £20


However, if you are £50 in credit, have used £170 worth of fuel and have paid 2x£100, then you owe £120 less the £200 paid ie they owe you £80.

Sosumi

There really is no substitute for creating and using an Excel workbook; with one worksheet (spreadsheet) for gas consumption, one worksheet for electricity consumption and one worksheet for the account (two, if you are with separate suppliers).

Mine also has an additional worksheet on which I enter the tariff details of new fix offers, as and when they are announced, so that I can compare them directly myself.

It’s really very simple to set up. It took me one long winter afternoon, years ago, to create the workbook and the following morning to test it and tweak it to perfection.

All I now need to do is read the gas and electricity meters once a week. I enter the gas reading on the gas worksheet and the electricity reading on the electricity worksheet. Excel does its thing, crunches the numbers and produces analyses of my household’s consumption instantly.

I then open the account worksheet (which draws its readings from the gas and the electricity worksheets automatically) and the true state of my (dual-energy) account with my supplier (E.ON, currently) is already on display.

Quick, simple and accurate to the penny. Takes about five minutes a week and I always know exactly what my credit balance is. Once a fortnight, I submit the meter readings to E.ON online and it displays what it reckons is the state of my account. That always tallies with mine to the nearest pound and usually to the penny.

Our meter readings go back eight years.

I found this workbook invaluable when Ben Reid, OBE masterminded the meltdown of Co-op Energy’s customer accounts system in March 2015. Co-op Energy didn’t have a clue what the balance on my account (or anyone else's) was for months, but I knew it to the penny.

I’d have been as totally lost as they were without my trusty Excel workbook.

(Needless to say, I keep it well backed-up, including to a couple of reliable cloud services!)

teddysmum

That's rather a case of overkill and could cause you to stress about gas and electricity usage (not to mention being afraid to wash the car as you have a water meter).


If you are locked into a tariff (many more have exit fees, now), there is little point in seeing what you may be missing.

Sosumi

teddysmum wrote: »

That's rather a case of overkill and could cause you to stress about gas and electricity usage (not to mention being afraid to wash the car as you have a water meter).


If you are locked into a tariff (many more have exit fees, now), there is little point in seeing what you may be missing.

Judging by what gets posted on here, it would seem that the most common cause of stress over energy costs arises from people failing to monitor regularly how much energy they are actually using and ensuring that they’re being charged for it correctly by their supplier.

My household is a heavy user of domestic energy; we can afford it and we don’t fret about it. But I make damned sure that we don’t get overcharged for it and that my Direct Debits fund it realistically.

Spreadsheets make doing that a doddle. Once a week, when we’re at home, I pop out in the morning, while the kettle is boiling and the toaster is heating the wholemeal, to read the meters and then stick the two results into a spreadsheet. I can usually do that before the kitchen appliances have finished doing their thing and my breakfast is ready. I don’t regard that as arduous or overkill, and a quick breath of fresh air sharpens my appetite.

Then, once a fortnight, I log into my supplier’s website and submit the meter readings in less time than it takes you to post one of your endless plugs for Richer Sounds on the TV or the Techie sub-forums.

You always come across as a sensible, no-nonsense lady of a certain age, with an adequate grasp of basic mathematics, who can work out sums reliably on the back of an envelope with a calculator and a pencil. And I respect you for that.

But, although I eschew smart meters, I embrace most new technology with enthusiasm and an open mind. I have, after all, been using it for over 60 years. So, I welcome the time it saves me to keep proper track of things using a computer, software, the Internet and a printer.

It also makes the accountancy involved in switching tariffs or suppliers a breeze.

Despite the perpetual misuse by “Typical”, and his acolytes, of the words “locked in”, nobody is ever “locked into” a domestic energy contract. You can cancel it and move on at any time. It’s true that many suppliers do, now, charge Early Exit Fees if you avail yourself of that option. It’s also true that they are invariably set at a certain fixed price, whatever your consumption, and that this discriminates against those with smaller energy bills. A £60 dual-energy Early Exit Fee is 12% of an annual bill of £500 but only 2.4% of an annual bill of £2,500. But Early Exit Fees, if they apply, are just another financial factor to take into account when deciding whether or not to switch tariffs or suppliers.

And if, for some, the overall saving to be made from one specific switch might be meagre, for others it might be massive. It all depends upon where you live and how much of which energies you consume annually.


Too many people are unrealistically phobic about the very idea of paying a £60 Early Exit Fee (or of getting rolled on to a supplier’s Standard Variable Rate for a month or two). Neither of these are a catastrophe to be avoided at all cost and they might, in some instances, be a sound economic tactic to deploy.

There is, moreover, every point is keeping track of “what you may be missing”; not least to ensure that you don’t miss it if it would suit you. Again, a spreadsheet which analyses all the mathematical pros and cons of a potential switch in detail (particularly in terms of seasonality, based upon your own region and consumption) helps you decide whether or not to go for it.

No comparison site is going suggest that you opt for a more expensive two-year fix instead of a cheaper one-year fix. That’s something you have to decide for yourself, taking into account more factors than just the basic arithmetic applied by a comparison site.



Where, pray tell, do you believe I have ever mentioned whether or not our domestic water supply is metered?

In point of fact, we wash our cars with rainwater, stored in covered vats linked by simple syphons and fed directly by the downpipes from the gutters on our roofs. We don’t do that because it’s free; we do it because the water is pure and it’s gentler on the cars. We’ve been doing this for over 25 years.