Octopus - Gas usage differences between apps and invoice

Archerychick

focusonskill said:

Are you using Octopus Tracker tariff by any chance?
I am on gas tracker and my bill isn't based on my actual daily usage recorded in the app.
Instead my bill is based on total usage over the billing period with an estimated daily usage assigned to each day (wich isn't my actual daily usage).

Yes I am. Where there is a missing meter reading yes the bill will be averaged but those months I have full meter data being taken so it should be actual per day on that basis. 

I have perhaps three months where there was a day or two missing so they averaged the month. I took examples from other months. 

t0rt0ise

You only need to miss a half hour reading for them to average it over the whole month. Happens all the time, especially with gas, not so much with electricity.

Archerychick

t0rt0ise said:

You only need to miss a half hour reading for them to average it over the whole month. Happens all the time, especially with gas, not so much with electricity.

Yes, it’s annoying when it happens but it’s as expected. 

Where I have differences they are not in months where my bill has been averaged. I’ll dig out my spreadsheet tomorrow that has usage logged and I can do a comparison over whole months, excluding and which were averaged 

Bendo

t0rt0ise said:

You only need to miss a half hour reading for them to average it over the whole month. Happens all the time, especially with gas, not so much with electricity.

What dodgy meters do you have?  Just a mental note to myself to try and avoid if my reliable adopted SMETS 1 meters are replaced. No gaps here for both gas and electric since they were adopted in April 2020.

Somebody

Archerychick I've only recently moved to Octopus Tracker and your post inspired me to check the usage in the Octopus app vs the bill.  

Like you my gas usage is all over the place (although I can see there were a few days where there was no gas usage captured in the app, so Octopus will have averaged the usage over the month).

Strangely my electricity is also out despite full month of data. What I have spotted though is that the usage on the bill lags the app by a day, although the usage does not match exactly:

App     kWh     Bill     kWh

26/4   11.44    27/4   11.66

27/4   11.43    28/4   11.68

28/4   15.70    29/4   16.83

29/4   11.58    30/4   11.14

30/4   27.91     1/5    28.49

etc

Does yours have a similar offset?  Should I get on to Octopus?

Archerychick

Somebody said:

Archerychick I've only recently moved to Octopus Tracker and your post inspired me to check the usage in the Octopus app vs the bill.  

Like you my gas usage is all over the place (although I can see there were a few days where there was no gas usage captured in the app, so Octopus will have averaged the usage over the month).

Strangely my electricity is also out despite full month of data. What I have spotted though is that the usage on the bill lags the app by a day, although the usage does not match exactly:

App     kWh     Bill     kWh

26/4   11.44    27/4   11.66

27/4   11.43    28/4   11.68

28/4   15.70    29/4   16.83

29/4   11.58    30/4   11.14

30/4   27.91     1/5    28.49

etc

Does yours have a similar offset?  Should I get on to Octopus?

That’s interesting, yours does look like it’s offset- I don’t have the same pattern unfortunately. I think what matters is that overall they are broadly right.

i check the whole year so far, and I’ve been billed for just under £10 worth of gas, over what is showing in the app. I’ve sent my findings onto the escalation contact I have with Octopus and I’ll update this when they next bother to reply - sometimes that takes weeks 

SJMALBA

Somebody said:

Archerychick I've only recently moved to Octopus Tracker and your post inspired me to check the usage in the Octopus app vs the bill.  

Like you my gas usage is all over the place (although I can see there were a few days where there was no gas usage captured in the app, so Octopus will have averaged the usage over the month).

Strangely my electricity is also out despite full month of data. What I have spotted though is that the usage on the bill lags the app by a day, although the usage does not match exactly:

App     kWh     Bill     kWh

26/4   11.44    27/4   11.66

27/4   11.43    28/4   11.68

28/4   15.70    29/4   16.83

29/4   11.58    30/4   11.14

30/4   27.91     1/5    28.49

etc

Does yours have a similar offset?  Should I get on to Octopus?

I have similar on my May bill - no gaps in data, but actual usage for electricity, as shown in my online account, has been applied a day late on the bill (except that some times the usage is 'spot on' (but a day late), others it's close (but a day late). The online account appears to be correct, in that days with lower URs, where I used more electricity than normal, are the highest usage days, but on the bill, the high usage is the day after...

Actual usage for gas has been applied to the correct days.

I contacted Octopus, but it's been the all too typical (IME) cluelessness and incompetence, from CSAs and senior management, and the matter is ongoing...

But, yes, I would contact Octopus, because you're not the only one seeing this error, though be prepared for a, euphemistically speaking,  frustrating 'customer service' experience?! 

bob2302

Is it possible that the tracker day doesn't run midnight to midnight?