Octopus bill wording

molerat

Eon Next use an identical billing format, must be integrated into Kraken, but they use CR and DR, which in my mind is much clearer.

We have charged you (VAT is included)
Electricity 1 Sep 2024 - 30 Sep 2024 £100.76 DR

We have charged you
Based on your meter readings. VAT included.
Gas 12th April 2024 - 3rd June 2024 - £37.53

would in many people's eyes be a credit.

Spoonie_Turtle

csduk100 said:

Assuming most people would like to be in CREDIT (i.e. Octopus owe us the money) then the example above could have been stated as £186.14CR

Maybe it's a generational thing (I truly don't know) but I prefer to see my numbers accurately represented as positive (£186.14)
or negative (-£186.14). 
Just like they are for bank transactions and balances.

Credit and debit confused me until my 20s, and I don't think the usage of the terms for credit cards and debit cards helped there.  Now I understand them, obviously, but if I'd had bills without negative numbers it would certainly have taken extra brainpower to parse them having to keep track of CR or DR - and still would, if we were with a supplier who did that.

victor2

Explain to someone who doesn't understand financial statements just how DR means debit. 😉
And while we're on the subject, explain the difference between debt and debit, which many people don't seem to grasp.

p00hsticks

I can't comment on Octopus, but I think more confusing that the use of the words 'debit' and 'credit' is the fact that some companies (British Gas, I'm looking at you for one) misleadingly use the term 'credit' when in fact it is down to them not having produced a bill for a number of months and the 'credit' has therefore not been offset against the energy used since the last bill. 

Customers therefore end up thinking they are in far more credit than they actually are - and in fact might even owe money at that time. It might be helpful if perhaps the word 'credit' was qualified by something like 'to be applied against the current billing period from DD/MM/YY to DD/MM/YY

bob2302

The_Green_Hornet said:

You should be more concerned about the incorrect calculations shown on their statements.
...
In the above example the Units Consumed (Cubic Metres) was actually 8.27 so the underlying energy usage calculation is correct.

8.27 x 1.02264 x 39.5 ÷ 3.6 = 92.8

Here is another example of their "miscalculations"

...

1618.1 minus 1521.6 equals 96.5 and not 96.6

The reason for this one is that on Octopus Tracker the Energy Used figure is actually calculated by adding up all the daily usage amounts as shown at the back of the statement and not the difference between the meter start and end readings.

In the first case they did the calculation correctly, but displayed a simplified calculation - not hugely wrong IMO.

In the second case your point is only valid if the start and end readings are exact, but presumably the have been rounded . Generally, you get more accurate results by rounding once at the end of a calculation, rather than rounding before calculating. 

MikeJXE

My own spreadsheet calculation from January to now using monthly readings supplied to Octopus are 1p adrift should I be concerned ? 

pseudodox

MikeJXE said:

My own spreadsheet calculation from January to now using monthly readings supplied to Octopus are 1p adrift should I be concerned ? 

I just got my latest bill and I owe them a penny LESS than I thought I did according to my own spreadsheet.  Woo! Hoo!  A spending spree beckons!  Often happens that we disagree by as much as 3p.  All down to rounding, and on the gas calculation the current calorific value.

MeteredOut

MikeJXE said:

My own spreadsheet calculation from January to now using monthly readings supplied to Octopus are 1p adrift should I be concerned ? 

That's shocking. Complain, and then Energy Ombudsman if they don't compensate you.

Spoonie_Turtle

victor2 said:

Explain to someone who doesn't understand financial statements just how DR means debit. 😉
And while we're on the subject, explain the difference between debt and debit, which many people don't seem to grasp.

I used DR as that's what someone else in the thread had said - is that the wrong abbreviation?  I thought it was weird but didn't have the brainpower to work out what to Google to find out what it should be.

victor2

Spoonie_Turtle said:

victor2 said:

Explain to someone who doesn't understand financial statements just how DR means debit. 😉
And while we're on the subject, explain the difference between debt and debit, which many people don't seem to grasp.

I used DR as that's what someone else in the thread had said - is that the wrong abbreviation?  I thought it was weird but didn't have the brainpower to work out what to Google to find out what it should be.

The post wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, just highlighting a term I can't explain. All I can find out is that it goes back to accounting practices using DR as short for Debtor, and it's evolved to represent a debit!