Contract Reviews

When the UK energy market opened in 1990, businesses and house holders were given the flexibility to choose their own supplier and be in control of their own energy spend.

This has bought significant issues to the industry because it is not a straightforward process. It is actually very complex and there is a need to engage an expert or educate yourselves to avoid ‘Waste’ or dare I say ‘Mistakes’.

There are the Big Six Suppliers in the UK and according to my friend ‘Wikipedia’ they are British Gas , EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish and SSE, which are all very strong suppliers but have different attributes to the market. There are many more suppliers known in the marketplace that add up to too many more opportunities for confusion.

Now all these suppliers provide different services and though they all service your energy requirements the critical measure here has got to be ‘Billing’. Because they all do it differently.

When you are operating a business or buying a house, you need to have clear understanding on your costs. Now I have said many times that Energy is your third largest expense, so it is critical for us to understand what our costs are and how this is broken down.

Unfortunately, that is not easy because the market is complex and can be confusing even to the experts. However, just breaking it down it to clear areas I believe we can address the confusion.

Billing is where I think and have said before where this all starts. Billing can be based on your contract quarterly or monthly. If this is the case these bills can not be presented unless there is a ‘meter’ reading. Sadly, though not all meters now are read regularly due to security, accessibility and resource to deliver this.

Therefore, Best Practice is to always provide the supplier a ‘Customer Read’ this will ensure you are in line with your billing. This will mean that you may have to pay more but it also means you could be paying less and receive a very big rebate, in the beginning

How to read your energy bill

When you receive your bills online or by post they will possibly comprise of 4-pages it is important here to ensure that the following details are correct:

Check you are being billed by the correct supplier
Check Correct Company Address
Check Supply Address
Check Correct Meter Details
Check Correct VAT Values
Correct set-up on CCL (not all companies need to pay this)
Check if the Meter reading is (A) Actual (E) Estimated and (C) Customer Read this will be indicated next to the reading

The bill will clearly state the fuel you are purchasing whether it is Gas or Electricity. It is also worth you check the Meter Reference Numbers are correct here to.

Electricity is the Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN) and Gas the Meter Point Reference Number (MPRN) these are abbreviations that we are all too familiar within the industry.