Bill validation
Bill validation means checking every line of a utility invoice against the contract you actually signed. Unit rate, standing charge, VAT, levies, meter reads. Billing accounted for 56% of the disputes the Energy Ombudsman reviewed in 2025 (Energy Ombudsman, Annual Data 2025, published 20 March 2026).
Energy invoice validation is the same job under a different name. Send us a bill and we read it. Plenty of bills come back clean, and when yours does we tell you that and leave you alone.
Nobody publishes a trustworthy figure for how many UK business bills contain errors. Several firms in this market quote one. We would rather show you what we check.
What we check
Unit rate against the contract, per meter, for the period billed.
Standing charge against the contract, including any mid-term increase.
VAT rate. Electricity qualifies for the reduced 5% rate under 33 kWh a day or 1,000 kWh a month, gas under 145 kWh a day or 4,397 kWh a month, per customer per premises (HMRC, VAT Notice 701/19, checked 10 August 2026). Being charged 20% below those thresholds is money back.
Climate Change Levy, currently 0.801p per kWh on both fuels from 1 April 2026 (HMRC, Climate Change Levy rates, checked 10 August 2026), so two different CCL rates on one bill is a flag. More on the levy and who pays it.
Estimated reads against actual reads, and how long the estimate has been running.
Meter charges, plus capacity and availability charges on half-hourly sites.
What errors look like
The Energy Ombudsman handled 3,216 back billing cases in 2025, against 3,238 in 2024 (Energy Ombudsman, Annual Data 2025). Ofgem's rule caps it. You do not have to pay for energy used more than 12 months ago if you never had an accurate bill or a statement of account for it (Ofgem, checked 10 August 2026). That protection can be lost if you blocked meter access or ignored payment requests.
CCL charged where it should not be. It does not apply to domestic supply or to charity non-business use, so a mixed-use site is worth checking. Businesses on a Climate Change Agreement get 92% off on electricity and 89% off on gas (HMRC, checked 10 August 2026), and suppliers do sometimes fail to apply it.
Zenergi, a bill validation provider, publishes three recoveries from its own case studies: £107,000 for an independent boarding school, £63,356 for a commercial property insurer and £14,000 for a junior school (Zenergi, checked 10 August 2026). Those are Zenergi's numbers, not ours. We are new at this and have no recovery record of our own to show you yet.
For landlords and letting agents
You have several meters and tenants moving in and out of them, and void periods bill straight back to you. The usual finding is a supplier still charging the landlord months after a tenant took occupancy, or deemed rates running through a void nobody flagged. The registration mechanics sit on change of tenancy.
For multi-site businesses
Send one month of invoices across every site and we read them together. Portfolios are where errors hide, because a wrong standing charge on site nine costs the same every month and nobody opens site nine's bill. Ask for a callback and we will go through the portfolio with you, water included.
What it costs
Our energy commission is 1.5p per kWh, gas and electricity, on every contract length. It is printed on your quote before you sign anything. How we source and present figures is on pricing methodology.
Common questions
- What is invoice validation?
Checking an invoice line by line against the contract and the meter data before you pay it. For energy that means unit rate, standing charge, VAT, Climate Change Levy and the reads behind the consumption figure.
- How to check if your energy bill is correct?
Put the bill next to your contract and compare the unit rate and standing charge for the exact period billed. Check whether the read is actual or estimated. Then check the VAT rate and the CCL line against the thresholds above.
- How can I check my bill online?
Most suppliers show billing and payment history in an online account, and half-hourly data if your meter reports it. An online account tells you what you were charged. It rarely tells you whether the charge matches your contract.
- Can an invoice be a bill?
Yes. Same document, different word. Suppliers tend to say invoice on business accounts and bill on domestic ones. Your rights are identical either way.