Cheat Sheet
6 Smart Questions to Ask a Solar Software Vendor
Ask Before You Buy
Before you make the big decision of choosing solar software that will touch nearly all aspects of your solar business, it's good to ask some questions first. Here are 6 questions you should absolutely ask your solar software provider before signing on the dotted line.
1. How accurate is your software compared to on-site visits? Within what percentage?
Pretty much all vendors will claim their software is accurate. One way to get a more detailed answer to this question is by asking for a tangible metric, like the accuracy compared to on-site measurements — as a percentage. You should look for software that's within 3-5% of on-site measurements.
Pro Tip: Although this is a relatively simple question, it’s perhaps the most important question of all, since using inaccurate solar software can lead to change orders and even canceled orders.
2. Does your software cover the entire sales-to-design process?
Finding software that’s great at everything is hard to do, which leads a lot of installers to cobble together their software stack. While this may seem advantageous at first, it can lead to a lot of inefficiencies as your business grows. Multiple rounds of onboarding, tool switching, and task switching can add up to create a mess down the road.
Pro Tip: You should look for solar software that can meet all your current needs and ideally offer room for growth. Having software that can grow with your business can help you avoid bottlenecks down the road.
3. How long does it take to get up to speed on the software? Do you offer any training services?
An aspect that is often overlooked when solar installers are shopping for solar software is the amount of time it takes to learn the software. All software is different, so even if you’ve used solar software in the past, there will naturally be a learning curve. Ask your vendor what the onboarding process is like and how long it takes the typical customer to get up to speed on using the software.
Pro Tip: Make sure you get specific with your questions here. Do they provide training sessions? How often are the training sessions held? Do they have recorded walk-through videos you can watch? How easy is it to get in touch with customer support?
4. Does your software have AI or any automatic design features? If so, what are they?
Design can often be a bottleneck for your business’s growth. An important question to ask your potential solution vendor is how the software helps to speed up workflows. An intuitive interface is a good baseline, but the best solar software should be able to do more, such as automatically determining the heights of buildings and obstructions, automatically sizing a system, automatically placing panels, automatically stringing panels, predicting weather patterns, etc.
Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to ask multiple questions on this topic. Some examples include: Does the software do automatic system sizing or system stringing? Does it have predictive weather data and irradiance modeling?
5. Do you offer on-demand design services?
Solar is a seasonal business. This makes it hard to predict how demand will fluctuate throughout the year and how many employees you’ll need on staff. To help with fluctuating demand, some solar software vendors have in-house designers who can help with excess projects so that you don’t have to turn customers away.
Pro Tip: The in-house designers at solar software vendors are experts in design. So, even if you don’t need help with additional demand, you could still use their on-demand design services to help with complex site designs that you’d like a second pair of eyes on.
6. Does your software integrate with my in-house CRM & other tools? If so, which ones?
Streamlining internal operations is one of the best ways to improve your businesses. And one of the best ways to streamline your operations is by ensuring all your data is synced across all your software tools. To do this, you need solar software that can integrate with your CRM, contract management software, and other tools through APIs. This will help reduce manual data entry and the associated errors of doing things manually.
Pro Tip: Ask your vendor how easy it is to sync their software with your current tools. Also, ask if they offer technical support to help you do so.
