Power up your solar project with just three tools
As one of the most abundant energy resources globally, it’s not hard to see why solar energy is booming and becoming increasingly popular in American homes. Installations have risen by 42% in the last decade, according to the Solar Energies Industry Association. By 2050, solar is predicted to be the fastest-growing renewable energy production.
With over 10,000 solar businesses across the country, how can your projects beat the competition and capitalize on this growth in America’s solar installations? Start by cutting soft costs.
Those “soft” costs in real terms often account for a whopping 65% of the total costs of solar installation! They include key expenses associated with the permitting, inspection, interconnection and administrative processes in solar projects. Reducing them not only lowers spending drastically, but boosts your construction budgets, profitability and sales.
These days, more and more solar professionals are realizing just how simple cutting soft costs can be. With the use of just three easy-to-use tools, you fast track your way towards optimizing over half of your operations. Website and mobile application, SiteCapture, actually streamlines this process with simple, all-in-one technology that integrates everything you need in one place.
But whatever solution you choose, make sure to include these three essential tools to transform your installation workflow into the most well-executed solar installation system that people can rely on time and time again…
Generate proposals with a click
Make the time-consuming task of drawing up accurate project proposals a thing of the past. Using customizable forms and templates, you can easily generate bespoke documents that clarify each essential step of your solar installation project. With this technology, SiteCapture users make proposals for site assessments, service repairs, the completion of products and much more – easily configured to suit each project’s individual needs while using a time-saving process that keeps all your important information in one spot.
But no project is a one-man show. Easily involve clients and third-party vendors in the proposal process with an integrated system, like SiteCapture’s, that allows users to send site surveys to homeowners via email. With just a click of a button, they’ll receive a copy of your template that they can view on any web or mobile browser, guaranteeing ease of access and avoiding miscommunications.
Service providers like electricians and roofers need to be kept up to date throughout each stage of your project too, so your proposal tool needs to involve them as well. With SiteCapture, you can give them access to upcoming and current proposals. It is completely secure – only your admin can allocate access to vendors and employees within the team. So you can be confident that your data and reports stay within your control.
With the ability to include commonly-used services’ fees and costs into the proposal template, businesses can ensure that project proposals are comprehensive and cover all estimated costs.
Starting as you mean to go on, and integrating those you work closest with – as early as proposal stage – has never been more straightforward.
Customize your solar system design, safely
No two projects are the same and you need software that understands this. With SiteCapture’s flexible software system, adding your own flair and design to branded solar project reports is so simple it can be done in-house. All SiteCapture customers get five standard reports with their plan, including data and photo reports and hybrids of these.
SiteCapture can even streamline the survey process – it integrates with aerial imagery company Eagleview to capture hard-to-reach places. There is no longer a need to put your team at risk. Eagleview is renowned for its accuracy in roof measurements, taking all of the guesswork out of the solar system design progress.
Administration operations need to be covered too. With SiteCapture software, your job site tasks can be assigned to your employees where you can receive real-time updates as tasks are completed. This ensures organization in the business across every stage of the solar system design process.
Capture perfect field data direct from the site
This is an area where many projects fall short, hemorrhaging precious time and money. Fortunately SiteCapture really shines here with a sophisticated design that boasts easy and simple on-site data capture. With mobile capability, you can collect field data from literally anywhere. Using your smartphone, track your work on the go and instantly store everything in the cloud.
There’s a reason why SiteCapture is known as “the construction industry’s favorite tool for capturing site data and photos”– notes, photos and videos are all easily entered in the app, ensuring all your site data is together, not mixed into personal folders. Forget taking photos and videos on a camera, backing them up on the computer or getting them lost in messaging platforms; SiteCapture lets users take them within the app itself, and automatically backs them up.
High-resolution photos can preserve details related to the job site inspection and can clearly capture details to be referred to later. This tool is perfect for roof, array and electrical data that solar companies regularly need to photograph. If taken on the mobile app, SiteCapture will timestamp these photos and record the geographical location where it was taken. This adds an extra layer of professionalism to your job site and solar inspections.
Then, instantly generate field reports that contain all the photos and information recorded, so you don’t need to make your way back to the office to waste time collating all of your data.
Storage is not a problem for SiteCapture users either; completed projects and reports are all stored on the app and can be tagged accordingly to view them quickly. The application can integrate with online platforms like Outlook, Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox and Mailchimp.
With the inspection process streamlined and simplified for all, time spent on the job site can be significantly reduced, opening more time to engage with the data and analyze it. Field data capture ensures that consumers are provided with a comprehensive report that details how their solar project was handled and provides valuable comparison photos. Perfect for tracking the progress and completion of each project.
Simple as 1, 2, 3!
In 2022, the value of business technologies that streamline your solar operations have never been clearer. Is it time you harnessed them to reduce the headache of soft costs?
The simplest way to optimize your time spent on solar projects and perfect your company installs is with SiteCapture. An easy and interactive application made with industry professionals, that makes comprehensive project maintenance achievable for as low as $100 a month. With fixed or customizable plans available to subscribe to, SiteCapture is flexible for every company’s needs. And we’ve only discussed three of the many ways it elevates American solar installation projects.
Contact SiteCapture to see what it can do for your business, and schedule a 30-minute demonstration. In this demo, you’ll see the technology in action and learn how it can be applied to your work to streamline and transform your projects for a better future, together.
Written for SiteCapture February 2022
