Solar Software With Permit and Interconnect Tracking

Why Solar Installation Companies Choose Claver

Solar is a 90-day sales cycle wrapped around a 5-day install. The deal you closed Tuesday won't deliver revenue until October, and that's only if every checkpoint between today and then doesn't slip. Site survey, proposal, signed contract, design, structural review, electrical permit, install schedule, install, AHJ inspection, utility witness test, interconnection approval, PTO. Twelve checkpoints. Any of them slipping means cash flow falls behind.

The shops that scale solar run two things differently: they track every deal through every checkpoint without dropping one (because dropping a permit submission for a week is dropping $1,800 of margin), and they prove which $80-a-click Google Ads keyword paid for the closed deal, not just which one got clicked.

The pipeline is the engine. The permit tracking is what keeps it from stalling.

When you sit down with a homeowner Tuesday evening, the proposal builds itself in the app. 6kW system, 16 405-watt monocrystalline panels, Enphase IQ8 microinverters, $8,500 cash or $68/mo financed at 5.99%, federal tax credit $2,550 (30%), $0 first-year electric bill, $68/mo system payment after credit applied, $800/year net savings, $24,000 30-year savings. Customer sees the math, picks cash or financed, signs digitally, and pays a $500 deposit through Stripe. The deal moves from "Proposal" to "Signed" in your pipeline before you back out of the driveway.

Once signed, the permit grind starts, and this is where most solar shops bleed. Claver tracks each utility's process separately: APS in Phoenix wants structural sign-off before electrical permit; SRP wants both submitted simultaneously; PG&E in California has a 30-day NEM 3.0 interconnection window. Duke in the Carolinas has a 14-day permit timeline but takes 6 weeks for utility witness test. Every checkpoint is timestamped. Your operations lead sees a permit submitted Tuesday morning and follows up Friday if status hasn't changed. The 4-day slip becomes a 1-day follow-up, and the close-to-PTO timeline drops from 90 days to 67.

Install dispatch is where the multi-vehicle, multi-crew complexity bites you. The 4-person install crew, the scaffolding truck, the rack delivery from Iron Ridge, and the 16-panel pallet from REC all need to land at 412 Northgate by 7am Tuesday. Claver assigns the install date and pulls every dependent resource onto the same Tuesday. Crew lead opens the app at 6:30am and sees: 7am at Northgate, 4-person crew (Marcus and Jamie and Dre and Luis), scaffolding truck #2, rack delivery 6:45am, panels delivered Monday 4pm. No phone-tag at 6:45am trying to find where the modules are.

After install, the inspection and interconnection cycle is what stalls 70% of installs at week 8. AHJ structural inspector flagged 3 missing brackets on the south array. Your crew adds them Wednesday, you re-submit Thursday, inspector passes Friday. Claver logs the rework, the timestamp, and the photos that prove the fix. The utility witness test schedules Monday. PTO arrives 11 days later. The deal closes, and your $8,500 finally hits the bank.

And here's where most solar shops fly blind: marketing spend. You're paying $40-$120 per click on Google Ads for keywords like "solar panel install [city]" and "residential solar [state]." Some clicks become $8,500 installs. Some become nothing. Claver captures the Google click ID when someone visits your site and tracks it through proposal → signed contract → PTO → final payment. "Solar panel install Phoenix" generated 14 clicks, 9 proposals, 4 signed contracts worth $34,000. "Solar near me" generated 87 clicks, 1 proposal, zero signed contracts. Triple the first campaign. Cut the second.