How to Increase Solar Sales with Finance Automation
Table of Contents
- Finding leaks in your solar company
- Increase solar revenue with automation
- How to increase your solar sales?
- How to generate leads for solar sales
- Grow your solar development business with Paystand
Key Takeaways
- Manual finance systems hinder growth in the solar industry, causing delays, inefficiencies, and cash flow problems despite rising demand for solar energy.
- Outdated payment methods like checks and spreadsheets result in lengthy payment cycles that harm customer relationships and extend days sales outstanding (DSO) to 60–90 days.
- Automation can reduce invoice processing costs by 90%, shorten billing cycles, and cut DSO by 60%, freeing capital for growth initiatives like marketing and customer acquisition.
- Modernizing your payment stack with ACH and digital bank transfers boosts cash flow, accelerates payments, and enhances finance team visibility and control.
- Paystand’s blockchain AR platform helps solar companies scale faster, close more deals, and build sustainable financial infrastructure.
Even before the pandemic brought the supply chain to a grinding halt, the renewable energy sector had already been feeling the pressure. Although the cost of installation has dropped by an astonishing 60% over the past ten years, pricing solar energy has proven to be a more complex challenge.
The original 30% solar power tariffs introduced in 2018 only decreased to 15% in 2021. However, solar energy companies now face supply chain constraints that have led to skyrocketing annual prices. In 2022, utility-scale solar prices surged by 18%, and yet 13% of projects are likely to be delayed.
Despite market uncertainty, consumers continue to demand more affordable solar power and installation services, doing so at a record pace. But what’s preventing solar providers from seizing this opportunity? Finance teams. More specifically, finance systems that are holding sales growth hostage.
To increase solar sales, boost profitability, and gain customers quickly, start by improving the back office. What if your financial tech stack hinders growth? If you’re still using paper checks and spreadsheets, keep reading; the solar future doesn’t wait.
Finding Leaks in Your Solar Company
It doesn't matter which part of the business you're in: supply and installation, own-and-operate models, or solar farm organizations can all experience significant money leaks. A lack of visibility in any department of your business can result in lost dollars and cents. When combined with manual processing, your organization could be hemorrhaging money.
When mapping out business operations in any department, you are likely to discover similar instances of unintentional waste, all of which affect productivity, client and vendor relationships, and cash flow.
Even if you only look at accounts receivable (AR), you can find several ways that processes can go wrong and cost serious money to fix. But even if they "go right," you're still shouldering hidden costs.
Consider your typical solar sales pitch. You’ve successfully closed the deal. Excellent. However, your finance team is now struggling with outdated billing cycles and payment methods that hinder cash flow. This situation is not only inefficient; it’s unsustainable.
Consider this typical scenario: you need to bill a company for a recent solar development project. Your team sends a PDF invoice through their ERP system.
Your client receives the invoice, but they pay by check. Consequently, their AP team delays the payment until they can process all their invoices for that month, and you aren't first in line.
Like your AR team, they utilize an ERP system. However, it's a manual process, and their workers must painstakingly enter the invoice details into their ERP before issuing the check. Nonetheless, it eventually happens. They place your check into an envelope and mail it. After a few days, it arrives at your bank lockbox and needs to be processed by the bank. A couple more days go by, and your AR team finally receives the payment.
But then they must reconcile it. Failing to mark the bill as paid can lead to stressed client relationships and an unbalanced ledger. For our purposes, let's say they close the invoice without any issues. If they're lucky, this process takes 30 days, at most. However, it's common for a solar company to wait 60 or even 90 days for payment!
Throughout this process, you’ve lost time, money, and momentum. The average collection period is stretching, your cash-to-cash cycle is dragging, and solar sales that should drive growth are instead becoming friction points.
And if they pay with something more convenient, like a credit card? It sounds nice, but then you're slapped with a 2.9% credit card processing fee, which cuts into your revenue.
These are not edge cases; they’re the norm. If you want to learn how to gain more solar customers or quickly increase solar installations, you need to close more deals and streamline your payment process.
Increase Solar Revenue with Automation
The solar industry focuses on creating a more sustainable and clean energy system. For AR teams, automating payments enhances sustainability within the finance department.
Finance professionals have reported that manual processes are mainly responsible for lost documents, compliance issues, and reduced productivity. Another survey found that transitioning to accounts receivable automation alone can cut costs by 80% and enable 3.1 times more invoices to be processed without any interaction.
But you may ask, how much does it actually cost to process an invoice, and is it worth it? Processing a single invoice typically costs between $12 and $30 if there are no errors. A top-tier automation software can reduce this cost to just $2.56. By scaling these savings across your client and vendor base, you can grasp how significant the overall savings could be.
This isn’t just about saving on invoice costs. It’s about improving your solar business by eliminating inefficiencies across the board. Automation allows you to reduce average collection periods, streamline your cash-to-cash cycle, and quickly boost solar sales.
Automation can mean receiving payment for your solar installation or solar project more quickly. At Paystand, we see days sales outstanding (DSO), or the wait for invoice fulfillment, decrease by 60%.
In other words, you receive payment more quickly while reducing the effort and cost associated with sending an invoice. Consequently, a solar facility or company can pay suppliers more easily or manage inventory better, thereby enhancing relationships with suppliers. You might even have the opportunity to secure early payment discounts.
Want to boost solar panel sales and free up capital for marketing and customer acquisition? Address the payments first. The sooner you automate, the quicker you unlock budget for growth initiatives like solar marketing campaigns, door-to-door sales strategies, or a robust referral program powered by satisfied customers.
However, it can improve. To significantly boost solar revenue, there are ways to promote preferred payment systems.
For example, you can offer more than just credit cards or check payments. ACH and bank-to-bank transfers are ideal for both commercial and residential clients. Both options are easy to use, allowing you to verify bank account balances in minutes, and they cost less to process than alternatives. You can choose to absorb the small costs of these transactions to make them "free" for your client.
You can also shift the credit card processing fee to the customer as a convenience fee. This not only saves you money, but it also encourages faster and more secure payment methods.
At the same time, you gain complete transparency into the payments process with improved analytics, making it easier than ever to develop an optimized payments strategy.
The money and time saved from automation can then be used for your next solar project or for following up with solar leads.
How to Increase Your Solar Sales?
To successfully sell more solar panels, you need more than just a solid sales pitch. You also require smart infrastructure to support it.
Here’s how your business gains when payments move at lightning speed:
- More available working capital to reinvest in lead generation and marketing.
- Shorter billing cycles and faster payment collection.
- A seamless experience for potential customers increases conversion rates.
- Less manual work for your finance team, giving them time to support growth initiatives.
And it’s not just about you. Sales increase when you make it easy for customers to say yes, backed by social proof, transparent processes, and convenient payment options.
How to Generate Leads for Solar Sales
If you’re ready to expand your target audience and get more solar customers, start by amplifying what already works:
- Leverage customer testimonials and use them across your social media and website.
- Use limited-time promotions to create urgency.
- Launch a referral program to turn satisfied customers into evangelists.
- Invest in content-driven solar marketing focused on value, not just price.
- Train your team on modern solar sales techniques using data insights.
The best practices for increasing solar sales aren’t revolutionary—they only require a strong operational backbone. Automation, analytics, and AI serve as your launchpad.
Grow your Solar Development Business with Paystand
Operating a solar farm or facility is challenging. If you manage a large solar installation business, we recognize that you have numerous moving parts.
But whether in good times or bad, it's essential to maintain a lean business operation. The more automated and streamlined specific processes are, the more time and money you save as a solar developer. More importantly, if automation leads to greater transparency, you'll gain the ability and insight to pivot when necessary.
At Paystand, we believe that building a scalable business begins with the cash flow cycle. We're the Venmo of B2B transactions, and our customizable integration is compatible with all major ERPs, so your finance team doesn't need to relearn a new software.
Our platform helps:
- Reduce average collection period with automated invoicing and digital payments.
- Get paid faster by eliminating paper checks and manual processes.
- Close more deals by streamlining post-sale workflows.
- Support your solar sales team with real-time data, analytics, and reporting.
- Modernize your B2B payments strategy using blockchain-enabled tools.
- Accelerate cash-to-cash cycles so you can reinvest quicker.
This is not just about AR. It’s about reimagining your financial infrastructure for the next economy: one powered by blockchain, cryptocurrency, and smart contracts. It’s your chance to leave behind the outdated legacy systems and move toward a decentralized, tech-forward future.
If you haven't moved into the new wave, here's how. It's still your chance to make a difference. But first, challenge what you think you know about financial operations and discover how Paystand helped Allterra Solar rewrite its future.
