SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Solar Panel Cleaning Software

Getting Set Up on Solar Panel Cleaning Software in One Day

Big field-service platforms can take weeks to set up. A solar cleaning company does not have weeks; it has a truck that needs to go out tomorrow. The good news is that the setup that matters can be done in a single day if you do it in the right order. Here is that order, morning to evening.

Before You Start

The day goes faster if your customer list is ready to go. Importing Your Customer List Into Solar Panel Cleaning Software With a CSV covers how to clean the spreadsheet. Have that file ready, along with your current prices and the names and phone numbers of anyone who will use the tech app.

Start the 14-day free trial of SolarCleaningBossPro. No credit card is needed, so you can set everything up before deciding.

Morning: Company and Service List

Start with the things every invoice and estimate will use:

• Company information: your company name, logo, phone, email and the shop address that routes start from.
• Sales tax, if it applies where you work.
• The service list: your per-panel price, your minimum charge, story and steep-pitch add-ons, bird proofing per panel, critter guards and inspection.

Spend real time on the service list. It drives every estimate and every invoice from now on. Example prices like $6 a panel or a $120 minimum are only illustrations; use the prices your market supports.

Late Morning: Customers

Import the CSV. The addresses are placed on the map automatically. Check the map for pins in the wrong place and fix those addresses.

Then, starting with the customers due soonest, add:

• Panel details: count, mount, stories, pitch and extras
• Access notes: spigot, roof access side, gate code, dog
• A recurring plan: 180, 365 or 90 days
• Tags: Residential, Commercial, Twice a Year

You do not have to finish every customer today. Get the next few weeks of work complete, and fill in the rest as each customer comes due.

Afternoon: People and Trucks

Add your trucks. Add each employee with a personal PIN and assign them to a truck. If you have office help, add them as office users with the right role. If it is just you, set yourself up as an employee too, so your jobs and hours are tracked the same way a future hire's will be.

Then open the tech app on your own phone, in the browser, and install it to the home screen. Log in with the company login and your PIN so you know exactly what the crew will see.

Mid-Afternoon: Alerts and Forms

Turn on the customer alerts: the night-before reminder, the when-you're-next text and the tech-arrived text. Read each message and make it sound like you. Keep them short.

Add the request form and sign-up form to your website, so new customers flow into Form Responses instead of your personal inbox. If you are in the US or Canada and plan to text customers, get texting set up now so alerts are ready when the first route runs.

Late Afternoon: A Test Route

Before you send a real truck, run a test. Put tomorrow's jobs on a truck on the dispatch board and auto-route from the shop. Open the tech app and check the order, the panel details and the access notes on each card. Make a test job at your own address, then tap Start and Complete to see the invoice get created.

If something looks wrong, fix it now while it is quiet. That might be a missing panel count, an address on the wrong side of town, or an alert message that reads awkwardly.

The Next Morning

Run the day from the software. Show any techs the login, the route, navigation, Start / Skip / Complete and photos. Expect a few small fixes over the first week, like a gate code that changed or a panel count that was off. Each fix is made once and shows on every visit after.

The most common things people skip during setup are covered in Common Mistakes When Starting on Solar Panel Cleaning Software. Read it before you start and you will avoid most of them.

One Day, Then Running

A day of focused setup gets a solar cleaning company from a spreadsheet to a working system: customers on the map, plans coming due, trucks routed, techs on the app and cards charged at completion. To see everything you are setting up, visit the solar panel cleaning software overview.