Odoo for Solar EPC
Odoo rollouts for solar EPC and renewable energy contractors
Installers, EPC contractors and O&M businesses. Design into a purchase list, milestone billing, commissioning records that survive a warranty claim, and margin per job.
Solar contractors grow faster than their paperwork. The estimating spreadsheet that worked at four jobs a month produces the wrong purchase list at twenty, and the crew finds out on the roof. An Odoo rollout here starts at the design, because the design is what generates the quote, the bill of materials, the purchase orders and the commissioning checklist. Everything else in the business is downstream of getting that one record right.
Where it hurts today
The quote is a spreadsheet nobody else can rebuild
Yield, savings and payback come out of a file on one estimatorโs laptop with assumptions buried in it. When the customer asks why the number changed between versions, the honest answer is that nobody knows.
The design and the purchase list disagree
Materials are counted by hand from the layout. Mounting rails, DC cable, jumpers and protection are the items always got wrong, and the crew discovers it on site with the scaffold already up.
The grid connection is the long pole and nobody owns it
The application goes to the utility and then sits. Follow-up dates live in someoneโs head, the job sits in a stage called waiting, and the customer assumes the delay is the installerโs fault because nobody can show them otherwise.
Commissioning readings go on a clipboard
String voltages, insulation resistance and earth continuity are measured, written on paper and filed. When a string underperforms two years later, there is nothing to compare against, so the warranty conversation becomes an argument.
Job margin is estimated, never measured
Labour, access equipment, return visits and variations land in the general ledger rather than against the project. The business knows its overall margin and has no idea which jobs earn it and which quietly destroy it.
The modules that carry the load
Each one is here for a reason specific to solar EPC, not because it appears on a standard module list.
- ๐ฏ Odoo CRM
Referrals, bill-based enquiries and tender lists as a pipeline, with the site survey booked as a scheduled activity rather than promised on the phone.
- ๐ Odoo Sales
A quotation carrying cost, overhead and price per watt peak, so a discount is measured against margin at the moment it is offered, not at the year end.
- ๐ Odoo Project
The job as stages from survey through permitting, procurement and installation to handover, each stage naming the document that has to exist before it can move.
- ๐ฆ Odoo Inventory
Modules, inverters and mounting called off the warehouse to a named site, with serial numbers captured so a warranty claim can identify the exact unit.
- ๐ Odoo Purchase
Long lead items ordered against the design, with landed cost visible before the contract is signed rather than discovered when the container is invoiced.
- ๐ผ Odoo Accounting
Milestone invoices raised against what actually happened on site, and cost booked to the project as it is spent, which is what turns margin into a measurement.
- ๐ Odoo Field Service
Commissioning visits, planned maintenance rounds and callbacks scheduled with parts and hours booked against the site, so O&M is a contract rather than a favour.
How the rollout runs
- 1 Products, design data and the estimate
Modules and inverters loaded as real products with their electrical data, plus the estimating basis: labour rates, access costs, overhead recovery and expected margin per watt. A wrong estimate makes every later phase decorative.
- 2 Quote to signed project
The quotation, the payment schedule that has to add up before a contract can be signed, the stage gates, and the documents each gate demands.
- 3 Materials and site execution
Bill of materials into purchase orders into deliveries to site, then the daily site diary, variations and cost against budget. This is where the money is either made or lost, and where crews need the most training.
- 4 Commissioning, handover and O&M
String test records against calculated figures, safety certificates, the warranty register, maintenance contracts and generation logging with a flag on sites drifting below expectation.
What to have ready before kickoff
Projects that slip usually slip here, not in the build. Bring these to the first workshop.
- โ Your product list with real electrical data: module power and temperature coefficients, inverter DC window and AC rating. Marketing datasheets are not enough.
- โ The estimating basis you use today, written down: labour rate, access and plant costs, overhead recovery and the margin you expect per watt.
- โ A stage list with the document that gates each stage, because every installer draws this differently and yours is the one that matters.
- โ Open jobs at a stated cutover date with their stage, value invoiced to date and remaining milestones.
- โ Reference numbers and dates for any grid connection applications already sitting with a utility, so nothing is lost in the switch.
- โ Sites already under maintenance contract, with visit frequency, response commitment and what the contract is worth per year.
Where it connects
Systems we most often connect on solar EPC projects. The full list is on the integrations page.
Solar EPC
For the feature view of surveys, system design, string sizing, milestone billing and commissioning, read the solution page.
Open the Solar EPC solutionQuestions we get asked
Can Odoo hold the system design, or only the commercial side? +
It holds the design. Modules and inverters are real products with their electrical data, so strings can be sized against the inverter DC window at the coldest condition the site sees, and the yield and payback come out of stated assumptions rather than a hidden spreadsheet. A customer can check the arithmetic, which is the point.
How does milestone billing work in practice? +
The payment schedule is tied to events that actually happen on site, and the shares have to total exactly one hundred percent before the contract can be signed. Each milestone raises an invoice into Accounting when the event is recorded, so billing follows the job rather than following whoever remembers to chase it.
Can we track panels and inverters by serial number for warranty? +
Yes. Serials are captured when stock is delivered to site and stay against the installation, alongside a warranty register with one entry per component, since a module, an inverter and the workmanship run for different terms and are honoured by different parties.
Do you cover operations and maintenance as well as installation? +
Yes, and for most established installers it is the more valuable half. Contracts carry their own visit schedule, response time and performance commitment. Generation is logged per site against what the design predicted, with a flag on any site falling further behind than the threshold you set.
How long does a solar EPC rollout take? +
Design, quoting and project execution typically run in the 8 to 12 week band, with commissioning records and O&M added after the first jobs have gone through end to end. Contractors without clean product data spend the extra time building the product list, which is unavoidable and worth doing properly.