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Defaults and Assumptions: Utility, Financing, Ground Mount, Environmental

Build the libraries your team selects from in the editor: utilities, loan providers, lease and PPA providers, ground mount defaults, and environmental impact figures.

Defaults and Assumptions is where you build the lists your salespeople pick from. When a rep selects a utility, a loan provider, or a ground mount installation type in the editor, they are choosing from what you set up here.

Build these before you create variables and rules, since your libraries are what the rest of the tool draws on.

🚧 Admin only 🚧 Defaults and Assumptions is part of global settings, which requires the Manage proposals permission.

For more information on Proposal Tool Permissions: Who Can Do What, please see this support article: Proposal Tool Permissions: Who Can Do What.

❗ IMPORTANT Every library on this page is a preset setting. Nothing you add or change here is saved until you click Update Preset, or choose to discard the change or save it as a new preset. Because building libraries takes a while, save as you finish each one rather than at the end.

For more information on Presets: How Settings Are Grouped and Saved, please see this support article: Presets: How Settings Are Grouped and Saved.

Utility Library

Add each utility your team sells against. These values drive the savings calculations on the proposal, so they matter more than any other library here.

  • Name: The utility name your rep selects and your customer sees.
  • Rate: The cost per kWh.
  • Inflation percent: The annual utility rate increase used in the long-term savings projection.
  • Production ratio: [NEEDS CLARIFICATION: confirm what this field does and how it interacts with the design's own production ratio metric, then replace this bracket with a real one-sentence explanation.]
  • Basic service fee: The fixed monthly amount the customer pays regardless of usage.

Once a utility is added, you can give it tiered rates. A single utility can carry multiple kWh tiers, each with its own cost, for utilities that price usage in bands rather than at one flat rate.

📘 Pro Tip: Your rep can also enter utility details manually on an individual proposal instead of picking from this library. Adding your common utilities here saves them the typing and keeps your rates consistent across the team.

For more information on Review Customer, Address, and Utility Information, please see this support article: Review Customer, Address, and Utility Information.

For more information on Enter or Confirm Electrical Usage, please see this support article: Enter or Confirm Electrical Usage.

Loan Provider Library

Add each solar loan provider your team offers. These feed the financing section in the editor and determine the monthly payment shown on the proposal.

  • Name: The provider name.
  • Interest rate: The interest rate on the loan.
  • Term: Years for complete loan payment
  • Administration fee: The provider's administration fee.

Lease and PPA Provider Library

Add each lease and PPA provider. These work the same way as loan providers, with the fields a lease or PPA needs.

  • Name: The provider name.
  • Financing type: Whether the entry is a lease or a PPA.
  • Initial rate: The starting rate amount.
  • Escalator: The annual escalator amount.
  • Term in years: The length of the agreement.
  • Degradation percent: The annual system degradation percentage applied.

For more information on Select a Financing Option: Cash, Loan, Lease, or PPA, please see this support article: Select a Financing Option: Cash, Loan, Lease, or PPA.

Ground Mount Presets

Ground mount presets are the defaults that apply when a salesperson selects ground mount as the installation type in the editor. Selecting ground mount brings in these defaults, along with the variables your rep then fills in to estimate the cost of the system:

Suggested setup. Rather than one generic ground mount preset, set up the ones that match how you actually sell:

  • AC trench, residential
  • DC trench, residential
  • AC or DC commercial, matching whatever the preset prices for

For more information on Apply Incentives and Cost Adders, please see this support article: Apply Incentives and Cost Adders.

Environmental Impact Calculations

These three figures convert your system's production into the environmental impact numbers that print on the proposal. They are estimates, and you can tweak them for your region or for figures your company prefers to use.

  • CO2 per kWh: Carbon dioxide offset per kWh of production.
  • Trees per kWh: Tree equivalent per kWh of production.
  • Car miles per kWh: Car miles avoided per kWh of production.

All three are driven by system production, so they scale with the design.

📘 Pro Tip: These figures appear on the customer-facing Technical Analysis and Technical Details pages. If your marketing team already publishes environmental equivalency numbers, match them here so your proposal and your website agree.

For more information on What's Included in the Standard Proposal, please see this support article: Standard Proposal Example.

For more information on Set Up the Proposal Tool: Order of Operations, please see this support article: Set Up the Proposal Tool: Order of Operations.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please reach out to our chat support or email hello@scanifly.com.