A solar installation is three things at once. It is a project, with a budget, a team and a deadline. It is a stock movement, with panels, inverters, batteries and cabling leaving the warehouse. And it is the start of a service relationship, with warranties, maintenance visits and, often, a contract.
Most energy and solar companies in Nigeria run those three in different places: projects in spreadsheets, stock in an accounting package or a separate inventory tool, and service in WhatsApp groups and notebooks. That works when the company is small. As the number of sites grows, it becomes hard to know what a job really cost, which inverter is at which site, or when a customer's maintenance visit is due.
This article covers the problems we see most often in energy and solar businesses, and how Odoo brings them into one system.
Panels, inverters and batteries are usually imported and paid for in dollars. Freight, clearing, duty and local transport are added later, often in a spreadsheet, and the exchange rate used changes from shipment to shipment. Until that work is done, nobody knows the true cost of the stock, so quotes are priced on estimates.
Materials, technician time, transport and subcontractors are recorded in different places, if at all. The real cost of an installation is only known once the job is finished and someone pieces the figures together. By then it is too late to act on an overrun.
Inverters and batteries carry serial numbers, and manufacturers' warranties depend on them. If the serial number isn't recorded when the unit is received and installed, a warranty claim means a site visit just to read a label, and sometimes a claim that can't be made at all.
Technicians send photos and updates to a group chat, and job details live in their phones. There is no job history for each site, so when a fault is reported, the next technician starts from scratch.
Service agreements and scheduled maintenance visits are listed in a spreadsheet that one person keeps up to date. Visits are missed, renewals slip, and recurring revenue is lost without anyone noticing.
Purchase orders can be raised in dollars or other currencies, with the exchange rate on the day. When the goods arrive, Odoo's landed costs feature adds freight, clearing, duty and other charges to the cost of the stock received. Every panel and inverter in the warehouse carries its real cost, so quotes and margins are based on actual figures.
Each installation or contract is a project in Odoo, with tasks, a team and a budget. Technicians log time against the project, materials are issued from stock to the project, and purchases and expenses can be linked to it. Project managers can see cost against budget while the job is running, not after it has finished. If you assemble or manufacture equipment yourself, the approach is close to what we describe in Odoo for Manufacturers in Nigeria.
Inverters, batteries and other key equipment can be tracked by serial number in Odoo Inventory. The serial number is recorded when the unit is received, carried through to the delivery or project, and stays linked to the customer and site. When a fault is reported, you can see which unit was installed, when, and who supplied it, which makes warranty claims with manufacturers much simpler.
Odoo Field Service gives technicians their jobs on a phone or tablet. They can see the site, the customer and the equipment installed there, fill in a job sheet or checklist, take photos, record the materials used and get the customer's signature on completion. Every visit is saved against the site, so the next technician can see what was done before.
Maintenance agreements can be set up as recurring contracts or subscriptions in Odoo, with invoices raised automatically on schedule. Planned maintenance visits can be created from the contract, so they appear in the field service plan without anyone having to remember them.
Customers' fault reports and warranty requests can be logged as helpdesk tickets, assigned to the right person, and turned into field service visits when someone needs to go on site. Managers can see open tickets, response times and repeat faults by site or product.
Field Service, Subscriptions and Helpdesk are part of Odoo Enterprise. We'll confirm with you which apps your business needs before you commit to anything.
Energy and solar projects go best in stages, so each part is working before the next depends on it:
Accounting runs alongside from the start, so every purchase, project cost and invoice lands in the ledger. You can read more about how we work with the sector on our energy and utilities page.
If your projects, stock and service work are still spread across spreadsheets and chat groups, book a free consultation. We'll look at how you run installations and service today and show you what it would look like in one system.
Talk to a Growth Stack consultant about your processes, timeline and budget. The first consultation is free.
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