How to choose solar quotation software: the criteria that matter

Start from how you quote today

The right tool depends on how many quotations you send, how often your rates change, and who else touches the quotation. A person who sends a handful of quotations a month has different needs from a firm with several people quoting from one price list.

Write down your three or four most common jobs first, for example a residential rooftop system, a system with a battery, or a solar pump. Then judge every option, including your current spreadsheet, against those jobs and not against a list of features.

Criteria to test before you commit

These criteria do not rank any product. They are questions you can answer yourself during a trial, using your own rates and your own customers.

• Rates: can you keep one list of rates that every quotation reads from, or must you retype them each time?
• Tax: does the tool choose between CGST and SGST or IGST from the two states, or do you decide by hand each time?
• Bill of materials: can you edit the items for each system type, and record each module's make, model and DCR status?
• Subsidy: if you quote subsidised systems, is the subsidy shown as an indicative estimate you can explain, not as a promise?
• Versions: does each revision keep one serial number, and does the customer end up holding only the current version?
• Sharing: what does the customer actually receive, a file, a link or a printout, and does it open well on a phone?
• Records: can you see which quotations were sent, accepted or declined without keeping a separate list?
• Limits: what does the free or entry plan allow, and what happens when you reach it? Read the live plan on the vendor's own pricing page.
• Exit: can you take your customer and quotation data with you if you stop using it?

Who each approach suits

Most firms end up using more than one of these side by side, so the question is often which one owns the quotation step.

• A spreadsheet suits you if you send very few quotations, your pricing rarely changes, and you want to control every cell.
• A document template suits you if each job is bespoke and you want full control of the wording and layout.
• A general billing or accounting tool suits you if the main need is invoices, payments and returns, with quotations as a side task.
• Dedicated solar quotation software suits you if you quote often from one price list and want numbering, revisions, statuses and a consistent PDF handled for you.

Bharat Solar Venture is not a fit for you if...

Any tool has limits, and it is better to read them before a trial than after. These are the limits of Bharat Solar Venture that its own pages state:

• You need to issue GST invoices, record payments or file returns, because Bharat Solar Venture does not do those.
• You want to import an existing spreadsheet, because there is no spreadsheet import and rates are entered in the price book.
• You need a free-form layout, because the page structure is fixed and you edit the terms and the bill of materials.
• You need project management, inventory tracking or energy yield modelling, because it covers the quotation stage only.

How to run a fair trial

Take two or three real past quotations and rebuild them in each option you are considering. Compare the time taken, the totals and the PDF the customer would see with what you actually sent.

Ask someone who has not used the tool to open the customer's version on a phone. If they cannot find the total and the terms quickly, a customer may not either. Lists such as the ministry's approved module list change by dated order, so also check that you can edit module details yourself instead of waiting for the vendor.

Step by step

1. 1

   List your jobs

   Write down your most common system types and how many people quote from the same rates.

2. 2

   Pick your criteria

   Choose the questions that matter to you from the criteria above.

3. 3

   Rebuild real quotations

   Recreate a few past quotations in each option, using your own rates and customers.

4. 4

   Read the limits

   Read what each option does not do before you move any work over.

5. 5

   Decide who owns each step

   Settle which tool handles quotations and which handles invoices and returns.

Common mistakes

• Choosing from a feature list

  A long list of features says little about your jobs. Rebuild real quotations in each option instead.

• Trialling with sample data only

  Use your own rates and a real customer's state, or the tax and totals are not truly tested.

• Judging only the first quotation

  Costs show up much later, in drifting rates, lost versions and missing records.

• Ignoring what the tool does not do

  Read the limits first, for example whether it issues invoices or imports a spreadsheet, before you move your work over.

• Trusting an unverified claim

  Treat claims of superiority and competitor comparisons with no named, checkable source as marketing, including on a vendor's own page.

What to check before you send

• You wrote down your most common jobs before looking at any tool
• You rebuilt at least one real past quotation in each option, using your own rates
• The tax split came out right for a customer in your state and for one in another state
• You opened the customer's version on a phone
• You read the current plan limits on the vendor's own pricing page
• You know which tool will own invoices, payments and returns
• You know how to take your data out if you leave

Sources

• MNRE: Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM), read 10 Oct 2026