Checkout Financing

Summary

This article explains how to enable and use Checkout Financing in OpenSolar, allowing customers to finance solar projects directly through the proposal and payment process. Checkout Financing empowers customers to explore and apply for loans independently, simplifying sales and increasing close rates. It details the customer experience (how they access financing options on proposals and payment pages) and provides instructions for admins on how to activate and configure the feature.

Table of Contents

• Why Offer Checkout Financing?
• What is Checkout Financing?
• How do Customers experience Checkout Financing?
• How to Enable and Configure Checkout Financing

Why Offer Checkout Financing?

Offer customers an easy way to finance their solar projects directly via the proposal and payment checkout flows. Enable Checkout finance today and empower your customers to access Direct-to-Consumer loan products on their own terms, while you get paid on yours.

• Boost Sales - Flexible finance options lead to happier customers and higher close rates
• Customer-Led finance - Let customers explore finance options independently, giving them more control
• Simple Activation - No fees, no dealer network—just click "Activate" to get started

Learn more about Checkout finance below or explore current available lenders. 

What is Checkout Financing?

Checkout Financing allows customers to finance their solar installation directly through the OpenSolar platform checkout flow by selecting from a list of available payment options and applying themselves. You sell the customer a cash project with your milestone payment terms and the customer is presented with available options to finance their cash purchase.  

Essentially, Checkout Financing gives customers the power to independently explore and apply for financing options that suit their needs. This approach:

• Puts the customer in control: Customers can research different lenders, compare interest rates, and choose the loan that best fits their budget and financial situation.
• Simplifies sales process: The financing decision is made by the customer in coordination with an integrated lender.
• Provides transparency and limits compliance risk: Customers have access to clear information about loan terms and conditions direct from lenders 

How do Customers experience Checkout Financing?

There are two places where Customers will encounter Checkout Financing: on Proposals and on Payment pages (when CashFlow is enabled). 

On the proposals, when the customer selects the cash option, they see a new box on the proposal allowing them to explore available financing.

We recognize that some customers will happily pay a deposit out of pocket, but may be more interested in financing the later milestone payments. That’s why we’ve also made Checkout Financing available to customers in the Payment Form when CashFlow is enabled (click here to learn more about accepting payments on OpenSolar with CashFlow). When the Customer opens a payment form from an invoice sent to them and sees a new box on the proposal allowing them to explore available financing.

Once the customer clicks “Learn more”. 

1.  A popup appears showing direct to consumer financing options available for this project. Click here to view all currently available financing options by region.
2. The customer can set the amount they’d like to borrow by selecting which milestones they’d like to finance or manually setting an amount. By default we set the amount to the total amount due at the time (e.g. if they explore available financing after they’ve paid a deposit, we’ll adjust the amount to remove that deposit)
3. If the customer clicks to explore a specific option, they’re taken to that lender’s dedicated page for OpenSolar where they can provide basic information to see what kinds of financing they may be qualified for on the project. In most cases OpenSolar will prepopulate information on the customer’s behalf making it easier for them to complete the financing process. 
4. The customer continues to receive payment reminders while they’re securing financing, ensuring they make their payment to you on time. 

How to Enable and Configure Checkout Financing

Checkout financing is easy to enable and manage for your cash payment options. To enable Checkout Financing on your proposals and payment pages an admin must do the following:

1. Navigate to Control > Pricing and Payments > Payment Options 
2. Click “Activate” on the Checkout Financing
   

Once enabled, there are a few places where Checkout financing visibility can be controlled:

• Click into any cash payment option in the payment option table (Control > Pricing and Payments > Payment Options). A checkbox will appear allowing you to turn Checkout Financing on or off for that payment option. 

• On the project payment page, when a cash payment option is shown with Checkout financing enabled, you can turn it on or off in the payment options settings.