Setting up NSW Home Energy Saver zero-interest loans in OpenSolar

Summary

This article walks you through quoting the NSW Home Energy Saver interest-free loan in OpenSolar. You’ll set a maximum loan amount on a custom loan payment option, add a Paid by lender milestone in CashFlow, and create a project that splits customer cash and lender-paid amounts correctly. Assumes an Australian organisation with CashFlow enabled and the NSW capped loan feature active.

Table of contents

• Before you start
• How the quote breaks down
• Step 1: Create a Payment Milestone scheme with a lender row
• Step 2: Create your NSW loan payment option
• Step 3: Create a project and check the Payments tab
• Step 4: After the proposal is sold
• Test scenarios
• Troubleshooting

Before you start

Program basics

The NSW Home Energy Saver interest-free loan supports eligible households with loans up to $15,000, typically 0% interest over 10 years. Loan applications are facilitated outside OpenSolar (e.g. via Plenti or Brighte). OpenSolar does not submit the loan application for you in this setup — you configure quoting, milestones, and customer invoices so the numbers in your proposal as estimates for the program.

What you need in OpenSolar

• An Australian organisation
• CashFlow turned on

How the quote breaks down

For any system price above the loan cap:

Example — $32,000 system, $15,000 loan cap, 10% deposit on customer cash

• Out-of-pocket expenses: $17,000
• Quoted loan: $15,000
• Customer milestones (10%deposit / 90% installation on $17,000): Deposit $1,700 · Installation $15,300
• Lender row: $15,000 (tracked on schedule, no customer invoice)

Monthly payment on the proposal uses the quoted loan ($15,000), not the full system price.

Step 1: Create a Payment Milestone scheme with a lender row

1. Go to CashFlow Hub → Payment Milestones (or Control → CashFlow → Configure → Payment Milestones).
2. Click + to create a new scheme (or duplicate an existing cash scheme and edit).
3. Build your customer milestones first — e.g.:

• Milestone 1 — Deposit: 10%, Collect payment when proposal is accepted on, Enable Payment CTA on proposal on (if you want deposit at acceptance).
• Milestone 2 — Installation: remaining percentage on customer cash (or add a Delivery row if you use three customer milestones).

4. On the last milestone only, turn on Paid by lender.

• Exclude amount from other milestone calculations turns on automatically.
• Enter a lender name (e.g. your finance partner or “NSW Home Energy Saver loan”) — this is what Pros see on the schedule.

5. Auto-Apply: leave off unless you assign this scheme only to your NSW loan payment option. If you turn Paid by lender on while Auto-Apply is on, Auto-Apply switches off and you’ll see a warning — assign lender schemes to specific payment options, not every cash job.
6. Save the scheme.

Tip: Scheme A (deposit + installation + lender) and Scheme B (deposit + delivery + installation + lender) both work. Customer milestone count is not limited when a lender row is present.

Step 2: Create your NSW loan payment option

1. Go to Control → Price and Payments → Payment Options.
2. Click + Add Payment Options → create a custom loan (or duplicate an existing 0% loan).
3. Set loan terms to match the program — e.g.:

• Interest rate: 0%
• Term: 10 years (120 months)
• Maximum loan amount: $15,000

4. Assign the Payment Milestone scheme from Step 1 (with lender paid milestone).

• If you see “A full milestone scheme is required”, you’re still on Financed Project Deposits or a deposit-only scheme — switch to your full scheme.

5. Leave Dealer fee off (or use a fixed dollar fee only). 
6. Save the payment option.

What you should see after save

• Price below $15,000 → Out-of-pocket expenses $0, quoted loan = system price.
• Price above $15,000 → Out-of-pocket expenses = excess over $15,000 (e.g. $32,000 → $17,000 out-of-pocket, $15,000 loan).

You can edit out-of-pocket expenses if you need a higher customer cash share (loan goes down). You cannot set out-of-pocket so low that the quoted loan exceeds the maximum — OpenSolar will show an error.

Step 3: Create a project and check the Payments tab

1. Create or open a project in NSW (or any AU address you quote for).
2. Complete design and pricing so the system price is set.
3. On Payments, select your NSW Home Energy Saver (or similarly named) payment option you created in Step 2.
4. Open the loan card → See details and confirm:

• System price
• Out-of-pocket expenses (not “Upfront Payment” when max loan is set)
• Solar loan amount (capped at maximum)
• Term, interest rate, monthly payment (based on quoted loan, not full system price)
• Payment milestones table with customer rows and one lender row

5. Open the online proposal and confirm the customer sees the same quotation and milestone breakdown.
6. Customer invoices should only cover customer milestones — never the lender row.

Step 4: After the proposal is sold

• Use Adjust Payments from the Payments card menu if you need to tweak customer milestone splits after acceptance.
• The lender-paid row stays locked — you can’t edit or remove it from Adjust Payments.
• Mark the lender milestone paid offline when you receive lender funds; it won’t have Send invoice for the customer.
• If system price changes after the deposit is paid, extra cost goes to customer milestones. The lender row does not go above your maximum loan amount.