Skip to main content

Installer Funding Guide

Andrew C - PLR Product Ops avatar
Written by Andrew C - PLR Product Ops
Updated this week

Details & Timing

Timing:

  • Milestone funding: Twice a week

  • Processing cut off:

    Mon 2:31AM - Weds 2:30 AM ET Thurs Payment

    Weds 2:31AM - Mon 2:30 AM ET Tues Payment

  • Funding Date: Tuesdays/Thursdays

    • Disbursed via ACH: Timing may vary based on bank

    • Alternative funding days in case of bank holidays will be published in advance depending on schedule.

Documents Required:

  • W9

  • Bank Payment Authorization form

  • These documents are submitted during initial onboarding

Clawbacks:

  • LightReach reserves the right to cancel files which do not achieve NTP-to-Installation (M1) after 160 days, and claw back funds for files which do not achieve Installation-to-Activation Approved(M2) after 115 days. This is actively enforced.

  • Any prepaid (prior to installation) commissions may be netted out against M1 or M2 payments in the event of customer cancellations.

  • LightReach reserves the right to withhold or claw back funds to offset against egregious or intentional malpractice found with installations or sales.

Questions & Contact:

  • Primary Contact: Your LightReach Relationship Manager

  • Authorized organization personnel with Accounting Admin access can submit questions to our Tier 2 support team via our chat support feature by following the prompts under 'Installer Admins: Org Settings'

Disclaimer: LightReach reserves the right to withhold or claw back funds in certain scenarios.

Clawback and Net-Fund Dashboard

Background

  • LightReach uses two different mechanisms to manage how long working capital ($ paid to EPCs) is deployed before we require it to be returned.

  • These mechanisms are aimed at driving increased accountability and alignment with EPC partners to achieve milestones in a timely manner.

This report collects any projects in an EPC’s pipeline with a risk of clawbacks and/or net-funding. Each row is sorted by milestone and its aging status. Integers in red require immediate action and filter aging projects that are at imminent risk of a clawback.

Note: This report can only be viewed in the finance portal for users with Accounting Admin access.

Key Definitions

Clawbacks

  • Funds that an EPC is entitled to BUT that have been subtracted from their milestone payment because of a failure to achieve a milestone in a timely fashion (examples found below)

Net Funds/Offset

  • Funds that that EPC is NOT entitled to AND that have been subtracted from their milestone payment (examples found below)

  • Contractually in the EPC Agreement this is called an “offset”

Clawback to Net Fund

  • Applicable to Material that Palmetto purchases on behalf of the EPC via “Direct Pay”

  • EPC is NOT entitled to the amount of funds that LightReach paid for the Material as they received the equipment

Example Funding Scenarios (Click to Expand)

Type of Milestone Reduction

Reduction

Definition

Clawback

M1 Funding Clawback

Contractually, once a project has been paid the Install (M1) funding milestone it has a 115 day “shot clock” to reach Activation Approved. Note: We do not have a “payment date” in the LR system so the backend logic will net fund based on the Install M1 milestone date (Install Submitted or Install Approved). Because of this the net fund “shot clock” logic will have a 5 day buffer and be driven off of 120 days.

Clawback to Net Fund

Compliance Case

*If the project has an active administrative stip or compliance case, please have the EPC upload requested supporting documents to Ops Specialists via live chat support or via the finance portal.

LightReach reserves the right to claw back funds to offset against egregious or intentional malpractice found with installations or sales

Clawback to Net Fund

CED Materials - Install Submitted (Direct Pay)

An EPC has 14 days from Equipment Ship Date to submit the Install Milestone. If they fail to achieve this submittal in time the CED equipment invoice amount will be offset from other project milestone amounts owed

Clawback to Net Fund

CED Materials - Install Approved (Direct Pay)

An EPC has 30 days from Install Submitted to achieve Install Approved, if they fail to achieve this in time the CED equipment invoice will be offset from other project milestone amounts owed

Net Fund/Offset

Inverter Tesla Warranty

If a project is sold with a Tesla Inverter 1538000-45-x and
​1538000-xx-y, Palmetto will offset $600 from the EPC at the Install (M1) funding

Net Fund/Offset

SolarEdge Inverter Extended Warranty

If a project is sold with a SE Inverter, Palmetto will offset the cost from the EPC at the Install (M1) funding. The cost depends on the inverter model.
See SE's warranty extension price list here warranty-extension-pricelist-na.pdf

Net Fund/Offset

Project Cancellation

If a project cancels after a milestone payment has been made to an EPC partner or a payment has been made to a material vendor, that amount will be offset from a future payment milestone

How it Works in the Portal

This functionality will only be available to authorized Accounting Admin's for your organization. Below is a complete guide to the Payouts tab that showcases each piece of information relative to project funding within your org. Click here for a quick video on this feature.

Click here for the guide

Org Level View: Accounting Admin(s) have access to view the ADMIN -> PAYOUTS tab

  • This tab is confidential to Accounting Admin (AA) permissions only

  • Only existing AA users can grant new AA permissions within your org

Org Level View: AA users can view various tabs for accounting to review.

  • Payments are triggered automatically via the LightReach portal

  • Each line is tied directly to a specific account, dollar amount, and org payment plan

  1. Queued tab

    1. Unapproved batch of transactions that need to be reviewed by Accounting. Accounting will move status from pending to approved.

    2. Accounting can also remove and add transactions manually which is triggered by a payout event. The payout events (like a milestone approval) will happen regardless.

  2. Approved tab

    1. Transactions that have been approved by Accounting and will be paid out on the following payment date (typically either Tuesday or Thursday)

  3. All Tranactions tab

    1. A comprehensive view of all transactions. New filters and a few additional columns to sort on. This tab includes all transactions that exist in the payouts system. EPCs will only see the transactions that belong to them.

  4. Paused Transactions tab

    1. Includes transactions that won't be batched.

    1. These are valid transactions that would be paid out or adjusted. These may include payments that haven't been processed yet, leading to a balance or clawbacks that are being deferred based on timing or specific circumstances.

  5. Unbatched Transactions tab

    1. Unbatched transactions are listed here if there is a payment hold on the installer org profile settings. Transactions will remain here until the payout hold is removed by Accounting.

    2. Another type of transactions listed this tab are naturally occurring payout events that have not been assigned to a batch yet. The Accounting team will typically assign these transactions to a batch Monday and Wednesday so they appear under the Queued tab ready to be reviewed.

  6. Invoice Needed tab

    1. These are Direct Pay approved projects that have been installed but LightReach has not received a finalized invoice. Invoice must be received by LightReach before a payment will be processed to partner

    2. As of 3/19/25 - New columns have been added to the Invoice tab. The updates here give increased visibility to both internal and external users to better target accounts they need to work with CED on so they can receive payment.

  7. Payment Plans tab

    1. Shows elected payment plan for your org that breaks down the percentage of payout by milestone.

    2. The amount is based on the payment plan that is active at the time the milestone was achieved. Each EPC's payment plan is set in their Channel Partner Agreement and assigned to each account.

    3. EPCs will be able to see the Plan locked to any Account on that Account's funding page.

You can click on a transaction to view payment details:

  • A) Event Date & Time: The date and time the project reached the milestone/payout event

  • B) Account: The account name will be hyperlinked to the customer's project in the finance portal

  • C) Payee: The org receiving the payout

  • D) Payout Event: Describes the the milestone, or trigger, achieved

  • E) Description: Explanation of milestone event, clawback, or estimate

  • F) Batch: Date the funded amount has been processed for payment

  • G) Status: Status of line item in LightReach

  • H) Amount: Cost of net funding or clawback that ties to payout event

Individual Account View: AA users can view the Funding tab on a customer account

  • This will detail the account's payment plan, milestone triggers, and dates

  • Sorting is optional. Most accounts will follow our normal, linear milestone triggers

Payment Status Descriptions

  • Pending: Project has achieved a milestone, transactions not yet reviewed by Accounting

  • Approved: Project has achieved a milestone, transactions that have been approved by Accounting and will be paid out on the following payment date

    • In the future, there will be additional statuses for sent and paid transactions sent. For the time being, "Approved" statuses will be synonymous with Paid transactions.

  • Historical Estimate: These transactions occurred prior to the funding automation. This transactions will be listed in the portal however the amount will be calculated as an estimate. Accounting Admins should check their historical remittance reports before escalating any questions/issues on payments paid before the automation (generally before December).

  • Open: project has achieved a milestone, project's transaction not yet assigned to a batch.

    • Majority of projects will show as open due to a recently achieved milestone event. These projects are typically subject to the standard funding schedule.

    • A small amount may be due to organization net negative or payment holds

  • Historical Adjustments: Manually created transactions by LR Payment Admins created to update historical estimates to match what payments were made in reality and inform future calculations.

    • These transactions true up the system's view of past transactions and what actually happened. This differs from “Historical Estimate” that is calculated by the system.

Exporting Account Data

This feature is only available to users with Accounting Admin access.

Accounting admins may opt to export a whole pipeline or specific pipeline of projects through various filters including aging status, market, salesperson, etc.

Exporting will behave differently depending on the volume in the report. Smaller reports will be available for immediate download, while large requests will generate an email to notify the user that their report is ready for download.

Direct Pay

Direct pay is designed to reduce cash flow burden on installers. Participation in the program is optional. The program allows Installers to order equipment on a per-job basis, with LightReach paying for the equipment directly. Equipment costs are netted from EPC payments, reducing cash flow burden on Installers.

Installers can opt into Direct Pay on a whole pipeline basis. This means that all future LightReach jobs will be under Direct Pay.

For Orgs Opted into Direct Pay: LightReach must have the finalized equipment invoice from the vendor to issue payments.

  • Under most circumstances, the vendor will have already provided this

  • However, if an invoice is ever pending, the vendor must send this to LightReach in order for funding to occur.

  • In such cases, Installer should contact your vendor representative to ensure the final invoice is sent. This automatically triggers clearance in the LightReach portal.

  • To view projects with outstanding invoices, you may reference the Invoice Needed tab in the Payouts dashboard:

Proactively removing deals from Direct Pay at any time prior to the vendor shipping equipment:

  1. If EPC enrolled is in a Direct Pay program at the Org level, all their accounts will still default to being enrolled with Direct Pay when accounts are created, as they are today.

  2. EPCs can now self-serve:

    1. Proactively remove deals from Direct Pay at any time prior to the vendor shipping equipment to keep their pipelines in sync across LR and the supplier.

    2. Unblock payment on accounts held up for Direct Pay invoices that will never come because the EPC isn't using the selected Direct Pay vendor for that job. That blocked list is on the Payments "Invoice Needed" tab.

3. When users click opt-out or opt-in, the Direct Pay vendor will be notified and the status will change on vendor's side. If Opt-ed out, the vendor will bill the EPC's account externally, and not to LightReach.

Video Resources

Invoice Needed Tab Updates - External

All Tranactions Tab - External

Did this answer your question?