Payaca puts solar design inside the installer CRM, with an MCS-compliant estimate and automatic shade assessment

  Posted by: electime      21st September 2026

Payaca, the operating system for clean tech installers, has launched Glow, a solar design tool built directly into its CRM, and Flow, an automatic heat pump estimate from a customer enquiry. Both are live in beta for UK installers from today and will be demonstrated on stand E30 at Solar & Storage Live, NEC Birmingham, 22 to 24 September.

Glow: the roof, in the same project as the job

An installer pins a property on the map. Glow pulls high-resolution imagery, identifies the roof faces and lays the panels out, and the installer chooses the kit from a catalogue of panels, inverters and batteries, each carrying its technical data and the manufacturer’s datasheet. The design is priced from the installer’s own catalogue and produces an estimate inside the same project the office already uses to book the survey, apply to the DNO, schedule the install and invoice the job.

Shading is assessed automatically. For every roof face carrying panels, Glow builds a horizon profile from the surface model around the array, adds nearby obstructions, derives a shade factor using the MCS sun path chart and attaches the chart to the estimate.

The estimate is MCS compliant. It carries the MIS 3002 performance estimate, calculated from the MCS irradiance zone, the orientation and pitch of the actual roof and a shade factor per array, together with the MCS battery information and the notes both standards require. Where an installer redraws a roof face by hand, the document states that the array was not assessed.

Then it stops being a design tool

The kit on the design becomes the priced items on the proposal. The items on the proposal become the materials list for the job. The materials list becomes purchase orders to the installer’s suppliers at their prices, or a draw from the installer’s own stock at real cost. Purchase orders sync to Xero, so the margin on the job is visible from the day it is quoted. The survey, the DNO application, the install schedule and the service plan sit in the same project.

“Installers have been running design in one tool and the business in another, and re-keying between the two,” said Matt Franklin, CEO of Payaca. “Glow puts the roof in the same system as everything else. The office doesn’t need a second login and the design doesn’t need exporting. A design tool gives you a roof and a PDF. This gives you the roof, the quote, the materials, the orders, the books and the job.”

Flow: a heat pump estimate before the survey

Flow launches alongside Glow. A homeowner completes the installer’s enquiry form; Payaca retrieves the property’s EPC, calculates the heat loss, selects a heat pump and cylinder from the installer’s own appliance list, applies the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant and produces an indicative estimate the installer can send before anyone visits the property. Flow is the fast estimate, not a room-by-room heat loss calculation; the installer’s design tool still does the full design.

“Most heat pump enquiries never become jobs, and every one of them used to cost a couple of hours of rough sizing,” said Franklin. “Flow gives the homeowner a number the same day and puts the surveyor’s time on the ones that are real.”

Agent Dave

Both tools sit beside Dave, the agent built into Payaca. Asked in chat to create a solar design for a property, Dave builds it from the analysed roof faces, reports the generation and savings, and comments on the design, for example noting when generation exceeds the property’s recorded consumption and a battery or fewer panels may be the better option. The same agent builds the installer’s automations, edits document and email templates and writes reports from their own data.

Availability

Glow and Flow are in beta for UK installers from 21 September 2026. Payaca is opening them to a small group of installers first. Installers can request access at payaca.com/uk/demo or on stand E30 at Solar & Storage Live.

About Payaca

Payaca is the operating system for clean tech installers: CRM, quoting, design, scheduling, field app, compliance, invoicing. Built by a team in Bristol, with customers in the UK, Ireland, the US and Australia. payaca.com