General

Incentives, Rebates, and Discounts

Incentives are how you reduce the price a customer sees on a proposal: federal tax credits, utility rebates, manufacturer promotions, and your own discounts all live here. They look simple on the surface (knock some money off the cost) but the details matter, because whether an incentive applies before or after tax, how it is calculated, and how it is capped all change the final net cost. This article explains every field, the six ways an incentive can be calculated, the two kinds of cap, and how the system applies them in the right order.

Two layers: the incentive template and the quote's copy

Incentives use the same two-layer pattern as utilities, so if you have read that article this will feel familiar.

The Incentive is a reusable template in your company settings. You build it once for each real rebate or discount you offer (for example "Federal Tax Credit" or "Spring Promo"). It holds how the incentive is calculated, its value, any caps, and whether it applies before or after tax.
The Quote Incentive is a copy attached to a single quote. When an incentive is on a quote you can override its calculation, value, or caps for that one customer without touching the template or any other quote. If you do not override anything, the quote simply uses the template's values.

This means you can keep a clean library of standard incentives and still tweak one for a specific deal. The quote always uses its effective values: your custom override if present, otherwise the template default.

The fields

Field	What it means
Title	The name of the incentive. Shown to the customer on the proposal. Required.
Description	A short explanation, also shown to the customer.
Link	An optional supporting URL (for example a government program page).
Calculus	How the incentive value is calculated. This is the important one and is covered in detail below. Required.
Value	The number the calculus uses. For a percentage incentive, enter it as a whole number (enter 30 for 30%). For the others it is a dollar figure. Required.
Max	An optional dollar cap. If set, the incentive can never contribute more than this amount.
Maximum Percentage Of Pre-Tax Cost	An optional second cap, entered as a whole-number percentage. If set, the incentive is capped at the lower of this percentage of the pre-tax system cost or the dollar Max above.
Automatically Add to new quotes	When on, this incentive is added to every new quote automatically.
Apply Before Tax?	Whether the incentive comes off the price before or after tax is applied. Covered below.

The six ways an incentive is calculated (Calculus)

The Calculus setting decides how Value turns into a dollar amount. There are six options. One is a percentage; the other five are flat or per-unit amounts.

Calculus	What it does
Discount %	A percentage of the system cost. Enter 30 for a 30% credit. This is how tax credits and percentage-based rebates are modelled.
Flat Discount	A fixed dollar amount, regardless of system size. Enter 1000 for a flat $1,000 off.
Discount/W	A dollar amount per watt of system capacity. Multiplied by the system's total watts.
Discount/Panel	A dollar amount per panel. Multiplied by the number of panels on the quote.
Discount/kWh (Storage)	A dollar amount per kWh of battery capacity. Multiplied by the total storage on the quote. Use this for battery rebates.
Discount/kWh (1st Year)	A dollar amount per kWh of first-year production. Multiplied by the system's estimated annual production. Use this for production-based incentives.

The per-unit options pull their quantities straight from the design, so they update automatically as the system changes. Add panels or storage and a per-unit incentive grows with it.

The two caps

An incentive can carry up to two caps, and when both are present the system honours whichever is tighter.

Max is a hard dollar ceiling. The incentive will never exceed it.
Maximum Percentage Of Pre-Tax Cost ceilings the incentive at a share of the pre-tax system cost. This is how programs like "30% of cost, up to $5,000" are modelled: set Discount % to 30 and the dollar Max to 5000, or use the percentage cap directly.

On top of whatever caps you set, the system always keeps an incentive from exceeding the cost it applies to, so a single incentive can never push a price below zero or above the list price. The numbers on a proposal are always sane.

Before tax versus after tax

This is the concept that most affects the final number, so it is worth understanding.

Every incentive is applied either before tax or after tax, set by the Apply Before Tax? toggle.

A before-tax incentive comes off the system cost first, and tax is then calculated on the smaller, reduced amount. This lowers both the price and the tax the customer pays.
An after-tax incentive comes off the final taxed price. Tax is calculated on the full cost, then the incentive is deducted from that gross figure.

The same incentive value produces a different net cost depending on this toggle, because a before-tax incentive also shaves the tax. Match it to how the real program works: a point-of-sale rebate that reduces the taxable price is before-tax, while a credit the customer claims later against the full invoice is after-tax.

How the incentives are applied, in order

When a quote totals up, it runs all of its incentives through a fixed order of operations so the before and after-tax interaction is always correct:

Before-tax flat and per-unit incentives come off the system cost first.
Before-tax percentage incentives are then taken as a percentage of what is left of the pre-tax cost.
Tax is applied to the remaining amount, producing the gross (taxed) price.
After-tax flat and per-unit incentives come off that gross price.
After-tax percentage incentives are then taken as a percentage of what is left of the gross price.
The result is the net cost, which is never allowed to go below zero.

The practical upshot: percentage incentives always apply to what remains after the flat and per-unit ones in the same tax phase, and before-tax incentives reduce the tax while after-tax incentives do not. You do not have to manage any of this by hand. Set each incentive's calculus, value, caps, and tax timing correctly and the quote handles the sequencing.

Auto-adding incentives

Turn on Automatically Add to new quotes for incentives that apply to essentially every job, such as a federal tax credit. They will be dropped onto each new quote automatically, with their template values, so your standard incentives are present from the start. You can still override or remove an auto-added incentive on any individual quote.

Quick reference

To create an incentive: set a Title, pick a Calculus, and enter a Value. Everything else is optional.
For a capped program (like "30% up to $5,000"): use Discount % with a dollar Max, or the pre-tax percentage cap.
For per-unit rebates: use Discount/W, Discount/Panel, or the per-kWh options, and the amount tracks the design automatically.
Set Apply Before Tax? to match the real program. It changes the net cost, because before-tax incentives also reduce the tax.
Turn on auto-add for incentives that belong on every quote.
On a quote: override an incentive's value or caps for one customer without changing the template, or leave it to use the defaults.

Utilities, Rates, and Consumption. The other input to a proposal's final price.
Team Members, Roles, and Permissions. Incentive setup is admin-only company configuration.
Loan Structures and Financing. Financing the net cost that incentives help produce.