How to Change the Customer for an Existing Project?

This article describes how to change the Customer for a given Project. There are two separate scenarios where you may need to change out the Customer on an existing project:

1. An existing Customer has sold their property to a new owner.
2. A duplicate/incorrect customer is mistakenly associated with the Project.

About Ownership Transfers

In the first scenario, one of your existing customers sells their property, and the new owner contacts you. In this scenario, SolarNexus suggests that you create a Transfer of Ownership work order which covers a formal procedure to:

1. Create the new Customer
2. Transfer the existing project from old Customer to new Customer
3. Transfer warranties
4. Update net metering agreements with the utility and advising the new owner on the recommended utility rate
5. Commission on-line monitoring with the new customer
6. Advise new owner on company’s referral fees and other services

This article covers the process for handling the first part (create customer and transfer the existing project to the new customer).

Instructions for Changing the Customer on an Existing SolarNexus Project

1. Open project on which you wish to change the Customer
2. From the Job screen, click the Add icon in the "Other Participants" section (see below).

   

3. Select the type of participant you are adding (is this an Individual, Business, or Government? - Note that even "Individual" type participants can have more than one contact person).
4. Start typing in the name of the participant. SolarNexus will dynamically show you potential matches that already exist in your database. Select a match in the list, or click the "Create New" link to create a new participant.
   • When creating a New Participant, fill in contact information for new owners (note that there's no need to enter the mailing address unless it is different than the site address).
5. Whether a new Participant, or an existing one, you need to specify the Participant's role(s) on this project. For Roles select the following boxes
   • Customer
   • Host Customer
   • PV System Owner
   • Occupant

   

6. Click Save.
   At this point, the project screen view looks something like this:

   

7. Now the new Customer is set for the project, and the original Customer is in the Other Participants section with the role of "Occupant" (because SolarNexus is unsure of their new role, if any). Next some additional cleanup is required:
   1. If the original owner sold the property, click edit on the original owner in the "Other Participants" field section and check the “Original Owner” role and uncheck the "Occupant" role. You can also update the original owner's new address if available.
      OR if the original owner was a mistake, simply delete that participant from the "Other Participants" field section.
   2. Note that the Project's name remains as it was originally. SolarNexus recommends changing the project's original name by clicking Edit on the field section containing the "job name" and manually changing it. SolarNexus recommends using the new owner's name, and using some indication about the name not corresponding to the original owner. For example, if the original project name was "Atul Patel Project" and the new owner is Jorge Duenas, then changing the name to "Duenas, Jorge (new owner) Project" would make sense.
   
   The resulting project with new Customer would then look something like this: