Who Sun Store Is For
Solar installation companies and equipment retailers face different procurement problems. Sun Store addresses both through the same AI planning engine, configured for each workflow.
From Project Award to Materials on Site
Installation companies receive a project award and immediately face the same problem: find out whether the materials are available, confirm lead times, and place orders early enough that nothing arrives late. For a small team running 8-15 projects at a time, this coordination happens through a mix of phone calls, email threads and supplier portal logins spread across each week.
Sun Store replaces that morning of calls. After a project is added to the pipeline with its installation date and equipment categories, the AI queries your connected supplier sources and returns a ranked order plan. You see which supplier has the inverter string in stock at the best current price, what the lead time is, and the date by which you need to place the order to land before install week.
When a supplier goes out of stock between the plan and the order date, the engine flags the change and shows current alternatives. Your purchasing lead reviews the flag and approves a swap rather than finding out through a delayed confirmation email.
- Ranked order plans per project, generated in minutes after project entry
- Lead time buffer calculation based on your confirmed install date
- Stock gap alerts with compatible alternative surfacing
- CSV export to your existing PO system, no workflow change required
Demand Planning Against a Moving Supplier Landscape
Equipment retailers serving installation companies carry inventory risk on both sides: order too early and capital sits in racking and wire on a warehouse floor; order too late and a customer waits three weeks for a module that should have been on a shelf. The planning window for solar equipment is compressible, but not indefinitely, because lead times for some product families stretch 8-12 weeks when demand surges across distributor networks in a region.
Sun Store gives retailers a procurement planning layer between their historical sales data and their supplier relationships. The AI reads your sell-through history and your current customer order book, cross-checks it against supplier stock positions and lead time patterns, and returns a forward-looking order recommendation by product family and SKU.
For seasonal demand categories, the engine models the lead time curve and flags the order window before it closes. For fast-moving items where a single large project can clear your shelf stock in a week, the AI monitors the gap between on-hand inventory and your outstanding customer orders and prompts a reorder plan when the buffer crosses a configurable threshold.
- Forward-looking order recommendations by product family and SKU
- Seasonal lead time modeling with early-order window alerts
- Inventory buffer monitoring vs. outstanding customer order book
- Multi-supplier price and availability comparison per SKU
Three Situations Sun Store Handles Directly
Beyond the everyday planning cycle, these situations surface regularly and cost the most time without a structured response.
Emergency Reorder
A project is three weeks from install start. The inverter supplier confirms the batch you ordered is delayed 11 days past the install date. The AI queries all connected sources for the same model and compatible alternatives that meet spec. It returns available stock, quoted pricing and earliest confirmed delivery date for each. Your purchasing lead approves a swap and re-exports the line item. Time to resolution: under 20 minutes.
Large Project Kickoff
A commercial award covers a 250 kW installation with a 90-day build schedule. The materials list spans 18 line items across 6 product families. Assembling that procurement plan manually means three purchasing staff spending two days calling suppliers and reconciling quotes. Sun Store generates a ranked plan across all 18 items in one session, with order-by dates calculated per line item based on the confirmed phase schedule. Review and approve, or adjust individual lines before export.
Seasonal Demand Surge
Colorado installation volume accelerates each spring as weather opens rooftop work windows and customer finance approvals from the prior year's Q4 cycle flow through. Module and mounting system lead times from regional distributors historically stretch 3-5 weeks in March and April. Sun Store flags the seasonal window in February based on your prior-year order data and prompts a stocking order recommendation before the distributor network tightens. Based on our early-access pilot data, earlier ordering gives teams more time to compare supplier lead times with project dates before a seasonal surge narrows their options.
See it working on your workflow
Request pilot access and we will set up your supplier connections and walk through a procurement plan on a real project from your pipeline.