A growing number of UK renewable energy installers now offer both solar PV and heat pump installations. The two technologies share an MCS certification requirement but diverge on almost everything else: grant schemes, survey methods, design calculations, and DNO paperwork. Most software platforms handle one technology well and the other poorly, or not at all. This article compares what each platform actually covers and whether running two systems makes sense.
Solar PV and heat pump installations are both MCS-certified, but the workflows, documentation, and compliance requirements are fundamentally different. Running both on one generic platform means compromising on at least one side.
| Platform | Solar PV Design | Heat Pump Surveys | BUS Grants | MCS Compliance | CRM/Job Mgmt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payaca | Proposals only | Yes (surveys, heat loss) | Yes (tracking) | Yes (both technologies) | Yes |
| Pylon | Yes (full design) | No | No | No | Basic proposals |
| OpenSolar | Yes (full design) | No | No | No | Basic proposals |
| EasySolar | Yes (full design) | No | No | No | Basic proposals |
| Jobber | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| SimPRO | No | No | No | No | Yes |
The only UK-focused platform that handles both solar and heat pump workflows in a single system. Payaca covers MCS-compliant proposals, heat pump surveys with heat loss calculations, BUS grant tracking, and job management. It does not include a full solar design tool with 3D modelling or shading analysis. For solar design, you would still use a dedicated tool like Pylon, then bring the project into Payaca for proposals, compliance, and job management.
A strong solar design platform with UK-specific features including shading analysis, panel layout, and yield calculations. Pylon is solar-only. It has no heat pump functionality, no heat loss calculations, no BUS grant tracking, and no MCS compliance features. If you do heat pumps as well as solar, Pylon covers half your business.
Both are solar design and proposal tools. OpenSolar offers a free tier with 3D modelling. EasySolar focuses on mobile-friendly site surveys. Neither handles heat pumps, BUS grants, or MCS compliance documentation. Both are solar-only by design.
Generic field service management platforms. They handle scheduling, quoting, invoicing, and customer management well. They have no renewable energy features at all. No MCS documentation, no heat loss calculations, no solar design, no BUS grant tracking. Every compliance task is manual.
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The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is the single biggest workflow difference between solar and heat pump installations. Solar PV has no equivalent grant scheme with this level of administrative overhead.
For every heat pump installation claiming BUS funding, the installer must:
None of the solar design tools (Pylon, OpenSolar, EasySolar) handle any of this. Generic platforms like Jobber and SimPRO have no BUS-specific features. Only Payaca tracks BUS grants natively. Every other platform requires manual tracking, separate spreadsheets, or direct use of the Ofgem portal without integration.
Both solar PV and heat pump installations require MCS certification, but the documentation standards differ significantly.
A dual-technology installer needs software that generates both sets of documentation. A separate system for each technology means twice the work. Two sets of compliance steps. Two sets of templates. Two places to search when an MCS audit arrives.
You may do a lot of solar, and heat pumps now and then. A solar design tool such as Pylon or OpenSolar may then be enough, with the heat pump work done by hand. The solar design tools are truly good at their job. Heat pumps may be 10% of your income. You can then live with BUS tracking and heat loss figures in a spreadsheet.
If you are running significant volume in both technologies, two separate systems create real problems. Customer data lives in two places. Job scheduling requires checking two platforms. MCS compliance documentation is split across systems. Reporting on business performance means exporting and merging data. Staff need training on two platforms instead of one.
Payaca is currently the closest to a single-system solution for dual-technology installers, though it still lacks full solar design capabilities. One system is possible for most installers, in one form. Payaca for everything except the panel layout, and Pylon or similar for the design stage alone.
One installer, one customer, one property, two technologies. The job is one job. The software is two.
That split came from the market, not from the work. Solar design tools grew out of one trade, and heat pump tools out of another. Each one declared a customer, a property and a job in its own way. Nothing joins them, so you join them, with a keyboard.
A shared foundation holds both. A customer, a property, a survey, a design, a certificate and a grant are declared once, whichever technology the job uses. The MCS certificate for a heat pump and the one for solar are the same kind of record, with different fields. Both sit against the same property.
Every installer we build for shares that foundation, so no single firm pays to build it twice. We explain that in bespoke software for a whole sector. We give the cost in what does it cost to own and run your own systems.
Some firms do more than 100 jobs a year, on both solar PV and heat pumps. For them the limits of a ready-made platform now hold the business back. You end up working around the software. A spreadsheet for the BUS grants. Hand-worked steps for the MCS certificates. Copy and paste between the solar design tool and the job platform.
A bespoke system built around your specific workflow eliminates these gaps. One system can hold the whole job, for both technologies. The lead. The survey, with heat loss for a heat pump and expected output for solar. The design. The proposal it writes. The BUS grant, applied for and followed. The installation dates. The MCS certificate it sends. The handover pack it builds. The warranties.
The business case is straightforward. You may pay for Pylon, for Payaca and for a separate CRM, and still track BUS grants in a spreadsheet. One system of your own replaces all of them. It usually pays for itself in 12 to 18 months, through less admin and fewer compliance errors.
The MCS Redeveloped Scheme makes this more urgent. Risk-based assessment rewards clean compliance records with less frequent audits. A system of your own can run the whole document chain, for both technologies. That keeps you in the lowest assessment tier, and your certification costs fall over time.
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