The claim that went in three times
The install was a month ago. The customer paid their share, the fitter moved on to the next job, and the claim for the grant went in the following week. It came back: a photo did not show the serial number clearly. The second submission came back because the customer declaration was the old version. By the third, the admin person has spent more time on the claim than the fitter spent on the wall.
Multiply that by the jobs that sit in a folder called Grants To Do, and you have money you have earned, sitting outside the business, waiting on paperwork.
Evidence gathered backwards
Claims fail for a structural reason. The scheme wants evidence from the whole job: eligibility from before the install, photos and serials from the install itself, certificates and declarations from after. In most installers, collection only starts when someone sits down to submit, which is the one point when the fitter has gone and the customer has stopped answering.
- Eligibility checks are done at enquiry, but the evidence is not saved against the job.
- Fitters take photos, but not always the specific shots the scheme asks for.
- Serial numbers are typed from a photo, and one digit goes wrong.
- Declarations are sent as a PDF and come back as a phone photo of a printout.
- Scheme rules and forms change, and the checklist in the office does not.
Where the money goes
The direct cost is cash flow. If the grant covers part of each install, a backlog of unpaid claims is working capital you have lent the scheme for free. The indirect costs are admin hours, customers asked to sign things again weeks later, and the occasional claim that is never paid because the evidence can no longer be recovered. None of it improves anything for the customer, who assumed the grant was your problem once they signed.
The claim pack we build into each job
- When a job is booked with a grant, a claim record is opened with the evidence list for that scheme. Your team maintains the list in a simple admin screen, so when the scheme changes, one edit updates every new job.
- Eligibility evidence collected at enquiry (tenancy, property type, vehicle details, whatever your scheme requires) is saved to the claim straight away.
- On the day, the fitter's job app asks for each required photo by name, and the charger serial is scanned from the barcode rather than typed.
- Customer declarations are sent for e-signature with the current version of the form, and the signed copy files itself.
- Before submission, the pack is checked against the list: every item present, serial matches the photo and the certificate, dates in order. Gaps go to a named person.
- Submitted claims are tracked through to payment, with rejections and their reasons logged so you can see which item keeps failing.
| Evidence item | Usually collected | Collected in our build |
|---|---|---|
| Eligibility proof | Checked at enquiry, not kept | Saved to the claim at enquiry |
| Install photos | Whatever the fitter took | Named shots requested in the job app |
| Charger serial | Typed from a photo | Scanned from the barcode |
| Customer declaration | PDF printed and photographed | E-signed on the current form |
| Completeness check | At submission, by memory | Against the scheme list, before submission |
We do not interpret the scheme rules for you. Your team, or whoever advises you on the scheme, sets the evidence list. The system makes sure each claim meets it.
What the office sees instead
The Grants To Do folder becomes a list with a status per job: evidence complete, missing items, submitted, queried, paid. Most packs are complete the day after the install, because the fitter collected what was needed while standing in front of the charger. When a rejection does come back, the reason is recorded, and if the same item fails twice, the checklist gets fixed rather than the claim being patched by hand.
Is this your grant backlog?
- Claims regularly come back asking for something you had at the time.
- You chase customers for signatures weeks after the install.
- Nobody knows the total value of unpaid claims today.
- The evidence list lives on a sticky note or in one person's head.
- Serial numbers have been mistyped on a claim.