Advice for Signature Solar

[Hedges]

Our daily hold times are averaging under 3 minutes this month.

Mean or median?

 

[Subdood]

Tax laws change all the time and are subject to the state that the products are being purchased in. The tax law is a dense web of bureaucracy. Are you really up to date on all of the tax laws in Kentucky?




Looks like Kentucky says you are supposed to pay sales tax on stuff bought over the internet. So when you ordered solar panels from Santan Solar, if they didnt charge you sales tax, then you are supposed to report it yourself, and if you didnt, then you sir, are the one breaking the law.

Consumer Use Tax - Department of Revenue

revenue.ky.gov

this has nothing to do with "non Texas" customers, it has to do with the state you live in that the products are being shipped to.


Edit: Its very possible and even probable that somewhere in Kentuckys Tax law, there is a clause that forces companies selling/shipping over a certain $ amount of products to their state must collect the taxes for Kentucky and send it to them. (because they know people like you arnt going to self report stuff and actually pay the taxes).

Edit Edit: Go to Amazon @Subdood and tell me if they charge you sales tax

Oh I'm very familiar with KY tax laws, sir. I do all our federal and state tax returns myself. When filing the state return, KY will charge you a usage tax if you don't pay sales tax on items bought out of state and/or online.

Because Santan and Sig Solar didn't charge me tax on my purchases last year we were accountable for about $175 on those sales, plus about $30 on other internet purchases based on our income. So, we paid about $205 of usage tax on our state return, sir. I buy a lot of stuff online and just about all vendors (including Amazon) do charge tax, it's just that Santan and SS did not.

 

[SignatureSolarJames]

Mean or median?

Mean

 

[BenFromSignatureSolar]

2:17 sec today in tech and 1:53 in sales. If you have ever worried that you wouldn't get through if you need to call, it's a good time to pick up the phone and talk to someone at Signature Solar!

 

[42OhmsPA]

Why are these selling so cheap compared to the units with a warranty? New upgrades? New older units? Etc.

Best to PM @HighTechLab for an answer.
It's my understanding they are brand new older units they don't want to deal with moving to the new warehouse.

 

[Alkaline]

Oh I'm very familiar with KY tax laws, sir. I do all our federal and state tax returns myself. When filing the state return, KY will charge you a usage tax if you don't pay sales tax on items bought out of state and/or online.

Because Santan and Sig Solar didn't charge me tax on my purchases last year we were accountable for about $175 on those sales, plus about $30 on other internet purchases based on our income. So, we paid about $205 of usage tax on our state return, sir. I buy a lot of stuff online and just about all vendors (including Amazon) do charge tax, it's just that Santan and SS did not.

They may not have economic nexus, most states only require collecting sales tax in there region if you generate a certain minimum amount in that state, usually 100K or more.

Speaking of Kansas, your state is particularly vicious, it wanted to force any out of state seller to collect sales tax even if was $1.00

Economic Nexus Laws by State | State-by-state Breakdown

Over the last few years, 46 states have established economic nexus rules. Find out economic nexus laws by state here.

www.patriotsoftware.com

under threat by lawsuit from the Federal Trade Agency and interstate commerce they agreed to only require sales tax collection form merchants only if they had over $100,000 sales to that state.

In other words if a website charges you sales tax in your state even if they are an out of state business its because they sell over $100k annually to your state or have a physical location.

 

[Zwy]

Best to PM @HighTechLab for an answer.
It's my understanding they are brand new older units they don't want to deal with moving to the new warehouse.

If those are still on that warehouse moving sale, I should pick some up.

 

[Subdood]

They may not have economic nexus, most states only require collecting sales tax in there region if you generate a certain minimum amount in that state, usually 100K or more.

Speaking of Kansas, your state is particularly vicious, it wanted to force any out of state seller to collect sales tax even if was $1.00

Economic Nexus Laws by State | State-by-state Breakdown

Over the last few years, 46 states have established economic nexus rules. Find out economic nexus laws by state here.

www.patriotsoftware.com

under threat by lawsuit from the Federal Trade Agency and interstate commerce they agreed to only require sales tax collection form merchants only if they had over $100,000 sales to that state.

In other words if a website charges you sales tax in your state even if they are an out of state business its because they sell over $100k annually to your state or have a physical location.

Thanks. We're in Kentucky, not Kansas, BTW. They also have a 200 transaction per year threshold as well as the $100k threshold. I don't know if SS or Santan has reached that threshold here, maybe SS has and Santan hasn't. Solar isn't as prevalent here as other states so sales are lower. We live in a small rural community and other than someone about 5mi from us I don't know of anyone who does solar. But that's in our small little corner of the world. There are some solar installers/vendors in Lexington, and they will charge sales tax on anything you buy from them, obviously.

But regardless, one way or the other the man is gonna get his cut. I'm pretty sure we've paid taxes on stuff bought out of state or online, but we usually just pay the minimal usage tax on our state return to be safe. It's usually no more than $30 or so, it's based on your adjusted gross income on the state return. Buying those big items like an inverter and panels last year was the anomaly. Since I got our system online a couple months ago, we ought to get a decent tax credit on our federal return next year.

 

[ksmithaz1]

Unfortunately, not the case for me. Bought 42 Solarever 455s from SS, with shipping ($200), total was $10,359.90 ($.542 per watt).
Same order from Sanatansolar with shipping ($1014.96) would be $11318.96 ($.592 per watt).

Bought the exact panel from SanTan QTY 32. Along with the rails for my roof. Of course they are down the street, so I rented a truck for $60 and toted them myself. Ordered a full rack of 6 batteries from Signature, then ended up dumping the inverter setup I had for a pair of the 18Ks. Shipping was reasonable on all of it. Still finishing up the wiring for the new setup. Hope to have it running in two weeks at most.

 

[Redflyer]

Thanks. We're in Kentucky, not Kansas, BTW. They also have a 200 transaction per year threshold as well as the $100k threshold. I don't know if SS or Santan has reached that threshold here, maybe SS has and Santan hasn't. Solar isn't as prevalent here as other states so sales are lower. We live in a small rural community and other than someone about 5mi from us I don't know of anyone who does solar. But that's in our small little corner of the world. There are some solar installers/vendors in Lexington, and they will charge sales tax on anything you buy from them, obviously.

But regardless, one way or the other the man is gonna get his cut. I'm pretty sure we've paid taxes on stuff bought out of state or online, but we usually just pay the minimal usage tax on our state return to be safe. It's usually no more than $30 or so, it's based on your adjusted gross income on the state return. Buying those big items like an inverter and panels last year was the anomaly. Since I got our system online a couple months ago, we ought to get a decent tax credit on our federal return next year.

Same here in NV. I ordered a lot of stuff from SS last year, no tax. I guess I should feel fortunate.

We have threshold limits for out of state sales too, and I guess that's been met. Any new order will have sales tax...bummer.

As far as SS support, Anytime I've emailed them they have responded pretty quickly. I've called twice and had to hold roughly 15-20 minutes. So far that all seems reasonable to me....but everyone's experience is going to vary of course.

 

[RGH69]

I started this thread because of support responsiveness. They do answer phones and emails but warranty claims are denied.

I have had a battery problem for quite a long time. Signature Solar has not done anything. Says the manufacturer has denied an "SOP" and they are waiting for a firmware update. So now I have an expensive boat anchor. Been 6 months now.

Do Not Buy Signature Solar unless you don't want a warranty because they will not honor it.

 

[Quattrohead]

You have more chance of warranty service from them then any offshore company at all, period. Unfortunately sometimes you have to get rowdy on here to get a better customer service response. Growing pains and all that.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Anyone in this thread is invited to come to visit in person, schedule with me and I will reimburse you travel and hotel costs. I have 5 slots for power users this year (people with full systems from us or over 200 support comments on the forum)

We are 4 months in on a brand name CRM system, I think in another 1-2 months we will be where everyone wants us to be in every case.

I never felt the right to point this out but we really do very well with most tickets and most of our customers, the single digit % system gaps are just too embarrassing to tout all the success we have had so far.

Post #24 on this thread.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

There was a software glitch that affected the hardware is what was found. Since the new firmware has been out this has seemed to fix the majority of problems and cleaned the sine wave up. I think we have been working really hard to resolve these issues. It’s not easy to get a fix for a problem the manufacture is unable to see. There have been many sleepless night for a bunch of us that are dealing with these problems personally with the manufacture. I hope this answers your question Sir.

Post #65

 

[Zwy]

I started this thread because of support responsiveness. They do answer phones and emails but warranty claims are denied.

In my experience, they did warranty my units. A replacement pair was sent, however new problems surfaced and I was given a full refund after returning the pair of 6500EX inverters. I'm currently running a pair of LV6548's and those have been solid.

I have had a battery problem for quite a long time. Signature Solar has not done anything. Says the manufacturer has denied an "SOP" and they are waiting for a firmware update. So now I have an expensive boat anchor. Been 6 months now.

Keep on them, squeaky wheel gets greased first. Heck, start a Youtube channel like I did if nothing else. Show the general public researching solar your experience, both positive and negative. Be sure to publicly thank them if they did resolve things to your satisfaction. Give credit where it is due, and also give them a negative review if they don't resolve the problem.

Do Not Buy Signature Solar unless you don't want a warranty because they will not honor it.

My experience ended up positive and even though I thought we might not conduct any business again, I decided to purchase 2 of the EG4 500V charge controllers as I just could not find anything that compared to that product in that price range and higher voltage. It was either that or run more wire and deal with some voltage drop that affected performance. They had stepped up to the plate and did warranty the units for me, not really any hassle the second time around. The SCC's arrived a few weeks ago and I'm hoping to get the SCC's installed within the next few weeks as I've been busy with other projects. I'll be sure to update once installed, positive or negative. I'm not affiliated with them, I doubt I'd accept any affiliation with any company as I like to give the honest opinion after spending my own money on whether it was a positive or negative transaction.

 

[BenFromSignatureSolar]

I started this thread because of support responsiveness. They do answer phones and emails but warranty claims are denied.

I have had a battery problem for quite a long time. Signature Solar has not done anything. Says the manufacturer has denied an "SOP" and they are waiting for a firmware update. So now I have an expensive boat anchor. Been 6 months now.

Do Not Buy Signature Solar unless you don't want a warranty because they will not honor it.

Would you mind DMing me your email address so I can look into the issue for you?

 

[Hedges]

Would you mind DMing me your email address so I can look into the issue for you?

Keep on them, squeaky wheel gets greased first. Heck, start a Youtube channel like I did if nothing else. S

(All's well that ends well.)

 

[BenFromSignatureSolar]

Well it just doesn't all add up, I'm hoping that he had an issue with an outdated policy or a customer service agent that misunderstood something. Just need to get more of the story to know what it going on.

 

[Zwy]

@BenFromSignatureSolar , I know you will get this resolved.

Your boss should give you a very large bonus and official job title of The Fixer.

 

[CharliVN]

Most of us buy from Signature Solar because they are USA based and they tout "Real Texas Based Support". However, anyone that has sent messages to Signature Solar tech support knows that they don't respond. If you call Signature Solar support, you will be on hold for a long time. You can choose the option to get a call back, but that call back will be in several hours. The people that do answer the phones DO NOT know what they are doing. They only give you things to try which seem to come from the manual. Even Tier 2 support is lacking. Basically, the products are very good but only for those that are technically inclined and capable of self support.

I used to run technical support for one of the major banks of the northern hemisphere. I had way, way more clients to deal with than Signature Solar and my support team was relatively small. Based on my experience, I recommend that Signature Solar does the following;

1) Implement any CRM system. You can even do a simple spreadsheet if necessary. Use this to be certain to keep in contact with customers. Each open support ticket should receive contact daily, even if it is an automated text stating the resolution stage.
2) Split up the tier one and tier 2 tech support folks to have a specialty - One for batteries, one for EG4 Inverters, etc. Have a tech support "Person" answer the phone to determine which group to route the call to and/or take a number to call back.
3) Train all of the tech support folks. Have each person actually setup a complete system with a single inverter, then parallel, split phase, etc. Have them do this with all of the products they support.
4) Assign a Tier 2 support genius to each group of Tier ones. Have that person available to the Tier one during all business hours.
5) Setup a point person at each vendor (Schneider, Voltronic, Growatt, etc.) to deal with each Tier 2 genius. These companies will be more responsive if they have a single relationship support contact.
6) After the support ticket is closed, contact the customer to make certain that problem resolution was achieved and ask for satisfaction scores.
7) Reward your support team based on call answer time, problem resolution and customer satisfaction score.
8) Fire and hire until you have a good team.

You may think that it is expensive to have so many support folks. But once you have a good team it may not take as many as you think. Besides, how long can you run without good customer support?

Today very fews company invest in who work for them, they find the cheapest guy on the block and make the engineer work with them, I do have a problem with SS, my 3rd Growatt inverter screen burn out, luckyly I have all the document to show the inverter still under the warranty and I got my replacement for free but 2 wks later before I actually got the screen