Client documents
Change orders
Recording extra work so the contract value moves with a paper trail behind it.
In short
A change order is how the contract value moves on the record. Send it to the client to sign before the work starts; their signature approves it, which adjusts the budget.
Work changes. A change order is how the contract value changes with it, in a way the client can see and you can point back to six months later.
The lifecycle
A change order starts proposed, carrying a number, a title, an amount and which categories it affects. From there it is approved, rejected, or voided.
Approving is the step that moves money. The category adjustments are applied to the budget, and the job's contract value goes up by the change order's amount. Until then it is a record of a conversation and changes no figures.
Getting the client's signature
A change agreed on site and never written down is the one that gets disputed at the final bill. On the Change Orders tab, a proposed change order has a Send to client to sign link. Your client gets an email with a page showing the change, its price, and the contract total before and after. They type their name to sign, or decline and say why.
- When they sign, the change order is approved automatically, exactly as if you had
pressed Approve. You get an email, and the row shows who signed and when. Your client gets their own copy by email, with the change, its price, the new contract total and a PDF, and a reply to it goes to you. The signed page stays available as a PDF for both of you.
- When they decline, the change order stays proposed and their note shows on the row.
Revise it and send the new version, or reject it.
- If you edit, approve, reject or delete it after sending, the link is withdrawn, so
your client can never sign a version that no longer exists.
The client sees the change order's price and which parts of the job it affects. They do not see how you split it across your budget categories, since that's your internal cost breakdown.
Note
Client signatures on change orders are part of Premium, alongside proposal e-signatures. You can still create, approve and track change orders on any plan.
The signing link lasts 30 days. Sending again replaces any link already out for that change order.
Where it shows
An approved change order appears in these places, which is the whole reason to raise one:
- The contract value on the job, with a breakdown of the original amount plus each change.
- The Changes column on project costing, so Budget stays as
signed and the change is visible beside it.
- The project statement you hand the client. See
- On a fixed-price job with a payment schedule, the next payment that hasn't been billed,
so the change is billed with the work rather than ahead of it. See project costing.
Change order or a direct adjustment
You can also adjust a project costing line directly, which moves the budget with no change order behind it. The two are for different situations and it is worth being deliberate:
| Use | When |
|---|---|
| A change order | The scope changed and the client is paying for it. It is client-visible and numbered. |
| A direct adjustment | You are correcting your own estimate, or moving budget between categories. Nothing is being billed. |
Note
A direct adjustment deliberately leaves no client-facing record, because there is nothing to tell the client. If a client should know about it, it wanted to be a change order.
Allowance overages
When a category marked as an allowance goes over, its row on the Budget tab offers Draft change order. It opens a new change order with the title, the price and the category's budget change already set to the overage, and a note saying what the allowance was and what the selections came to. Check it, then Save & send to client to get it signed. Approving it raises the allowance to what was actually chosen, so the category is back on budget.
The budget alert email makes the same offer when an allowance is exceeded.
Numbering
Change orders are numbered per job, in order, so "CO 3 on the Henderson job" means one thing. Rejected and voided numbers are not reused, since the gap is itself part of the record.
Practical advice
Raise a change order when the scope changes, not when you invoice, and send it for a signature before the extra work starts. The value of the record is that it is dated near the conversation it came from, while everyone still remembers what was agreed and why.