How do change orders work?

When a retest follows a subcontractor's failure, a visit is added, or the client asks for more, anyone on the job logs it with Log extra work — from the check, the deficiency or the machine. They say why, whose failure caused it, and how many hours or visits it took, or ask for it to be priced as a lump sum. There are no prices on it; the crew never sees what the work is worth.

Your admin, a manager or the job's project manager bundles logged work into a change order under Extra work & change orders, and prices each line from the job's own rate cards — hourly, per inspection or per diem day, at the rate on the card — or as a lump sum. Change orders are numbered per job: CO-001, CO-002 and so on.

Send it to the client for approval: the owner's representative on your firm's client list, or a contact of the company paying for the job. Sending fixes the total. The client opens it from their portal, sees every line, and approves or rejects it with their name and signature. A decline, or a request you cancel, brings the order back as a draft to change and send again. Nobody else outside your firm sees it — not the subcontractors, not the crew.

Approval adds the change order to the job's authorization on its commercials page, so the burn and the 75, 90 and 100 percent warnings count it straight away. It then goes on the next bill as one line at the approved total and is marked billed when that period closes. If a line was altered after the order was sent, it cannot be approved as it stands; it has to be sent again.