Change orders are where small contractors lose money they've already earned. Not on the bid — on the "while you're here, could you also…" that got a nod in the driveway, three days of work, and no line on any invoice. We said it in our job costing guide and it's worth repeating: a change order that lives only in a text thread doesn't exist.
The fix isn't a thicker contract or a client you trust more. It's a change order you can write in five minutes on your phone, a habit of writing it before the work, and one bookkeeping step so the final invoice remembers what the driveway agreed to. This guide is all three.
What counts as a change order
More than most people think. Write one for:
- Additions — the obvious case: new work that wasn't in the scope.
- Upgrades and selections — the client picks the $9 tile against a $4 allowance. Nobody thinks of that as "a change," which is exactly why it evaporates.
- Site surprises — the rot behind the shower wall, the line that isn't where the drawings said. You didn't choose it, but it costs money, and it needs a signature just the same.
- Removals — scope the client cut. A credit change order feels like paperwork against yourself; it's actually cheap goodwill and your defense when "but we dropped the pergola" comes up at the final invoice.
The common thread: anything that changes the price or the schedule gets written down, in both directions.
Write it before the work — the five-minute rule
The moment to write a change order is the moment you say "sure, we can do that" — while you're still standing next to the client. Not tonight, not "with the next invoice." The approval is the easiest it will ever be right now, when the client wants the thing; every day between the yes and the paper makes the number feel more negotiable.
Which is why the form has to be light. A change order that needs a desk, a printer, and a PDF gets written "later," and later loses. If it takes more than five minutes on a phone, the form is too heavy — so here's the one that isn't.
The fields that matter
Six things, none optional:
| Field | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|
| Number + job | "CO #3 — Henderson bath" — so invoices and sheets can point at it |
| Date | Establishes it came before the work |
| What's changing | Plain words, specific enough that a stranger could check it happened |
| Price change | Plus or minus, and whether tax is included |
| Schedule impact | The forgotten field — days added, so the deadline moves with the money |
| Payment timing | On the next progress payment, or due when the change is done |
And an approval in writing. A signature on paper is best; a client replying "Approved" to a message that contains all six fields is the realistic minimum, and it beats a nod by a mile. One caveat that matters: if your contract specifies how changes must be approved, the contract wins — and for big-dollar changes, paper and a real signature are worth the extra minutes.
The text-message version
Everything above fits in a message you can send from the truck:
Change order #3 — Henderson bathroom. Aug 25.
Replace rotted subfloor found under the shower, approx. 40 sq ft, materials and labor.
Price: +$1,450 (tax included). Schedule: +2 days.
Added to the next progress payment.
Please reply "Approved" and we'll get started.
Send it in whatever channel the client already uses with you — email or text, not a new portal they'll ignore. Ask exactly one thing: the word "Approved." And then the rule with no exceptions: the work starts after the yes. Doing the work first turns your change order into an invoice surprise, and invoice surprises are where disputes are born. Clients don't resent being asked to approve a number; they resent hearing it for the first time at the end.
Getting to the number takes another minute: the change order pricing calculator adds up the hours, materials and subs, puts your markup on top, and copies a line list you can paste straight into that message.
The bookkeeping half — where change orders go to be remembered
Getting the yes is half the job. The other half takes thirty seconds and is skipped constantly: the approved change order goes into your job costing sheet the same day — its own line in the money section, raising the agreed price from $48,000 to $49,450.
Skip that step and one of two quiet failures follows. Either the final invoice gets built from the original contract and CO #3 never gets billed — three days worked free, with the approval sitting uselessly in a thread — or the costs of the change land in your tracking (the subfloor lumber got photographed at the counter like everything else) while the price never moved, and the job's margin looks like it's rotting when really the revenue is missing. Costs and price have to move together; that's the entire trick.
If every job ends in a pile of extras
One or two change orders per job is normal life. If every job accumulates five, ten, a what-do-we-owe-each-other conversation at the end — the problem isn't the clients, it's that the capture moment keeps getting missed, and each miss is money already earned leaking out. The five-minute version exists to make the capture moment cheap enough to never skip.
Obra keeps the two halves from drifting apart: each job carries what you've agreed to charge alongside what it has actually cost — the crew's receipts arrive as photos or WhatsApp messages and you confirm each to its job — so when the driveway adds $1,450, you raise the price and watch the costs land against it the same week. What's left to collect stays current, and the final invoice can't forget what was approved in August. Start free if the thread-archaeology at the end of jobs sounds familiar.
Get the template
Every change order in this guide has a line in our free change order log — price to the client, your cost, days added, its status — with the adjusted contract and what is still waiting for a signature totaled at the top. Enter your email below and the download starts right away.