The crew opens up the lot and the base under the dumpster pad is mud. The property manager is standing right there and says "just fix it." Three weeks later the invoice has a line for it, and the property manager's boss wants to know who approved it.
A signed change order that never gets billed is a donation. An unsigned one is an argument.
When you need one
Any time the work, the price or the schedule changes from what the customer signed:
- Conditions you couldn't see: base failure deeper or wider than the proposal allowed, buried concrete, a utility in the way
- Customer additions: another section of the lot, an upgraded mix, a thicker section, striping that wasn't in the proposal
- Removals: something taken out of the scope, which changes the price down
- Schedule changes that cost you money, like a lot that isn't ready when the crew arrives
The small ones matter most. Nobody writes a change order for 40 extra square feet of patching. Do that on every job and you're doing a meaningful share of the season's work for free.
Put a line in every proposal that says any work outside the scope gets a written change order, signed before the work is done. Then, when you need one, you're following the agreement, not asking for a favor.
Price it like a proposal
A change order is new work. It carries your full costs and your margin:
- Material at today's plant price, not the price in the original proposal if it's gone up
- Crew and equipment time, including the time the crew stands around while you sort it out
- Equipment transport and setup, if it takes a separate trip
- Your margin
If your proposal had unit prices for base repair or extra milling, use them. The customer already agreed to them, and there's nothing to argue about but the quantity.
For hidden conditions, show the customer before you price it. Walk them to the hole. Take photos with a tape measure in the frame. People sign what they've seen.
Get it signed before the work
A "yeah, go ahead" on the phone isn't approval anyone will remember the same way in a month.
- Write it down: what's changing, why, the quantity, the price, and the effect on the schedule.
- Get a signature before the crew does the work. An electronic signature on a phone counts, and it takes the customer a minute.
- If the work can't wait, get the approval in writing that day, even a text or email that says "approved, $2,400 for base repair at the dumpster pad," and follow it with the formal change order.
- On GC work, follow the contract's change order process exactly. Many subcontracts say unapproved extra work isn't payable.
Make sure it gets billed
The most common change order failure isn't the signature. It's the invoice that goes out without it.
- Keep signed change orders with the job, not in someone's email.
- Before any invoice goes out, check it against every signed change order on the job.
- On progress-billed jobs, add approved change orders to the schedule of values so they get billed as the work is done.
Related articles
- Pricing commercial paving jobs: the walk, the takeoff and the proposal
- Deposits and progress payments: getting paid before the job's done
- Rain days: when to call off the pour or the paving, and what to tell the customer
Pavr is job software for paving, sealcoating, striping and concrete contractors. Send a change order and the customer gets it by email, priced at the same margin they signed on the proposal, and that part of the job waits for their signature. Once it's signed, its lines come onto the invoice. Try it free → If you're comparing software, ask each one to run a real change order to an invoice: Pavr compared with the other tools shows what each publishes about it.