A change order is a written amendment to what you agreed: a change in scope, in price, or both. Your builder raises one, you decide on it, and once approved it becomes part of the contract. Nothing about your project changes on the strength of a conversation.
You only ever see a change order once your builder has sent it. While it is a draft it is theirs alone.
Finding the ones waiting on you
In the Change Orders list, the status Pending Approval is the one that needs you. Approved, Rejected and the various invoiced states are history.
Reading the price impact
Slow down at the panel at the top of a change order. It shows four figures, not one:
- Contract Price: what you agreed at the outset. On a cost-plus job this is labeled Estimated Cost instead.
- Prior Approved Change Orders: everything already agreed since.
- This Change Order: what this one does on its own.
- New Contract Price: where you end up if you approve.
Read the fourth figure first. A change order in isolation is easy to say yes to; the running total is the number that actually matters, and it is on the same screen so you never have to reconstruct it.
A change order can be negative. That is a credit, and the new contract price goes down.
These figures are captured at the moment the change order is sent to you, so they cannot drift while you are deciding. If your builder alters the document after sending it, the old signature request is canceled and you are asked again, against the revised figures.
What is in it
Below the summary are the items. Some are written by your builder as plain line items. Others are tied to a selection you made; those show the selection, the option chosen and its picture, so it is obvious what the money is for.
There is a Download PDF button. Take it if you want your own copy, or if someone not on the portal needs to read it.
Approving
There are two routes, and which you get depends on how your builder set the change order up.
Approve Change Order records your approval directly. One click, done.
Sign & Approve opens an e-signature. You sign in the portal, against the document and its terms, and the signature is stored with the change order.
Neither is more binding than the other in the portal's eyes; the signature version exists because some contracts, and some builders, require it.
When more than one person has to sign
A change order can require signatures from more than just you: your builder as well, or several named people on your side. The Signature Status panel lists every signature the document needs and marks each Signed or Pending, so you can see what it is waiting for.
Two messages in the action bar explain a missing button:
- You've Signed / Awaiting Other Signatures: your part is done. It will complete when the others sign.
- Awaiting Selected Signatures: your builder named specific people to sign this one, and you are not among them. Nothing is expected of you.
Rejecting
Reject asks you for a reason, and the reason is required because your builder works from it. "Too expensive" starts a different conversation than "we never asked for the second sink".
Rejecting is not the end of the change order. Your builder can revise it and send it back to you, and the rejection and its reason stay on the record.
If you are unsure rather than opposed, say so in the project messages before rejecting. A change order that goes back and forth once is ordinary.
After you approve
On a fixed-price job the new contract price becomes the number the job is measured against, and the amount you have just agreed becomes available for your builder to invoice. Nothing under scope you have not approved can be invoiced on that job, which is why change orders there tend to arrive promptly.
A cost-plus job bills differently, and it helps to know which one you are on. There a change order revises the estimate and records what was agreed, but it is not what releases the money: costs reach you on your next cost-plus invoice as your builder approves the bills behind them, change order or no change order.
Selections written into the change order stay locked throughout, before your decision and after it, whichever way you decide. This is deliberate: from the moment a selection is on a change order, changing it is your builder's job rather than yours. See making your selections for what that looks like from your side.