Change orders

Raise and price a variation, take it through internal review to the client, and apply it — moving the contract BOQ, contract value, budget and end date in one step.

Where

1. Projects
2. open a project
3. Change Orders

Who

• Company Admin
• Project Manager
• QS / Estimator

A change order (variation) records work the client has changed — more, less, different or new. Until it is approved and applied, none of it can be billed.

📷 Screenshot spot — the Change Orders tab with the Approved / With the client / Internal / Refused or withdrawn strip, and one priced variation open showing its lines

Save as static/img/screenshots/finance-change-orders.png and replace this box with ![Change orders](/img/screenshots/finance-change-orders.png)

Raise a variation

1. Open the project and go to the Change Orders tab.
2. Click New variation.
3. Fill in Title and Reason — both required. The reason is what the client's QS reads first and what a dispute turns on years later.
4. Choose the Origin: client instruction, site condition, design change, statutory, error omission, material unavailable or client request. It decides who pays — your own error is usually absorbed, a client instruction is recoverable.
5. Enter the Time impact (days) — negative for an acceleration — and, if you have them, a Description and Client reference.
6. Click Raise variation. It is saved as a draft.

Price it

1. Open the variation and click Price it (or Edit lines later).
2. For each line, choose the kind and fill in what it asks for:

Kind	You enter	Example	Contract impact
quantity change	A contract line and its revised quantity	Plaster 400 m² → 520 m² at ₹850	+ ₹1,02,000
rate change	A contract line and its revised rate	200 nos, ₹450 → ₹520	+ ₹14,000
omission	A contract line	60 m of railing at ₹1,200 removed	− ₹72,000
new item	Description, unit, quantity and rate	1 LS dewatering at ₹2,50,000	+ ₹2,50,000

3. Click Add line for more lines.
4. Click Save lines. Every line is replaced on each save, and a draft becomes Priced.

Every kind is priced by one formula:

Contract impact = revised quantity × revised rate − original quantity × original rate

The original quantity and rate are always read from the contract BOQ; you cannot type them. Each line is also checked against its kind: a quantity change cannot move the rate, taking a line to zero is an omission rather than a quantity change, and a rate change has to change the rate. A client's QS checks quantity and rate variations under different clauses, so the kind has to be honest. A lump sum is one new item of quantity 1.

If you can see cost, the variation also shows Cost impact and Margin impact. Cost impact is the change in quantity at the line's budget cost rate, taken from its rate analysis. A line with no rate analysis adds no cost, so the margin looks better than it is until it is costed.

A rate change has no cost impact

A rate variation changes the price of the same work, not the work. You build exactly what you would have built, so extra cost only ever comes from extra quantity. A rate change is pure margin, up or down; giving it a cost would double-count work already in the budget.

How a variation moves

DraftPricedUnder internal reviewSubmitted to clientApproved

Any open statusRejected / Withdrawn

Status	What you can do	Who
Draft, Priced	Edit lines, Edit header; from Priced, Send for internal review	Project Manager, QS / Estimator, Company Admin
Under internal review	Submit to client — the lines are locked from here	Project Manager, QS / Estimator, Company Admin
Submitted to client	Approve and apply…, or Record rejection with what the client said	Company Admin only
Any open status	Withdraw	Project Manager, QS / Estimator, Company Admin

There is no button to send a variation back from internal review for repricing. Withdraw it and raise a corrected one.

Approve and apply

1. Open a variation that is Submitted to client and click Approve and apply….
2. Enter the Reason (required), the Client reference and who approved it in Approved by (client side).
3. Click Approve and apply.

In that one step:

• The contract BOQ is frozen as a revision before and after, so you can always see what was agreed before this variation.
• A quantity change or omission sets the line's new quantity, and the quantity you can bill moves with it. An omitted line stays on the BOQ at zero — it is never deleted.
• A rate change sets the line's new rate. Bills raised after this price new quantity at the new rate; quantity certified on earlier bills is not re-priced.
• A new item becomes a new contract BOQ line, its code carrying the variation number, and can be billed on the next RA bill.
• The project's revised contract value and revised budget cost move by the contract and cost impacts, and a time impact extends the end date.

A panel headed Applied then shows the new Revised contract value, Revised budget cost, Revised end and Extension of time.

warning

Approving cannot be undone. A wrong variation is corrected by another variation in the opposite direction.

Read the register

The strip totals every variation by how far it has got: Approved, With the client, Internal (draft or in review) and Refused or withdrawn. With the client is the one to watch — work that may already be running against a variation nobody has ruled on, and that cannot be billed until they do. The list shows each variation's Number, Title, Origin, Contract impact (negative for an omission), Time and Status.

Accountants can read variations but not raise them. Cost and margin impact show only to people who see cost, or who are ticked Sees financials on the project's team.

Related

• RA bills — approved quantities become billable on the next bill.
• BOQ — the contract BOQ a variation revises.
• Budget — the budget cost an approved variation moves.
• Project financials — the revised contract value and margin.