“While you’re here, could you just…” is the most expensive sentence in the trades. Said four times across a job, it is a day of unpaid labour and an invoice the customer disputes because it does not match the quote they signed.
What a change order is for
It is not bureaucracy. It is a short document that records three things: what changed, what it costs, and that they agreed before you did it. That last word is the entire point — approval after the work is a negotiation, approval before it is a price.
The template
- Change order number and the original estimate or job number.
- Date.
- Customer and job address.
- Description of the change — plainly. “Add a dedicated 20A circuit to the garage freezer outlet.”
- Reason — customer request, hidden condition, code requirement, inspector. This single field prevents most later disputes.
- Cost breakdown — labour and materials, same format as the estimate.
- Schedule impact — “adds one day.” Time surprises annoy customers more than money ones.
- Revised contract total — original, this change, new total. Show all three.
- Signature and date.
When you need one
Write one for any of these, regardless of size:
- Anything the customer asks for that was not quoted.
- Hidden conditions — rot, undersized wiring, a cracked heat exchanger.
- Anything the inspector requires that was not in the original scope.
- Material substitutions that change the price in either direction.
The threshold is not dollars. A $90 change you do for free teaches the customer that changes are free, and the next one is $900.
How to raise one without souring the job
Timing and tone do the work. Raise it the moment you discover it, on site, before you proceed. Lead with the problem and the consequence of ignoring it, then the number:
The decking under the valley is rotted through — about 40 square feet. If we roof over it the warranty is void and it will fail. Replacing it is $380 and about two hours. Want me to do it while we’re open?
That is not upselling. That is the conversation a professional has, and customers generally respond well to it — far better than to a line item they discover on an invoice.
Get it signed on the spot
A change order you will “write up tonight” gets signed at a much lower rate than one signed in the driveway, because by tonight the urgency is gone and the work is already done. Sending a small, signable document from your phone, while you are standing in front of the rot, is the whole difference.
How Toolbelt handles it
Describe the change in a sentence, get a priced, branded document, send it for a typed signature before you pick the tools back up — and the invoice at the end is built from what was actually accepted, so the totals cannot drift. Three free estimates, no card.
See also what to do when a customer won’t pay and how to invoice as a contractor.