How do change orders with an approval limit work?
Set an approval rule, for example over $5,000. Smaller change orders are approved on site and immediately raise the contract value and projected profit. Larger ones wait as pending with Approve and Reject, and the contract and budget only change once they are approved.
This walkthrough shows change orders in Fieldproxy at Summit Home Services, a demo company: the approval rule, a $6,400 change order waiting for approval on a rooftop unit project, and a $1,450 change order approved on site that updated the contract and margin.
Chapters
Summit Home Services is a demo company with fictional customers. Every screen is the real Fieldproxy product; some sequences are sped up.
Step by step
Set the approval limit
An approval rule holds any change order over $5,000 for approval, whether a person or the assistant creates it.
Raise a change order
Each change order records the price, cost impact, schedule impact in days, who requested it and why.
Approve or reject
Over-limit change orders wait with Approve and Reject; the project is flagged at risk if one waits over a week.
Watch the contract
Original contract, approved change orders, waiting amount and revised contract are shown on the project.
Check budget and margin
The budget tab shows approved change orders, revised contract, estimated cost and projected profit against budgeted margin.
Questions people ask
- What is a change order?
- A documented change to a project's scope, price or schedule after the contract is agreed, such as adding economizers to rooftop units or upsizing a return duct.
- Why set an approval limit on change orders?
- So small, obvious changes keep the job moving while large ones get a second look before they change the contract and margin.
- Does a pending change order change the contract value?
- No. In Fieldproxy the revised contract only includes approved change orders; pending amounts are shown separately as waiting for approval.
- How do change orders affect profit?
- An approved change order adds its price to the revised contract and its cost to the estimate at completion, so projected profit updates on the budget tab.
- How long does it take to set this up?
- Fieldproxy builds your own field service management system around your workflows, approval rules included, and it can be live within a day.
- Is Summit Home Services a real company?
- No. Summit is a demo company with fictional customers. The screens are the real Fieldproxy product, recorded live and sped up.
Transcript
Show
- 0:00How should change orders work on a project? Small ones get approved on site and keep the job moving. Big ones, over a limit you set, wait for approval, and the contract, budget and margin only change once they're approved.
- 0:14Here's that on real projects at a demo heating, plumbing and electrical company.
- 0:20It starts with one approval rule: any change order over five thousand dollars waits for approval, whoever makes it, a person or the assistant.
- 0:30Rooftop units one to three, an eighty-six-thousand-dollar replacement for a property management company. The project is flagged at risk: the permit and crane phase is late, and one reason on that list is a change order that has been waiting over a week for approval.
- 0:48The owner asked for factory economizers on two of the units: plus sixty-four hundred dollars, thirty-nine hundred of it cost, and two extra days. That's over the limit, so it sits here with Approve and Reject until the right person decides. Nobody can quietly push it through.
- 1:05Until then, the contract doesn't move: zero dollars approved, sixty-four hundred waiting for approval, and the revised contract still at eighty-six thousand five hundred.
- 1:16The budget agrees. No approved change orders, the estimated cost at completion unchanged, and a projected profit of twenty-one thousand six hundred, a twenty-five percent margin.
- 1:28Now a small one, on a heat pump job. The crew found an undersized return duct during the survey: fourteen fifty to fix. Under the limit, so it was approved on site, signed by the customer.
- 1:41And once it's approved, the money follows: the revised contract goes up to twenty thousand nine forty-five, the change order's cost lands in the budget, and projected profit sits at thirty-three percent, above the budgeted margin.
- 1:56Small changes keep moving, big ones wait for the right person, and the margin is always current. Get your own custom field service management within a day, tailored to your workflows. Start at fieldproxy dot ai.
