Off your rate book, on site
Describe the extra, get the lines and the labour at your own rates plus HST. No guessing a round number you will regret.
Change orders
Stop doing extra work for free.
Priced off your rate book, signed on the homeowner’s phone, added to the contract and the budget — before anyone picks up a tool.
14 Fletcher Ave raised on site, 2:14pm
CO-002 while you were standing there
Heated floor to bathroom
Ditra-Heat membrane & cable, 48 sq ft $742.00
Thermostat & sensor $268.00
Electrical — dedicated circuit $385.00
Labour, 4.5 hrs @ your rate $742.50
HST $278.05
Added to contract $2,415.55
Signed by Tara Coutts · 2:19pm, before work started
“While you’re in there, could you just…”
The most expensive sentence on any job
The problem: You say yes because you are standing there and it seems small. You mean to price it later. Later you are on the next job, and by the final invoice it is awkward to raise — so you eat it.
Three of those on a job is a week of margin. And the ones you do raise, weeks after the fact, are the ones that turn a happy client into an argument at the end.
- Verbal extras get remembered differently by each side
- An unpriced change still costs you materials, labour and HST
- Billing it late looks like a surprise, even when it is fair
A real job, with and without
Original contract$18,400
Extras actually done4
Billed the old way$1,240
Billed as change orders$4,880
Raised in about a minute
Priced before you agree to it, not after.
The whole point is that it happens while the homeowner is in front of you. Anything that takes an evening will not get done.
On their phone, before the work
They see the scope and the price and sign there. Dated and stored, so “I thought that was included” cannot happen.
Added to the contract automatically
It joins the schedule of values and appears on the next draw. The most commonly forgotten money bills itself.
The budget moves too
A change order raises the budget as well as the invoice, so the margin you are watching mid-job stays true instead of drifting.
What one signature moves
Five places, from one action.
Change orderContract totalJob budgetScheduleInvoiceClient portal
Raise it once and the contract, the budget, the schedule, the next invoice and what the homeowner sees all update together. That is the difference between a change order and a note to yourself.
What it changes on Monday
- You say yes and price it in the same breath. No evening paperwork, so it actually happens.
- Nothing gets done for free because raising it is easier than remembering it.
- The final invoice holds no surprises — they signed each one when they asked for it.
- Your margin stays honest, because the budget moved when the work did.
14 Fletcher Ave — contract history
Original$18,400
CO-001 — niche & bench+$1,065
CO-002 — heated floor+$2,416
Contract now$21,881
Think back to your last job.
Count the extras you did and did not bill. That number is what this is for.
7 days free · no credit card · then $49.99/mo for 3 months