Change Orders

01Create a change order

From a project’s Change Orders tab, click + New Change Order to expand the inline form. The Approved Total banner at the top updates in real time as you approve change orders below.

1. Change Orders tab. Active tab. Count chip shows total open + decided change orders.
2. + New Change Order / Cancel. Top-right toggle. Opens this form; switches to Cancel while open.
3. Approved Change Order Total. Live roll-up at the top — sum of every approved change order’s cost impact. Stays visible above the form.
4. Title. Descriptive: “Add 4 recessed lights to kitchen ceiling,” “Touchless Faucets — All Exam Rooms.”
5. Description of the change. Plain prose. What’s being added, removed, or modified.
6. Reason (optional). Why the customer asked for it. Useful for the audit trail.
7. Cost Impact ($). Dollar amount this change adds. Positive for additions ($1,500), negative for removals ($-500).
8. Time Impact (days). Schedule impact — extra days the change adds (or removes) from the project timeline.
9. Create Change Order. Submit. Lands in Proposed status awaiting approval.

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Documents (revised drawings, customer emails confirming the request, before/after photos) attach below the form fields and travel with the change order through approval.

02Approval flow

Change orders move through three states: Proposed (created, awaiting approval) → Approved (cost impact added to project total) → or Rejected (cost impact never applied). The list view shows all three states in one place so you can see the project’s CO history at a glance.

1. Approved Change Order Total. Live roll-up at the top — sums every approved CO’s cost impact across the project.
2. + New Change Order. Top-right action — opens the inline form from tab 01.
3. ‘rejected’ badge. First row’s status — rejected COs stay in the list with the badge so you can see what was considered and declined.
4. ‘approved’ badge with cost + time impact. Second row’s state — green badge plus +$4,800 / +3d. Cost impact rolls into the Approved Total above; time impact moves the project end date forward.
5. Cross-company attribution. “by Fairfield HVAC Services” labels which sub originated this CO. GC sees all subs; subs see only their own.
6. ‘proposed’ badge. Third row’s state — newly submitted, awaiting GC decision.
7. Approve / Reject inline. Per-row actions for proposed COs. Click Approve to roll the cost into the total; click Reject to dismiss without applying.

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Example: original project estimate was $50,000. You approve a $2,500 CO. The project’s estimated value updates to $52,500. The original estimate is preserved (visible in project history) so you can always see what changed and why.

03Voiding an approved change order

If an approved change order needs to be reversed, void it.

1. Click Void on an approved change order.
2. Confirmation dialog asks for a void reason.
3. Cost impact subtracted back out. Project’s estimated value reverts.
4. Status: Voided. The change order stays on record (audit trail), it just no longer counts toward the financial total.

Useful when the customer changes their mind, or when an approval was issued in error.

04Specs attached to change orders

If the customer’s scope change involves new product selections, attach a spec to the change order.

1. From the change order detail, click Attach Spec.
2. Pick from the project’s specs or create a new one.
3. Spec selections become line items in the cost impact calculation.

This is the same pattern as Submittals → Specs, just on the change-order side. Useful when “add 4 recessed lights” branches into “and the customer wants to pick which fixtures.”

05Cross-company visibility (GC view)

If you’re a GC with multiple subs on a project, change orders from every sub aggregate into your project’s Change Orders tab. Subs only see their own; the aggregate view is the GC’s superpower. The pins below highlight what the aggregation looks like in practice.

1. Approved Total = sum across all subs. The Approved Change Order Total at the top is project-wide, not per-sub. Every approved CO from every sub on the project rolls into this number.
2. Cross-company attribution row 1. “by Northeast Plumbing Solutions” — a CO originated by your plumbing sub.
3. Cross-company attribution row 2. “by Fairfield HVAC Services” — a CO from your HVAC sub. Different sub, same list.
4. CO numbering is per-project. “CO-2026-0001” repeats across companies because the number is scoped to the project, not the company. Both Northeast Plumbing’s CO and Fairfield HVAC’s CO can be CO-2026-0001 on the same project.

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Sort and filter on the list let you slice by date, contractor, or status (Proposed / Approved / Rejected / Voided) when you need to focus on one trade or one state at a time.

That’s change orders. The Subs and GCs category covers the cross-company workflows that make Conduit different from single-account contractor SaaS.