Free change order form: the extra work, the new total, a line to sign
Your customer wants more than the estimate said, or less, and you are already on the job. Type what changes and what was agreed so far. This page works out the new total and makes a clean change order for both of you to sign, to print or to save as a PDF. There is no sign-up, and nothing you type leaves your device.
Make your change order
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere. The sums are done on your device.
Its number or its date, if it has one. Leave it empty and the paper says nothing about it.
With tax, as your customer approved it, and with any earlier change already in it. Never filled in for you.
What changes
A line adds to the job. For one that takes money off, tick the box under it and type its price without a minus sign.
These lines are an example with made-up prices, not a going rate. Type over them, or clear them.
Leave it empty and no tax is added. Tax is worked out on the taxed lines only, and a taxed line that comes off takes its tax off with it.
Type 0 and the paper says it adds none. Leave it empty and the paper says nothing about time.
Printed as you type it.
Your paper
Opens your browser's print window. Only the paper prints. To keep a PDF, choose that there. Or copy it as plain text, to paste into an email or a message.
The paper says Example until you have typed your business name and changed the lines.
Change order
Your business name
- Job:
- Mulch for the front beds
- Labor to mulch the back bed too2 hours × $75.00$150.00
- Mulch for the back bed1 cubic yard × $65.00$65.00
- Green waste hauling taken offTaken off: 1 load × $90.00-$90.00
- Subtotal
- $125.00
- Sales tax (7.25%)
- $4.71
- This change
- +$129.71
- Total agreed before this change
- $818.85
- New total
- $948.56
This change adds 1 day to the job.
Both sign to agree to this change.
Customer's signature
Date signed
Contractor's signature
Date signed
Made with TailGateBid, tailgatebid.com
Your draft is kept in this browser, on this device only. Start over wipes it and puts the example back.
Nothing you type leaves your device
This page has no account and nothing to send. The adding up happens in your own browser. Your customer's name, the job and the prices are not sent to TailGateBid or to anyone else.
One draft is kept in this browser, on this device, so closing the tab does not lose it. "Start over" wipes it. It is kept apart from the estimate maker's draft, and neither one touches the other.
"Print or save as PDF" opens your browser's own print window, and the paper is the only thing that prints. To keep a PDF, pick that there in place of a printer.
A change order template that arrives filled in
The paper opens with an example: a job agreed at $818.85, with two lines added and one taken off. It is the job the estimate maker opens with, a few days further on.
The prices are made up. They are not a going rate: TailGateBid has no price data. Type over the lines, or clear them in one tap.
The paper keeps an Example stamp until you have typed your business name and changed the lines, so nobody signs the example.
What goes on the paper
The job, and the paper it changes
Whose job it is and what you call it. If the estimate or the contract has a number or a date, type that too, so there is no doubt later which paper this one changes.
Lines that add, and lines that take off
Each line is so many of something at a price for each: hours, acres, cubic yards, square feet, feet, inches, loads, or a plain count. A line can take money off as well: the gate your customer decided against, the hauling they will do themselves. Tick the box under it and it comes off.
Tax on the taxed lines only
Type your own rate and tick the lines that are taxed. A taxed line that comes off takes its tax off with it. This page cannot tell you your rate, or which of your lines are taxed: ask your state's revenue department.
The total before, and the total after
Type the total agreed so far, tax included, with any earlier change already in it. The paper shows what this change comes to and the new total, so your customer has one number to say yes to.
What it does to the time
If the change adds days to the job, type how many. Type a zero and the paper says it adds none. Leave the box empty and the paper says nothing about time.
Two lines to sign
One for your customer and one for you, each with the date, for a pen. The paper is worth the most when both names are on it before the changed work starts.
Why a change goes in writing
A change agreed in the driveway is remembered two ways by the time the invoice comes. A change both of you signed is one paper that says what was added, what came off and what the job costs now. What was agreed in writing is easier to stand on than what was said on site.
That is as far as this page goes. Whether your job needs a change order, what one has to say and what happens without one are for your contract and your state to answer, not for us. Ask your state's contractor board, or a lawyer.
One regulator's own words are below, quoted exactly, with a link to the page they are on and the day we read it. It is the only one we have read on this. No other state or province was checked.
California, CSLB
“If the contract price or scope of work needs to be changed, it MUST be done with a written "Change Order," signed by the customer and contractor prior to the change, which then becomes a part of the contract.”California Contractors State License Board, What is a Contract?,
This is not legal or tax advice. Limits differ by state and province. Check yours.
That sentence is the California board speaking to homeowners about home improvement contracts in California, and the page it is on says more: What is a Contract?. If you work somewhere else it is not about you. Your own state's board is who to ask.
In English or in Spanish
The paper can be in either language, whichever one you are reading this page in. Its headings and its totals follow the language you pick. Your own words print as you typed them, so type them in the language your customer reads.
A customer who reads Spanish should not have to sign a change they read in English. TailGateBid sends each customer's papers in their own language.
For the word that names the extra work, there is a list of trade words in English and Spanish, each with its source.
The same sum as a TailGateBid change order
A line is its quantity times its price, rounded to the cent. A line that takes money off counts below nothing. Sales tax is your rate times the taxed lines. That is how a change order in TailGateBid is added up, and this page runs the same code, so the cents agree.
The new total is this page's own addition: the total you typed, plus the change. Not sure what to charge for the extra work? Work out what it costs you first. And if there is no estimate behind the job yet, here is what goes on one.
What a paper cannot do
- It cannot send itself. You print it and carry it over, or attach the PDF to your own email.
- Nobody approves it on a phone. The two lines are for a pen, with both of you in the same place.
- It does not know what was agreed before. You type that total, and a slip there is a slip on the paper.
- It does not reach your invoice. When the job is done, you add the change to the invoice by hand.
- It keeps one draft, on one device, and no record of who signed or when.
- It is not legal advice, and it checks nothing your state or your contract asks of a change.
What TailGateBid does with a change
In TailGateBid a quote your customer has approved is locked: it can no longer be edited. Extra or changed work is written up on the job as a change order, with lines of its own. How a quote is approved, and what happens to it then.
You send it, and your customer gets an email with a link, or you copy the link and send it yourself. They open it on their own phone, see the lines and what they come to, and approve or decline, with a signature if that is how you have approvals set. You are emailed when they approve. If they say yes standing next to you, you can mark it approved in person.
When the job is done, one tap makes the invoice: the lines of the quote, every change order your customer approved under its own name, and the deposit they paid taken off.
Every plan starts with 30 days free, with no card needed.
In TailGateBid a change order goes to your customer as a link, and they approve it on their own phone.
Start free trial30 days free. No card needed.
Sources
Related
- Estimate makerType a few lines and print a clean estimate or quote, in English or Spanish. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
- QuotesOptions, add-ons and a signature on your customer's own phone.
- InvoicesThe deposit taken off, change orders added, and reminders sent by email.
- How to write an estimateWhat goes on an estimate, in order, on one that is filled in line by line.
- Deposit and sales taxOn a sample quote, 7.25% of $2,035.00 is $147.54 of tax, and a 10% deposit on the total is $225.75.
By TailGateBid. .
The paper says what you type and adds it up. Read it over before you hand it to a customer.