Solutions / Construction and contracting / Writing an approved change order into every system

Writing an approved change order into every system

An approved change order lands in more places than anyone remembers. The subcontract value, the budget line, the schedule of values the next G702 draws from, and the cost code the field charges against. Procore will not let a new cost code be invented inside a project, because the standard list belongs to the ERP and codes arrive from Sage 300 CRE. Work usually starts before the signature exists, so propagation runs against a financial record that is already behind the physical job.


Context / construction and contracting Why this one is worth doing here

The estimate, the project system and the accounting system each hold a cost code structure, and the mapping between them lives in a spreadsheet maintained by one person.

A project generates a paper chain where each hop is a re-keying. A field condition becomes a time and materials tag, then a potential change order, then a priced request, then an executed change order, then a budget revision, then a line on the next payment application. Every hop is a place the amount can quietly diverge.

Systems this usually touches

  • Procore
  • Sage 300 CRE
  • Excel

When this is the wrong thing to build

Pick something else if change orders on your jobs are rare and large, since a handful a year is quicker to key by hand than to describe in rules. It is also wrong where an owner issues construction change directives priced later, because no approved value exists yet to write anywhere.

The constraint that shapes it

Lien deadlines are statutory, vary by state and by role, and run from a furnishing date rather than from an invoice date. More on how this sector works.

The same shape elsewhere / Status propagation 12 sectors run it

One change of state, written everywhere it belongs, once. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.

Real estate
Keeping a status change from being typed four times
Law firms
Closing a matter in every system that still holds it
Field services
Retiring old equipment from every record naming it
Accounting and bookkeeping
Writing one client change into every system that holds it
Medical and dental practices
Writing one staffing change into every system that grants access
Insurance agencies
Keeping an endorsement change from being typed twice
What people ask about this 4 of them
  • How do I add an approved change order to the schedule of values?
  • Why will Procore not let me create a new cost code?
  • What happens if a change order is billed before it is executed?
  • How do I keep a subcontract value matching its executed changes?

Back to construction and contracting, or see how this is priced and scoped.