Reading signed field tickets into billable change work
A tag gets filled out at the end of a shift, signed by whichever superintendent is standing there, then rides around in a truck. Hours by classification, equipment by unit rate, material against a delivery ticket, and a description of the work worth more than the word extra. That signature verifies the work happened. It is not agreement about entitlement, which is why the tag carries the authorization number on its face. Reading tags into a billable log as they are photographed keeps extras from ageing into a lump nobody can reconstruct at closeout.
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.
- CompanyCam
- Procore
- Excel
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if your extra work is priced and executed as a lump sum change order before crews mobilise, since no ticket exists to read. Tags that never get countersigned in the field also sit outside this. The gap can be flagged the same day, but a missing signature cannot be manufactured after the fact.
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.
A file arrives. The fields come back typed and checkable. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Reading dates out of a ratified contract
- Abstracting a commercial lease into dated fields
- Filling an MLS input sheet from the listing agreement
- Turning a docket entry into a calendar
- Turning a delivered transcript into a usable set of cites
- Coding a filing fee to the matter that will repay it
- How do I get T and M tickets off the truck into billing?
- Does a signature on a T and M tag mean the cost is accepted?
- What has to be on a time and material ticket to bill it?
- How do I price equipment hours on a field ticket?
- Why do time and material tickets sit unbilled until closeout?
Back to construction and contracting, or see how this is priced and scoped.