Change orders and extra work
Change orders in writing, before the wrench turns.
The job is open, the customer is at work, and the technician is standing still. The next ten minutes decide whether this is extra revenue or an argument.
What this document is
A signed approval for work beyond what was originally agreed, with the amount, the reason and the time it was approved all on the same record.
Also called: supplemental approval · extra work order · variation · scope change · additional work authorization
Where it goes wrong
Not a feature list. These are the three moments this exists for.
The verbal yes
The service writer remembers it clearly. The customer remembers no such thing. Neither can prove it, and the card processor has already decided whose problem that is.
A bay standing idle waiting for a callback
The most expensive thing that happens in the shop all week, and it happens several times a week, because the approval process is a phone call to somebody who is in a meeting.
The final invoice that is the first anybody has heard of it
Every dispute that starts with 'nobody told me' started earlier, at the moment somebody decided a phone call was enough.
What happens instead
Texted, with the number already in it
The customer reads what changed and what it costs on their own phone, signs in half a minute, and the technician carries on.
Each change is its own document
Not an amendment to an amendment. A new amount is a new approval with its own signature, its own timestamp and its own record of exactly what was shown.
The whole job reads as a sequence
Original authorization, then each change in order, with dates. Which is what somebody asks for when a job is queried three months later.
What an estimate must say is set by your state
Written estimates, overage thresholds, the notice a supplemental approval requires and whether an oral approval counts at all differ everywhere, and several states are specific about it. The starter documents mark those places for an attorney rather than inventing a percentage that happens to be wrong where you work.
Who sends this one
The same document, sent by businesses that have nothing else in common.
Questions
Is a texted approval strong enough to hold?
The record carries what the customer was shown, when, from what device and network, and that they meant to approve it — considerably more than a note in a work order. Whether your state requires something particular in the estimate itself is a separate question, and the starter marks it.
Can the amount come from our job or shop system?
Yes, through the API. The document is built with the job number, the customer and the amount already in it.
What if the customer does not respond?
Nothing proceeds, which is the point. Reminders go out on the schedule you set, and the job shows as waiting on approval rather than as approved.
Ready when the next guest is.
Free for the first 25 agreements a month. No card to start.