A verbal "sure, we can do that" on site becomes an unbilled cost unless pricing and approving the change is faster than doing the work. CPro360 treats the change order as a first-class document that revises the budget the moment it is approved, shifts the schedule when it is implemented, and stays visible to the homeowner in their portal the whole way. This page explains the workflow, the two-step budget logic, and what the homeowner does and does not do.
Residential jobs change constantly: the homeowner upgrades the tile, the plumber finds cast iron where the plans showed PVC, the inspector wants a second egress window. Each change is a cost, a few days, or both. On a well-run job each one is priced, agreed and billed. On most jobs several are absorbed, because the person who agreed to the change was standing in the kitchen with a phone, not at a desk with the budget open.
A change order system earns its keep when the change can be captured in the kitchen, when approval is a recorded act rather than a memory, and when the budget and the schedule move with it without anyone re-keying numbers. That is the whole design brief for change orders in CPro360.
From the phone or the web, a change order takes a title, a description, the reason, the amount, a type such as Addition, Deduction, Scope Change or Time Extension, the date requested, and optionally a schedule impact in days, the task it relates to, the budget line it adjusts, and a cost breakdown. The amount can be negative for a credit. It is numbered CO-001, CO-002 and so on per project. The project's managers, admins and GC contacts are notified that it exists.
The homeowner's portal, web and native app, shows the project's change orders with their amounts and status, and the budget view shows the contract, approved changes and current total, when you choose to share it. The homeowner sees exactly what was proposed, agrees in person, by message or by signature, and your project manager records the approval.
Approval is restricted to Admin and Project Manager roles, with no dollar threshold on change orders. The moment one is approved, the budget view shows it: each budget line carries a change-order adjustment column summing the approved orders attributed to it, and the revised budget is the original plus that adjustment. The original is not overwritten, so the client-facing and internal views both show where the number came from. A rejected order keeps its reason on the record.
Implementing an approved order bakes it into the baseline: the project total and the linked budget line are permanently increased by the amount, and if the order carries a schedule impact in days, the project end date moves out, the linked task extends, and every task downstream of it in the dependency chain shifts by the same number of days. The two steps hand off cleanly, so an order is counted exactly once across its life.
When implementing an order moves tasks, the subcontractor of record on each moved task, along with the project manager and admins, is notified of the new dates by email or SMS according to their preferences. The homeowner sees the updated timeline in their portal.
For a single budget line.
| Figure | What it is | When it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Budgeted | The original budget for the line | Manual budget edits; permanently increased when a change order is implemented |
| Change-order adjustment | Sum of approved change orders attributed to the line | The moment a change order is approved |
| Revised budget | Budgeted plus the adjustment, computed live | Follows the two above |
| Committed | Open portion of approved and issued subcontracts and purchase orders | As commitments are approved and drawn down by invoices; never touched by change orders |
| Actual | Invoices and receipts recorded against the line | As bills come in |
Read it as: revised budget is what you are now allowed to spend, committed is what you have promised vendors out of it, actual is what you have been billed. Allowance lines from the estimate are labelled as allowances in the budget and the homeowner's portal, so an overage is a change order for the difference rather than an argument.
Today the homeowner sees every change order and its status in their portal, and your project manager records the approval. Several competitors offer client approval with an e-signature inside their portal; if that is a must-have for you today, say so on the demo and we will tell you where it sits on our plan. We would rather you knew before you switched.
Not yet. Today the homeowner sees every change order, its amount and its status in their portal's budget view, so there is no surprise, and your project manager records the approval once the homeowner has agreed in person, by message or by signature. Homeowner approval from inside the portal is on the roadmap as a later portal phase.
The budget view revises immediately. Each budget line shows a change-order adjustment column that sums the approved change orders attributed to it, and the revised budget is the original plus that adjustment. Nothing is overwritten at this stage, so the original budget stays visible.
Implement bakes an approved change order into the baseline: the project total and the linked budget line are permanently increased by the amount, and if the change order carries a schedule impact in days, the linked task and every task downstream of it shift by that many days. Approve is the budget revision; Implement is the commitment to the baseline and the schedule.
Yes. The amount can be negative for a deduction or credit, and the type can be set to Deduction. It flows through the budget the same way.
Yes. Change orders have full parity in the native iOS and Android apps: create, submit, approve, reject and implement. Approval is restricted to Admin and Project Manager roles, the same as on the web.
Change orders are on every plan, from $49 a month. A 30-day trial with no credit card, or a 20-minute demo.