As a General Contractor, can you answer the question “How do I know our forecasts include all outstanding Change Order risk from all of our Specialty Contractors on all of our jobs?”
On today’s modern, fast-paced, and complex construction projects, change is more frequent than ever, and not being able to answer that question at any given point in time puts General Contractors at risk. In addition to hampering accurate project forecasting, out-of-contract work that goes unaccounted for from trade partners threatens fee erosion and dynamic project decision-making.
Key Takeaways
- Manual Bottlenecks: Relying on manual logs and emails creates significant delays in understanding project risk.
- Financial Risk: Poor visibility into Change Order Requests (CORs) leads to fee erosion and unexpected "surprise" costs.
- T&M Transparency: Sloppy or late Time and Material tickets strain relationships and jeopardize revenue.
- The "Gap": Most pain points stem from "The Change Order Gap"—the lack of a shared, real-time system between stakeholders.
- Digital Solution: Real-time, cloud-based tracking eliminates processing delays and aligns trade partners.
Top 5 Change Order Pain Points for General Contractors
1) MANUAL PROCESSING: To ensure all outstanding Change Order Risk is accounted for, General Contractors must go through the tedious process of emailing all of their Trade Partners and asking for an updated Change Order Log. Through this slow and manual process, they hope to begin to understand all their risk. In addition to that, a GC must track down each supporting COR document, ensure all T&M Tickets signed by field Superintendents are accounted for, and painstakingly review each COR while manually creating PCOs in their system of record.
2) LIMITED VISIBILITY: Because of the manual nature of asking for Trade Partner Change Order logs in order to understand risk, there is a constant delay in knowing where your forecast truly stands. This makes it nearly impossible to confidently answer the question “How do I know our forecasts include all outstanding COR risk from each Subcontractor?” With this uncertainty, there’s almost always surprise costs from one or many of the 20, 30, or 40 Trade Partners on a given project, and a gamble as to what the dollar value of those surprises might be.
3) T&M SURPRISES: It takes weeks or even months after the fact for Specialty Contractors to surface and submit Change Orders and supporting Time and Material (T&M) Tickets for approval and payment, and documentation is often sloppy or illegible, leading to tense negotiations and risks to revenue for all stakeholders.
4) FEE EROSION: To make trade partners whole on valid (if unexpected) out-of-contract costs not covered by project owners, you’re ultimately forced to exhaust contingencies and allowances or even eat into your fee, significantly impacting project success and reducing the bottom line.
5) STRAINED RELATIONSHIPS: With all of the endless Change Order back and forth, it can be hard to align and agree, sometimes leading to bad feelings, soured relationships with once close-knit trade partners, and even jeopardized future business opportunities with clients. And your teams end up burned out, too.
The Root Cause: The Change Order Gap
All of these pain points manifest from a single root cause: multiple stakeholders tracking changes internally without a shared source of truth. This creates a manual cycle of:
- Swapping static Change Order Logs via email.
- Fragmented tracking across different email threads.
- Manual distribution lists for pricing exercises.
- Outdated carbon copy paper for T&M Tickets.
At Clearstory, we call this The Change Order Gap , which is where Change Orders stall, get missed, and end up spiraling into one of these pain points.
Clearstory was purpose-built to help General Contractors solve The Change Order Gap with real-time transparency and visibility into Specialty Contractor COR risk and exposure, eliminating Change Order pain points at the source.
How do we do it? Clearstory works alongside your project financial solution to surface, track, and resolve out-of-contract costs from all of your Trade Partners across all of your projects in real-time. We do it with our core tool: a cloud-based Change Order Log that your trade partners access with a simple shareable link to ensure you have all of their files, all of the latest revisions, and everything tracked all in one place to eliminate the excuses that cover traditional processing delays.
On top of that, Clearstory has powerful workflows for pricing exercises, backcharges, digital T&M Tags, analytics and project insights, and much more to solve the Change Order Gap.
General Contractors using Clearstory benefit from:
- Financial Clarity: Instant upgrades to project forecasting.
- Efficiency: Massive time savings for project teams.
- Profitability: Faster and more profitable project close-outs.
- Alignment: Real-time status updates with all trade partners.
The best part is you can get started in minutes without changing a single thing you’re doing today. Want to learn more about up-leveling your Change Order game and leaving Change Order headaches and pain points in the past? Contact us for a demo today.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Change Order log?
A Change Order log is a running list of every Change Order or Change Order Request on a project. It records who submitted it, when it was sent, the cost and schedule impact, and the current status. The log keeps everyone on the same page and prevents missed costs.
Why is a Change Order log important for General Contractors?
An accurate log gives you instant visibility into out-of-contract costs, so you can forecast with confidence, avoid fee erosion, and answer owner questions fast. It turns scattered emails and spreadsheets into one reliable source of truth.
What information should each line of a Change Order log include?
- Change Order or COR number
- Short description of the work
- Date submitted and received
- Cost impact (labor, material, markup)
- Schedule impact in days
- Status: pending, approved, or rejected
- Link to backup docs or digital T&M tags
How does Clearstory keep my Change Order log up to date?
Clearstory hosts a shared, cloud-based log that your trade partners access through a simple link. When they add or revise a COR, the log updates in real time, giving your team instant visibility without copying data from emails or spreadsheets.
How fast can I start using Clearstory on an active project?
Setup takes minutes. Create a project, send the shareable link to your subcontractors, and their CORs appear in your live log as soon as they upload them. You don’t have to change your current accounting software or processes.
