Change is constant. That’s nothing new for commercial painters. But what is new and growing is the volume and velocity of change. From design tweaks and owner revisions to schedule stack-ups and trade damage, painters are seeing more out-of-scope work, happening faster, and later in the job than ever before.
The problem isn’t the work. It’s the process that follows. Most painting contractors are still stuck with traditional, manual workflows that can’t keep up. Paper tickets, buried emails, log exports and static spreadsheets are an admin drag that slows down billing, clouds visibility, and puts hard-earned revenue at risk.
Clearstory changes that.
By replacing the manual grind with a digital, real-time workflow, painters using Clearstory are eliminating up to 90% of the admin tied to CORs and T&M tickets. More importantly, they’re speeding up approvals, accelerating cash flow, and protecting revenue that used to slip through the cracks.
Here’s how painting contractors are using Clearstory to get out of the admin pile-up and take control of their extra work from the field to the office to the GC.
1) Faster Change Order Approvals and Payments
Every day a COR sits unapproved is another day contractor revenue is stuck in limbo. And for teams still relying on handwritten tags, spreadsheets, and PDF logs passed around by email, it’s no surprise things slow to a crawl.
With Clearstory, painters are replacing these outdated workflows with digital T&M Tags, built-in pricing tools, and a live, shareable COR Log. That means no more chasing signatures, resending emails, or piecing together backup from the field after the fact. GCs see what you’ve submitted in real time, and that means faster decisions.
At KC Painting, that speed added up fast. On large projects with 50+ Change Orders, Clearstory helped them eliminate up to 180 hours of processing time per job, while giving PMs back 8–12 hours every month to focus on the jobsite.
Hursh Painting got their team trained and live on Clearstory in under three hours, and immediately cut their COR processing workload by 90%.
And after rolling out Clearstory company-wide, Shamrock Painting eliminated 1,920 hours in annual COR admin time disappear almost overnight.
Bottom line: when the process speeds up, the money moves faster, and your team gets to spend less time managing paperwork and more time running projects.
2) Protected Revenue at Risk
Let’s talk about the revenue you never even get to invoice.
It’s not that the work wasn’t valid. It’s that the tag never made it to the office. Or the backup wasn’t complete. Or the COR was submitted late, or not at all. In commercial construction, documentation gaps do not just slow things down. They quietly chip away at margins.
Clearstory helps close those gaps by making sure work is captured as it happens, with documentation that moves cleanly from the field to the office and stays intact through review and approval.
Shamrock Painting saw this play out on a job where extras ballooned the contract from $600K to $800K. In the past, that much T&M work would've led to negotiation headaches and likely money left on the table. But with Clearstory tracking every change in real time, they protected the full value with no discounts and no disputes.
Hursh Painting estimates that 8–10% of their entire annual revenue comes from CORs, and now, with Clearstory, every dollar of that work is documented, tracked, and visible across their business.
And at KC Painting, Change Order documentation went from “risk exposure” to “trusted source.” No more lost tags. No more pricing confusion. Just clean, trackable revenue that doesn’t fall through the cracks.
3) Better GC Relationships That Lead to More Work
Rock solid documentation doesn’t just protect margins. It protects and improves reputations, too.
For painters, the difference between a one-off job and repeat work often comes down to trust. Are you clear? Are you organized? Do your CORs make the GC’s life easier, or harder?
Clearstory helps painting contractors show up with professionalism that’s hard to miss. Every COR is clean. Every log is current. Every GC gets real-time visibility into what’s pending, approved, or in review without the endless email threads.
Hursh Painting said it best: “It’s very clear to the GC what we’ve sent and when. It’s a great reminder for us, and it makes the relationship that much stronger.”
KC Painting reports “overwhelmingly positive” feedback from GCs, who no longer have to chase them down for logs, pricing, or backup. That trust is a differentiator, and it’s helping them win more of the work they want.
And Shamrock Painting? Since rolling out Clearstory, they’ve resolved 100% of CORs without a single price negotiation. That’s not just a process improvement, it’s a competitive edge.
Ready to Take Control of Your Change Order Requests?
Clearstory isn’t just cutting down on admin, it’s helping painters get paid faster, protect their margins, and build the kind of GC relationships that drive growth.
If your team is still managing CORs with paper tags, email threads, and homegrown spreadsheets, you’re spending more time than you should, and likely leaving money behind.
There’s a better way. And painters across the country are already using it.
Eliminate the admin drag. Protect your revenue. Make every COR work for you.
Schedule your free demo today and let’s get started.
