BuildGroup Removes Financial Blindspots with Extracker

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Modernizing the Change Order Process

See how Shamrock Painting implemented Clearstory to modernize their Change Order process, eliminate paper T&M Tickets, and recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue-at-risk.

About Shamrock Painting

Founded in 1991, Denver, CO-based Shamrock Painting has grown into one of the largest and most recognized commercial painting contractors in Denver. The second-generation, family owned business is helmed by Gina Tumbarello Koert, the Immediate Past Chairman of the Board for the Painting Contractors Association (PCA) Gina Tumbarello Koert. For over three decades, Shamrock Painting has been building lasting relationships with owners and top local and national General Contractors on some of the most well-known and exciting projects across Colorado.

Paper T&M Tickets and Tough Negotiations

When Noah Quest left Sherwin Williams to become the Director of Operations at Shamrock Painting, he had no idea of the amount of Time and Material (T&M) Ticket paperwork that was headed his way, nor did he expect to have to consistently negotiate payment on Change Orders for out-of-contract work, sometimes down to cents on the dollar.

“When I first started, all of our extra work was tracked with paper Tickets, and it got out of hand very quickly,” Quest says. From correcting trade damage to completing paint touch up or executing on design changes, Shamrock crews could easily generate an inch-thick stack of T&M Tickets on a single job, and even then there was work that was going unaccounted for.

“Trying to get through a stack of tickets like that every week on 10 different projects was crazy,” Quest recalls. “And if Tickets went missing or weren’t organized, or lacked documentation, you’d often end up negotiating with the GC down to 50 cents on the dollar.”

At one point, trying to manually manage static Change Order Request (COR) logs between Shamrock and the GC and match T&M Tickets to photos buried in texts and emails reached a level of disarray where the negotiated rate dipped even further. “I think it was actually 20 cents on the dollar for all of our tickets, and that was the start of the conversation where we decided this process has got to change,” Quest says.

Noah Q headshot (1)

“It worked flawlessly. It saves so much time and eliminates so much negotiation. The field guys love it because they're not having to write Tickets and send me a bunch of pictures, and the GCs love it because it creates and organized, clean, up-to-date, universal log for all changes.”

Noah Quest

Director of Operations, Shamrock Painting

Deploying Clearstory to Fix T&M Pain Points

At the 2022 Commercial Painting Industry Association Leadership Conference, Shamrock owner Gina Tumbarello Koert was introduced to Clearstory by an industry peer who had used Clearstory to streamline their Change Order process and create transparency with their GC clients.. And the best part was that it worked seamlessly alongside Shamrock’s Procore financial management platform.

Created by contractors to modernize how the industry communicates and resolves out-of-contract work, Clearstory is the only Change Order Communication Tool purpose-built to reduce risk for all stakeholders. Clearstory’s 100% digital T&M Tags and real-time, universal COR Log provide automated workflows to eliminate carbon copy T&M Tickets, static COR logs, and endless email threads, helping project teams stay on the same page, avoid risk, and understand cost impacts.

The very first project Shamrock leveraged Clearstory on was increasingly out of control from a T&M standpoint. “There were a ton of extras before we were even into the bulk of final paint, and we were basically paying a guy full-time just to write Tickets,” Quest says. Within a week, the T&M Ticket backlog was resolved, and the GC’s superintendent was already creating COR drafts ahead of time in anticipation of receiving digital T&M Tags via Clearstory for field-directed extra work.

“It worked flawlessly,” Quest says. “It saves so much time and eliminates so much negotiation. The field guys love it because they're not having to write Tickets and send me a bunch of pictures, and the GCs love it because it creates an organized, clean, up-to-date, universal log for all changes.”

Leveraging Clearstory to Protect COR Revenue at Risk

On another project involving two five story buildings, outside-of-contract work had quickly ballooned to nearly a third of the original bid, with tens of thousands of T&M Tickets across more than 100 Change Orders, all processed seamlessly using Clearstory, preventing Shamrock from financing the extra work out of pocket with little recourse of compensation beyond another tough negotiation.

“The original contract on that project was about $600,000 and it turned into an $800,000 job,” Quest says. “So you can imagine the amount of tracking time that would have gone into that. But with Clearstory, as we were getting toward the end of the job, everything was getting paid. In fact, since we started using Clearstory, I haven't had to negotiate any Change Orders, and I haven't lost any Tickets. It's been incredible.”

A Single Source of Truth for Change Order Requests

Quest says the organization, standardization, and real-time updating of T&M tags and Change Order Requests within a shared, universal COR log in Clearstory has protected Shamrock’s revenue at risk, streamlined out-of-contract work communication with GCs, boosted field team efficiency by alleviating them of paperwork, and significantly reduced admin hours for management teams.

"No one wants to withhold payment for legitimate work” Quest says. “Wth the documentation in Clearstory, I no longer have concerns about negotiating Tickets, I'm confident they'll be paid in full, which is a breath of fresh air.” Quest estimates that Shamrock has protected at least $100,000 in revenue-at-risk on the first project where they deployed Clearstory, and that Shamrock estimators and project managers are saving at least five hours a week from the elimination of paperwork drudgery.

“I highly recommend this tool to any company that wants to save a substantial amount of time and money,” Quest says. “That's my take on Clearstory: everyone should be using this tool. It's been a huge time saver, we get paid in full, and we close out our projects seamlessly. It’s been fantastic.”