Change Order - Workflow

General contractors and subcontractors can create change orders at various stages of the construction.

During the course of a CO's workflow, any member can use chat sessions to make announcements, ask for or get clarifications, advice, and more with the parties involved in the change order. You can select only the required participants for a conversation, enabling the secure sharing of sensitive information only with intended persons.

Note:
1. Project team members assigned with 'Manage' permission for the Change order module are exclusively authorized to perform all the steps in a change order workflow.
2. All users assigned with appropriate permissions to create, invite, maintain, approve, etc, can perform the respective actions in the change order module.

General Contractor

Step 1 - Create a CO

Project managers of the general contractor create COs for various reasons. The CO includes a serial number, a description of the change, and attachments like plan markups, photos, and pdf documents. depending on the nature of the CO:

• They can request work cost estimates from the subcontractors associated with the project. 
• The GC can also add their own estimate, including material costs, labor required, labor cost, the time required to complete the work, equipment costs, and more for self-performed work. Adding their own estimate is also useful for commitment change orders created exclusively for budget updates.

Step 2 - Request estimates

For prime contract COs, the GC requests cost estimates for the change work from selected subcontractors. A single change order may require the participation of more than one subcontractor to work on different parts of the work; for example, a work may require an electrical contractor and a plumbing contractor to fulfill it. In such cases, the GC can invite bids from different types of subcontractors for their parts of the work. 

The SCs review the change order, add their estimates and forward them to the GC.

Step 3 - Review and accept bids

Once the bids are received, the PM reviews them, approves the estimates or requests for revision. 

Step 4 - Close the CO

The GC can add any applicable additional costs and arrives at the total cost incurred by the change. The CO is then passed to the contractor and the owner for approval.

Step 5 - Get approval signatures

With Docusign integration, Linarc allows GCs to request digital signatures from the involved parties. Once the parties sign and return the document, CO gets finalized and closed. The GC then adds the finalized CO to the schedule and assigns the work to the concerned SC(s). 

Subcontractor

Create a CO

Project managers of subcontractors can also create COs, for example, for any deviations from their client contract/subcontract or changes in their commitments. The CO includes a serial number, a description of the change, the estimates, and attachments like documents, plan markups, photos, etc.

The GC processes the CO from Step 2 or Step 3, depending on the nature of the CO.

Respond to a bid request

Change orders for which a GC has requested bids appear as invites in the 'Change Order' interface. PMs can accept the invite and tender their estimate for the work, along with their descriptions and attachments like plan markups, photos, PDF files, etc. Once done, you can forward the CO to the GC.

The GC processes the CO from Step 3, as explained above.