What Is a Construction Change Order? (And What It Should Include)

Most small GCs handle change orders on paper, over a text message, or with a handshake — and it's one of the most common ways a job's real profit ends up short of the estimate. A verbal agreement about "extra work" is easy to remember differently once the invoice shows up.

What a change order actually is

A change order is a written amendment to your existing contract. It records a change in scope — something added, removed, or done differently from what was originally agreed — along with what that change costs and what it does to the schedule. Once both parties sign it, it becomes part of the contract, not a side conversation.

What to include on every change order

• Job and customer — which project and contract this amends.
• Description of the change — specific enough that neither party could reasonably disagree later about what was agreed to.
• Cost breakdown — line items, not just a lump sum. A single number invites a dispute over what it covers; an itemized one doesn't.
• Revised contract total — the original total plus (or minus) this change, shown as math, not just asserted.
• Schedule impact — a revised completion date if the change adds or removes time, so a delay doesn't quietly become "your fault" later.
• Signatures — from the contractor and the customer, or it's a draft, not a change order.

Do change orders need to be signed?

Yes, functionally. A change order isn't enforceable until both sides agree to it in writing. A signature — wet-ink or electronic — is what turns "we talked about adding this" into something you can actually bill for and defend if it's ever disputed.

Can you bill for a change order before it's signed?

You can, but it's risky. Without a signed change order, a customer can dispute the added cost after the work is already done, since there's no written record they agreed to the price beforehand. Getting the signature before the work starts — not after — is what the paperwork is for.

Build one in a couple of minutes

We built a free change order form generator that produces a clean, branded, signature-ready PDF from a short form — no account or email required. It's built from the same PDF renderer used inside SiteAnchor, so it's a real sample of what the product produces, not a lookalike.

If you're tracking change orders on paper today, the natural next step is tracking them against your actual job budget automatically instead of doing the math by hand — that's what job costing in SiteAnchor does, and change orders that flow through it update the budget the moment they're approved. See pricing or compare it against other construction software.