ChangeOrder Vault
ChangeOrder Vault is the paperwork system that stops extra work from becoming free work. Twelve ready-to-use documents, a markup calculator that will not let you underprice, and a tracker that shows you exactly how much approved work is sitting unbilled right now.
Illustrative example from Chapter 1, built to demonstrate the arithmetic on a $180,000 remodel. Not a record of real results and not a promise of outcomes.
Construction runs on thin net margins, so the profit on a job is a much smaller number than the contract value suggests. That means a handful of undocumented extras, each too small to feel worth the paperwork, can quietly take most of what the job was supposed to earn.
The work itself is never the problem. The crew shows up, the material gets bought, the extra gets built. The only thing missing is a four-minute document created at the moment somebody said "can you just."
This page makes no claim about industry-wide loss figures. Every dollar amount shown here is an illustrative example from the book, created to demonstrate the method.
Every one of these is answered with a document, a calculation, a script, or a spreadsheet action. Not with general advice.
Most advice stops at "use a change order form." A form does not help if you cannot tell what counts as a change, cannot price it correctly, cannot get it signed, and cannot remember to bill it.
A six-question test that settles in seconds whether a request is in your scope or is a change. Nine categories of work, each with the correct handling, so you stop billing for things you should absorb and stop absorbing things you should bill.
Direct costs, overhead allocation, markup and profit, built up line by line in a calculator with six modes. It shows you your real margin, not the markup you typed, and warns you when a price drops below the floor you set.
Twelve documents covering every situation from a field request to an emergency ticket, plus eight word-for-word scripts for the conversations that decide whether you get paid. Professional, firm, and relationship-safe.
A nineteen-column register with eleven statuses and a dashboard that calculates revenue at risk: every change order approved, scheduled, built or finished that has not yet been invoiced. The number you have never seen before.
Chapter 4 gives each stage an owner, a trigger, a document, a time target, and the failure mode it prevents.
The Vault Rule: no documented scope change, no work starts.
Everything opens and works the same day you buy it. No software to install, no subscription, no account to create.
If somebody has ever asked you for something on site and you said "sure, we'll sort it out later," this is your product.
Your written contract always controls. Where a contract or a public-works procedure prescribes a different change process, follow that one, and have your documents reviewed by a qualified construction attorney where you work.
Priced against one documented change order, not against what it took to build.
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The itemised values above are our own estimate of what each component is worth when bought separately. They are a pricing rationale, not a market quotation.
Eight categories: identifying and classifying changes, writing scope descriptions and exclusions, estimating and pricing, client communication, difficult conversations, tracking and margin analysis, profit-leak audits, and training your team.
Change-order opportunity scan, burdened labor rate, overhead rate, markup and margin decision, change-order pricing, weekly review, project closeout reconciliation, and the profit leak audit.
The ten stages, the six-question test, the pricing equation, why markup is not margin, the eleven statuses, the five steps when free work is about to happen, and the four numbers to watch. Print it, laminate it, keep it in the truck.
This is a new release. Rather than publish invented testimonials, we'd rather leave this space honest and fill it with real reader feedback.
Awaiting first reader review.
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Bought it and put it to work? Email sales@viralbydesign.co — we'd like to hear how it went.
A form is one stage out of ten. It does not tell you whether the request is actually a change, what the work really costs once overhead is allocated, what to say when the client wants it started before signing, or which approved change orders you finished and never invoiced. ChangeOrder Vault is the process the form sits inside. If your form is good, keep it and use the pricing, approval and tracking layers around it.
No. The templates are one of seven files. The rest is the decision framework for classifying work, a full pricing method with a working calculator, the approval conversations scripted word for word, a tracker with a revenue-at-risk dashboard, a filing system, eight fully worked examples, and a seven-day plan that installs the whole thing on jobs you are already running.
Nothing in this product is confrontational. The framing throughout is that a change order protects the client too: they see the price before the work happens, and their final invoice contains nothing they have not already approved. Chapter 8 gives you the sentence to say at kickoff, before there is anything to argue about, and most clients respond with some version of "that sounds sensible."
It is arguably more important, because you have no one to catch what you miss. Setup takes about twenty minutes for a solo operator rather than a full day, the crew-training day of the seven-day plan becomes a ten-minute read, and the quick-start gets you a documented, priced, approved change order in ten minutes. The tracker matters just as much with three jobs as with thirty.
Yes. Template 11 is a dedicated subcontractor-to-GC change order, the FAQ covers what to do when a GC will not paper a change, and the pricing chapter covers marking up your own work when the GC will also mark it up. The recognition test, the tracker and the closeout checklist work the same regardless of who you contract with.
Any spreadsheet application that opens .xlsx files — Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc or Apple Numbers — plus any PDF reader, and Word or Google Docs for the editable templates. Nothing to install, no subscription, no account to create. The forms are designed to print, and to be filled on a phone or tablet.
No, and it does not need to. If you already run Buildertrend, JobTread, Procore or similar, use their change order module and take the pricing method, the recognition test, the scripts, the checklists and the margin thresholds from here. The tracker is for contractors who do not have that software, or who want one place that reconciles approved work against what was actually invoiced.
The method, documents, calculator and tracker are jurisdiction-neutral. What varies is the legal layer: notice periods for differing site conditions, what a signature does, statutory payment and adjudication procedures, and public-works change rules all differ between countries and between states. Where the book touches those, it tells you to check what applies to you rather than asserting a rule.
No. ChangeOrder Vault provides educational and operational guidance only. It is not legal advice and the documents are not attorney-drafted contract instruments for your jurisdiction. Your written contract controls, and change-order procedure is governed by that contract and by the law where you work. Have your contract and your change-order procedure reviewed by a qualified construction attorney before you rely on them.
No, and the book says so on every relevant page. Every dollar figure, rate, percentage and margin in this product is an illustrative example built to demonstrate a method. They are not benchmarks, not typical results and not a promise of outcomes. The whole point of the calculator is that you replace them with your own numbers.
Ten minutes for your first documented change order, using the quick-start. About seven days at 30 to 90 minutes a day to have the whole system running: Vault set up, template customised, pricing rules set, tracker live, crew briefed, approval workflow agreed and one audit run on an active project. After that it is roughly fifteen minutes a week.
Email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase for a full refund. No forms, no interrogation.
If the system isn't the right fit for your business, request a full refund within 7 days of purchase — no complicated process, no hard feelings.
226 pages. 12 templates. 6 checklists. 8 scripts. 8 worked examples. Two working spreadsheets with every formula built. One payment, instant access.
Get Instant Access — $12.99Important: ChangeOrder Vault provides educational and operational guidance for documenting, pricing, approving and tracking construction change orders. It is not legal, tax, accounting or individualised financial advice, and the included documents are not attorney-drafted contract instruments for any particular jurisdiction.
Your written contract controls. Change-order procedure, notice requirements, approval authority and the effect of a signature are governed by that contract and by the law where you work, and public and commercial contracts frequently prescribe their own process. Have your contract and your change-order procedure reviewed by a qualified construction attorney or other appropriate professional before relying on them.
Every dollar figure, rate, percentage, markup and margin shown in this product and on this page is an illustrative example created to demonstrate a method. They are not benchmarks, not typical results and not a promise of any outcome. Results depend on your contracts, your clients, your market and how consistently you work the system.