Change Orders

A change order is a signed block of extra or removed work, added to an invoice. It is not a document of its own: it has no number, no separate PDF, and no share link. Your client signs it on the invoice they already have, and the invoice total moves to include it.

#When to Use a Change Order

Scope changes are a normal part of contracting. A client wants to add a feature, upgrade materials, or drop part of the job after you have already billed for it. Editing the invoice is not the answer once money is involved, and a second invoice makes them do arithmetic. A change order is the third thing: the extra work, priced, signed, and folded into the same invoice.

Work your client has not signed for does not count toward what they owe. That is the whole safety of it.

#Creating a Change Order

Open the invoice and choose Add Change Order. Give it a title, add the lines, and send it to your client for signature.

Change orders go on invoices only. An estimate before acceptance is simply edited, and once it is accepted it is finished — if the work is not invoiced yet, use Create Invoice on the accepted estimate first. Jobkore says so rather than hiding the action: on an estimate it reads “Change orders go on the invoice. Create the invoice first.”

Two other refusals, so you know before you go looking for the button:

• A draft invoice. Nothing has been sent, so there is nothing to amend. “This invoice has not been sent yet. Edit its line items instead.”
• A voided invoice. A voided document can’t carry change orders.

Everything else is allowed, including an invoice that is partly paid or paid in full. Billing extra work on a job your client has already settled is the ordinary case, not the edge case.

The editor

A change order opens as its own full page, not a popup, so you get the same line item editor you use on the invoice itself — catalog picker, photos, sections, the lot. It takes a title, an optional Note to your client saying what changed and why, and its lines.

Along the top: Send for Signature, Save, and Delete. Back returns you to the invoice.

#How Change Orders Are Named

They are not numbered. Each one reads Change order 1, Change order 2 by its position on the invoice. There is no CO-001 sequence, no per-project counter, and nothing that leaves a gap if you start one and change your mind.

#Adding and Crediting Scope

Every line has an Add / Credit toggle. Add is the default. Switch a line to Credit and it shows in red and subtracts from the change order’s total, which is how you take scope off.

One change order can mix both. Swapping tile for vinyl is a single change order: a credit for the tile you are not installing, an add for the vinyl you are.

A change order can go net negative overall, and it works even on an invoice that is paid in full. The invoice then reads as overpaid, and you settle it the way the money came in:

• Card or bank payment — refund the client in Stripe. Jobkore sees the refund and puts the invoice back to unpaid on its own.
• Check, cash or transfer — there was never a Stripe payment to reverse, so edit the payment you recorded to the amount you actually kept.

#Signatures

A change order is real when your client signs it, and only then. Send it with Send for Signature and they get an email; they can also sign it next time they open the invoice, because it sits on the same share link. Jobkore tells you which: “Your client signs this on INV-0047. Send the invoice and they will see it there.”

You can also mark one Accepted or Declined yourself from its row, for the client who signs a paper copy or tells you on the phone.

#What It Does to the Invoice

Signed change orders are added to the invoice and it shows a Revised total: the original work, a Change orders line, and the new total underneath. Pending and declined ones are listed but do not count.

Your markup and your tax rate apply to change order lines, the same as any other work. A discount you negotiated on the invoice does not — that was agreed against the original scope, and a change order is priced on its own terms.

If the invoice has a payment schedule, percentage rows move with the revised total and fixed amounts stay put, with the final Balance row absorbing the difference. The schedule always adds up to what is owed.

Where you see them

On the invoice, in a Change orders section under the line items: title, status, the date it was signed, and its amount, with credits in red. Tap a row to open it.

On the Invoices list, a row with one still waiting on the client shows a “1 change order pending” badge beside its status. There is nothing else to expand or dig into — the amount in the column is already the revised total, so the list is telling you the number and the badge is telling you someone still has to sign.

#What Your Client Sees

On the share link, each pending change order is its own card under the totals: its title, your note, its lines, its amount, and a Sign Change Order button. Signed ones read inline with who signed and when.

The invoice PDF carries the same thing: a Change Orders line and a Revised Total under the totals, then the Payment Schedule. Every change order on the invoice is listed under that heading with its own title, note, lines and amount, marked either “Signed by Kevin on Sep 3” or “Awaiting signature”.

Email subjects read “Change order on INV-0047”, so it is obvious which job it belongs to.

#QuickBooks Sync

A change order is not a QuickBooks record of its own. When your client signs one, the invoice it sits on is re-synced with its new total, so QuickBooks shows what is actually owed. This works on an invoice that already carries a payment: the payment stays applied and the balance goes up by the change.