Purpose

Let’s say your customer calls and wants to make a revision to the original scope of work that’s needed to finish their project. You would need to alter their estimate to include the services they want for a new estimate.

In Aspire, we can do this through Change Orders! Change Orders provide a way to adjust already approved Work Orders by modifying existing services in the estimate or adding additional services. You can also use them to remove services!

🧠Change orders can only be created for existing Work Orders whose job status is In Production. They are used in many industries, but especially those that offer design and build services in the Construction industry.

In your system, you can view original work order bids and previously won change orders while adding new change orders. This feature allows estimators to create change orders more efficiently.

To complete a Change Order:

✅ You’ll need the permissions Change Opportunity and Allow Negative Item Quantity added to your user role.

✅You’ll need Adjust General Conditions added to your user role.

✅For Schedule of Values related edits, you’ll need Enable Negative Schedule of Values and Modify Edit of SOV After Opportunity is Won added to your Aspire System under Configuration.

✅(Optional) If you need to review the Construction WIP report, you’ll need View Reports and View Drill Down Reports- Construction WIP Adjustments added to your user role.

📑 You've read about the Schedule of Values screens, here.

Deciding to make a change order is a big decision, so evaluating how much work has been done on an opportunity is an important step. Anytime you start a change order, you should review work tickets connected to the work order before proceeding. Sometimes, you might find it easier to copy and swap work tickets to a new opportunity’s work order instead of making a Change Order.

You might find that early on in the proposal phase, you could easily reset your opportunity to Bidding, make your changes and then re-propose your bid to your customer. This usually happens when there are no existing transactions for the opportunity.

Instead of creating a Change Order on your opportunity, some choose to create a new opportunity, copy the original job, make any changes they need and win the new opportunity. You could also swap costs from original tickets to the new job’s tickets. This often happens when there are associated costs in an open month.

📑To learn more about Swapping Work Ticket Costs, read here.

The original estimate could be lost since there is the new opportunity with edited services, costs and new work tickets generated.

📌Note: You might be limited to losing an opportunity instead of deleting the opportunity entirely, due to allocated material or if your invoices are in a closed month.

You’ll need to consider how this will impact your reporting and what your work ticket management will be like with this option. Additionally, consider how invoicing and communication with your customer will be moving forward for their job.

If you feel that this isn’t going to be the best route to making changes to your customer’s opportunity, then you should proceed with creating a Change Order!

It’s important to understand what Change Order features are available for opportunities and what their estimates will look like as you make your changes.

A change order will alter the Estimated Hours for one or more services on the Work Order when a change is won. This change will be reflected in the Estimated Hours field on the Work Ticket screen for any existing work tickets that are affected.

Hovering over the Audit Info icon next to the Estimated Hours field will display an audit history of the changes to estimated hours for the work ticket that includes these changes.

For Fixed Price Open Billing Work Orders in particular, Change Orders can only be added if at least one of the following conditions is true:

One type of change order is when you need to add services to your already won opportunity for your customer.

When a change order is created, the Change Order Name is copied exactly from the initial estimate. Once you click on Change Order 1, give your change order a new name so you understand for future use what is being changed.

Now that you are taken to the Change Order Estimate Screen, you can edit the change order name and details by opening the Estimate and selecting Edit Revision Information in the three dot menu.

Once you have made changes to your Revision Information, proceed with making your Change Order!

A big advantage of making Change Orders in Aspire is the different views you can use. You have the ability to change your view between Current Change Order and Change Order Details in the dropdown menu in the upper right.

The Current Change Order view only shows the current change order details you are working on. The version numbers on this view will all be the same:

When selected, the Change Order Details view displays the initial estimate, any previous version changes, and the existing change order you are working on!

You will see the various Change Order versions displayed with this view on the left. Versioning (v1, v2, v3, v4, etc.) is based on the change order you have added to the estimate.

There are three different types of changes you can do within a Change Order. These are Change, Copy, and Delete.

Change: The Change option is for adding a service, changing an existing service, updating quantities, updating total price or adding items.

Copy: The copy option is used to duplicate services needed in the same job, or create additional work tickets for a similar service. You can also do everything found in the Change option.

Delete: The delete option is used for removal of services, reducing quantities or items, and removing dollars which affects total price.

The easiest way to change a service is to go to the Change Order Details view and right click on the service you want to change and select Change.

After you add your services and as you work on your edits, you can use the drop down to switch between Current Change Order and Change Order Details, to see the difference between the two opportunity estimates!

You will be able to tell the difference between the Change Order versions: v0 is for the original estimate details, and v1 and following version numbers are for the additional added services.

Next, you should work on reviewing any Service Details changes within your Change Order services.

Copying a service is helpful when you need to add or delete similar services that already exist on the estimate.

A good example of this is if you planned to do a plant install at the front of a building, but now, your customer wants to do a similar service for the back of the building too. You could copy the front service by selecting Copy from the three dot menu of service:

Once you confirm, the new item is added to the service screen. Modify the quantities and make additional updates to pricing if need be.

Inside the Service Details of your Change Order services, change the name of the newly added service to reflect that it represents the new location’s work. You can choose the specific ticket that you want to modify with the change order.

📌 Note: If you are only choosing the Copy option to add a service through a Change Order, you can choose between creating a separate work ticket or adding to an existing work ticket. You cannot do this when editing a service through a Change Order.

Creating a change order to remove services uses the same buttons, so navigate to Add Change Order.

The easiest way to do a negative change order is to Delete an existing Service.

If you return to the main estimate details screen, under the list of change orders, you will see your negative change orders as well!

🧠Notice that once your Change Order is initiated, the three dot menu from the Opportunity Details Screen changes locations and is found within the current Change Order.

Printing proposals for Opportunities with Change Orders is similar to sending an initial proposal, but Aspire has Proposal Layouts specific for Opportunities with Change Orders.

If you do not have this layout available, you will need to submit a ticket to AspireCare for the Layout to be added to your system.

Here’s an example:

📑To learn more about Aspire’s Layout Catalog regarding Proposals, please read here.

When the estimate for the change order is complete and approved by the customer, you can win the change order by selecting Won from the 3 dot menu at the top of the page. At the same time, your new work tickets are created.

📌Note: If you have Electronic Signatures enabled in Aspire, and a Change Order is made, the requirement for another signature is not required and therefore not triggered with another email.

📑To learn more about Electronic Signatures, please read this article.

If your Work Order has an invoice type of Fixed Price Open Billing, read the next section! If you do not have this invoice type, skip to the next section.

The Schedule of Values (SOV) and Master Schedule of Values are important features of Aspire for Work Orders that have an invoice type of Fixed Price Open Billing (FPOB), only. The Schedule of Values feature in Aspire represents the AIA form, which is used to bill your customers. On the Master Schedule of Values screen, you are able to invoice Fixed Price Open Billing opportunities.

The Schedule of Values displays an itemized list of services that are represented on your customer’s Fixed Price Open Billing work order invoices for each individual change order. The Master Schedule of Values screen combines the Schedule of Values of the work order and its change orders that have been won.

🧠 Remember: For work orders that have been won, you can only modify the schedule of values if you have the Modify SOV After Opportunity is Won permission.

When your Change Order is won, Aspire will prompt you to confirm a new Schedule of Values.

📌 Note: There will be an Schedule of Values for each change order you make.

The Master Schedule of Values screen combines the Schedule of Values of the work order and its change orders that have been won.

📌Note: You cannot modify any part of the Schedule of Values that has already been invoiced.

To find the Master Schedule of Values, navigate to your opportunity. On the Opportunity Screen, in the 3 dot menu, you will find the Master Schedule of Values.

Clicking the Invoice Open Billing option takes you to Invoices in the Invoicing module.

In the Opportunities module, you can customize a list to group your change orders with the original opportunity and show Revision Number using the organization icons at the top of this module.

Make sure to save this list for when you would like to review Opportunities with change orders!