Close a Change Order

The general contractor has the authority to close and approve a change order. However, the project manager should get consent from the owner/developer prior to their approval and finalization.  

Once the cost estimates are finalized and closed, as explained on the previous page Process Change Order Bids, you can add any additional costs, like our management fees, to derive the final cost of the change work. After getting consent from the owner through any out-of-band communication means, you can also approve the change order on behalf of the owner. 

Note: If the change order closing process requires any contribution from a stakeholder or vendor not included in the Linarc's project directory, you can email the PDF version of the CO to that external party to get their inputs. Once the response is received, you can incorporate it into the CO and proceed with your action. See to Email a Change Order to External Stakeholders learn more.

Add additional fees

You can add any fees and additional expenses to the cost of the change order to arrive at the final cost. This is optional. Each cost item you include should be indicated with the respective cost code for cost tracking. 

• Open the change order, if you haven't done so. To open:
  • Open the management console of the project
  • Click the app launcher  , then select 'Finance.'
  • Click 'Change Order' on the top, then choose 'Boards' on the left
  • Click the change order from the 'Bids in Process' column
• Click the 'Final Cost' tab.

Reminder:
You can add the additional cost and close bids only after you have reviewed all received bids and taken action on them. Hence the 'Final Cost' tab gets enabled only after you have accepted the qualifying bids and rejected the others.

The list shows the accepted bids with their schedule and cost impacts.

Cost Code- The cost code of the change order work. The change order estimate is added to the project budget only if the appropriate cost code is assigned. Usually, the cost code is the division code/category code of the work as per the task code at your company level. 

• Click inside the field and enter the cost code for each item.

Additional Fee - Add any further expenses, like commission, management fee, etc.

• Click 'Add Fee' 

• Enter the details of the additional fee:
  • Percentage/Amount - Choose whether the fee is to be calculated as a percentage of the total amount or set as a fixed amount
  • Cost Code - Enter the cost/task code for the additional fee. The fee will be added to the project budget under the specified cost code.
  • Value - Enter the percentage of the total value, or the fixed amount, depending on the choice made.
• Click 'Save Changes.' 
• Repeat the process to add fees under different accounting heads

The additional fee is added to the total cost of the change order.

Next step - Approve the change order:

There are two ways to approve and close the change order.

Approve on behalf of the Owner - Once the final cost is determined, obtain the owner's consent using any out-of-band communication method. You can then approve or reject the change order on the owner's behalf directly from the same screen. See Approve a change order on behalf of the owner for more details. 

Send to the Owner for approval - You can forward the change order to the owner for them to review and approve the change order. See Get Owner Approval for more details. 

Signatures:
If Docusign is enabled for your account, you can circulate the approved change orders to the stakeholders to digitally sign it as a mark of their acceptance and approval. You can view the signature status on the same screen under the 'Signature' tab. See Request Signatures for more details.

Tip:
You can initiate or take part in a conversation to chat with the team members and the participants of the change order at any stage. Click the button on the top right. See Chat and collaborate on a CO for more guidance.