WHAT THE UNPAPERED CHANGES COST — CONSTRUCTION
The work happened. Not all of it reached an invoice.
Put in what you know: how many change orders you handle, what one is worth, how much never gets formally invoiced, and how much time goes into assembling progress-claim paperwork. Everything updates as you type. Nothing you enter leaves your browser unless you choose to email yourself the result.
Papered or not — every change the client asked for.
Materials, labour, and your margin on it.
Disputed, forgotten, or absorbed instead of fought.
Anyone whose week includes chasing photos, quantities and sign-offs.
Not their whole job — just reconstructing what already happened.
Wage plus benefits and payroll costs.
Be conservative. Some of it will always need a person.
RECOVERABLE A YEAR
$171,150
$60,000 of change orders that never reach an invoice today, plus $111,150 of paperwork time a system could take back, at the shares you entered.
CHANGE-ORDER VALUE REACHING AN INVOICE
$60,000
Out of $300,000 in change orders a year, at the share you said goes unbilled today.
HOURS RETURNED A YEAR
2,925
Worth $111,150 at the hourly cost you entered.
WHAT THE YEAR IS MADE OF
$60,000
Change orders that never reach an invoice · 35%
$111,150
Paperwork time a system could take back · 65%
YOUR NUMBERS, NOT OUR CLAIM. UNTIL YOU CHANGE AN INPUT THE FIGURES ARE AN EXAMPLE; AFTER THAT THEY ARE YOUR OWN INPUTS MULTIPLIED OUT. NOTHING HERE IS A GUARANTEE OF A RETURN. CHECK IT AGAINST YOUR OWN RECORDS BEFORE YOU BELIEVE IT.
WHERE THE STARTING NUMBERS COME FROM
They describe a general contractor: ten change orders a month at $2,500 each, a fifth of that value never formally invoiced, and five people each losing three hours a day to billing paperwork and progress-claim backup, three-quarters of which a system could take back. A contractor running larger commercial work will recognise higher numbers than these.
The model separates two kinds of money on purpose. Change-order value that never reaches an invoice is revenue — work that already happened, sitting uncollected. Hours spent reconstructing progress-claim backup are labour returned.
What it deliberately leaves out: holdback release timing and lien deadlines. Real money and real risk, but they are legal and contractual questions for your own counsel, not something a self-serve calculator should put a number on — see the construction page’s honest note.
The construction page sets out the four problems these numbers come from, and what replaces each one.
THE PAGE THIS WAS BUILT FOR
INDUSTRY
Construction & Building
The change happened on site. Make sure it happened on paper too.
Read the page →WHERE WE WOULD START
- Build & Run →
Put the systems in, and keep them running.
- Agent-Run Back Office →
We run the desk. You clear the exceptions.
- Team Enablement →
Make the team fluent.
Bring us one bad week.
Book a pilot call. Tell us where the week goes wrong, and we’ll tell you what an Operations Diagnostic would map and measure.
The first paid step has a clear scope and an end date, and the pilot after it is one workflow — not a platform, and not an open-ended retainer.
Free · 20 minutes · no commitment