Sending a change order

Jobs change. The homeowner adds a niche, you find rotted subfloor under the demo, the original tile is back-ordered and they want to upgrade. You used to be stuck either eating the change or going back to email a separate quote that nobody signed. Not anymore — change orders are a first-class part of BidCraft now.

When to use a change order

A change order is the right move whenever the price or scope of a signed proposal needs to change. Use one whenever:

• You discover work that wasn't in the original (rotted subfloor, old plumbing that needs replacing, asbestos backing)
• The homeowner asks for a scope addition (added niche, accent band, heated floor, upgraded tile)
• A line item needs to come out (they decided against the bench, the curbless shower turned out to be impractical)
• Pricing on an existing line needs to shift up or down for a documented reason

The original signed proposal stays in your record exactly as it was. The change order is a separate, additionally-signed document that amends it.

Three ways to start one

From the proposal page (Bid → ② Proposal): once the proposal is signed, the violet button on the proposal bar reads Change order. Press it. (If you already have a change order you haven't sent, it reads Continue change order and opens that draft instead of starting another.) You'll see your existing proposal lines on the left for reference, and a builder on the right where you make your changes.

From an edit you already made. If you edit a signed proposal, an amber banner appears above it: your client can't see this change because they signed the earlier version. Tap Create change order (or Edit draft change order if one exists) and your edits carry into the change order.

Or ask Biddy, on any project chat: "add a $1,800 subfloor repair line — found rotted subfloor", "bump the demo line by $400 for asbestos disposal", "remove the niche, homeowner cancelled it." Biddy walks you through the same builder, asks how you want it billed, and creates the draft. If a draft already exists, Biddy points you to it instead of creating another — asking again for the same lines won't add them twice, and asking for something new adds just that line to the draft.

Building the change

You can do four things in the builder:

[!steps]

1. Add a new line — title, description, quantity, unit price. Standard line-item editor.
2. Modify an existing line — change price, quantity, description, or notes. The original line stays in the original proposal; the change order overlays your new value.
3. Remove a line — mark a line for deletion. The original signed proposal still shows it, but the change order cancels it from the active scope.
4. Edit the scope-of-work text if the language needs adjusting too.

You'll see a running summary at the top: "Original total: $24,500 · Change: +$2,400 · New total: $26,900."

Picking the payment mode

Before you send, you pick how the change gets billed. There are three options:

If you've got Stripe payments connected, the invoices fire automatically when the homeowner signs the change order. Without Stripe, the same invoices show up in your Payments section as Awaiting send the moment they sign. Send them from there when you're ready, and log payments by hand as they come in. A change order that reduces the price never creates an invoice: with Roll into remaining milestones the credit comes off your unpaid milestones, and if nothing is left unpaid you refund the difference yourself. If you're routing through HighLevel, the change order link goes through your existing GHL workflow plus a new tag (covered below).

What the homeowner sees

They get an email with the change-order link. The page opens with:

• A clear "You previously signed this proposal on [date] for $X" header
• A before/after of what's changing — added lines highlighted, modified lines showing old → new, removed lines shown with a strikethrough
• The new project total
• A signature block at the bottom for the change order specifically
• A View original proposal link at the bottom, so they can pull up the deal they already signed and compare

They sign just the change order. The original signature isn't touched. The original signed proposal stays exactly as it was in your records.

How it shows up on the proposal page

Each change order you send gets its own dot on the History line under the proposal bar, after the proposal's dot. While one is out, the bar says so: Change order #2 waiting on Dana. Tap Open history › and the History panel lists:

• The original proposal at the top with its own status
• Each change order below it as its own row with its amount and status
• Each row has its own Copy link, View as client, Edit (while it isn't signed) and Revoke actions

The total on the bar reads Signed total once the proposal is signed, with every signed change order rolled in. So if your original was $24,500 and you've got two signed COs adding $2,400 and $700, it reads $27,600. The top of the History panel shows the same breakdown, plus how much more it comes to if your client signs one that's still waiting.

[!tip] View as client opens the change order in a new tab from your perspective — it doesn't count as a homeowner view. So you can sanity-check what they're seeing without polluting the view count.

What about HighLevel users?

If you've got proposal-via-HighLevel turned on, change orders work too. The change-order link gets pushed to the same proposal custom field on the contact, plus a new tag fires: Action: send change order. You can wire a separate workflow on this tag if you want CO-specific email copy. Without a wired workflow, the existing Action: send app proposal workflow runs and the link still resolves to the change-order page. Same flow as a regular proposal, just a distinct tag for routing.

Invoicing through HighLevel when the homeowner signs

When a homeowner signs a change order, BidCraft automatically creates a HighLevel invoice for the change amount — the difference, not the full project total. This follows the same Auto-create invoice on sign setting you've already configured — the same one that governs original-proposal invoicing:

• Send — the invoice is created in HighLevel and sent to the homeowner the moment they sign.
• Draft — the invoice is created in HighLevel as a draft the moment they sign, but not emailed automatically. You review and send it from HighLevel when you're ready.
• Off — no invoice is created automatically, but you'll see a Create invoice in HighLevel button on the signed change order's row in the History panel so you can trigger it when you're ready (or retry if the first attempt didn't go through).

Either way, once the change order is signed, the change amount appears in the project's Payments view in BidCraft so your money picture stays complete.

A couple of things worth knowing:

• Change orders that reduce the total don't create an invoice. If the net change is a credit — any change order that reduces the project price — BidCraft skips the HighLevel invoice entirely. With Roll into remaining milestones, the credit comes off your unpaid milestones instead: the amounts in your Payments section and the payment schedule on the proposal go down to match the new total, and a milestone the homeowner has already paid down to its new amount shows as paid. If nothing is left unpaid, you handle the credit however makes sense: an adjustment in HighLevel, a cash refund, a note in the file.

See Sending proposals via HighLevel for the full HighLevel integration walkthrough.

Generate Link vs. Send

The CO builder, like the proposal Send menu, has two delivery options:

• Send — BidCraft actually emails the homeowner (or fires your HighLevel workflow) with the change-order link. The change order's row in History shows "Emailed to …".
• Generate Link — BidCraft creates the link and copies it for you, but doesn't email anyone. Use this when you want to text the link or hand it over in person. The change order's row in History shows "Link made for you to send".

After you use Generate Link from the CO builder, the project page shows an amber banner reminding you that BidCraft didn't send anything yet. The banner tells you whether the copy actually landed on your clipboard, and either way it prints the full link so you can press and hold to grab it by hand. Same pattern as the proposal Send flow.

Expiration dates on change orders

A change order gets your default expiration date (Proposal Settings → Expiration & reminders) when you send it, not when you start the draft. Its row in the History panel has the same Extend and Change date buttons as the proposal. An expired change order can't be signed, doesn't stop you starting a new one, and can be revoked to clear it away. See Proposal expiration dates.

Editing a sent change order

A change order, once sent, behaves like any other share. Until it's signed, tap Edit on its row in the History panel to reopen it in the builder and send it again; you can also Copy link or Revoke it from the same row. Same rules as the original proposal share. See Resending, revoking, and new shareable links for the full breakdown.

[!warning] Revoking a change order doesn't undo the original signed proposal. If you want to scrap the entire amendment idea, just revoke the CO link — the original deal stands.

Next steps

• Tracking views and signatures — the proposal bar and History panel in detail
• The client signing experience — what your homeowner walks through
• Deposits and milestone invoices — how change-order billing fits in