The Change That Nobody Priced
Additional work arrives in a sentence, is done without a price, and becomes unbillable. The whole remedy is one reply sent the same day.
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Additional work arrives in a message: "while you're at it, could you also…". It is small, it is quicker to do than to discuss, and it is done without a price.
The practical point in “The Change That Nobody Priced” is that getting paid depends on records somebody can explain. A small team considering continue to the product page for remote workforce management software can organise time and project evidence before invoicing, with transparent settings, proportionate collection and a visible correction route.
By the time it is invoiced, there is no order covering it, no agreement about it, and nobody inside the buyer who authorised it.
Additional context for “The Change That Nobody Priced” is available through FASB accounting standards. A sound review separates the work record, invoice, approval and final settlement.
Why it is so easy to absorb
Because the first one genuinely is small, because refusing feels disproportionate, and because the relationship is worth more than an hour.
- Absorbed without comment: a rewording, a reordered section, a small correction.
- Priced in writing before starting: an additional deliverable, a second round not in the quote, a change that undoes finished work.
- Needs the order amended as well as the price agreed: anything that moves the invoice total away from the authorised figure.
All three are true. The problem is the fourth and the ninth.
What it costs across a job
On a fixed-price job, every absorbed change comes straight out of the margin. Three or four of them routinely take a third of it.
Nobody notices, because no single one was worth noticing.
The reply that fixes it
Same day, one line: "Happy to — that's outside what we agreed, so I'll add it; about three hours, and I'll need the order amended."
Two sentences. It prices the work and flags the paperwork at once.
Why the reply is not sent
It feels like haggling over something trivial, and the relationship feels more valuable than the amount.
That calculation is right per instance and wrong in aggregate — which is exactly how margin disappears without a decision.
How it reads to the customer
As competence. Suppliers who price changes promptly are treated as organised, not as difficult.
The ones who absorb everything silently are treated as cheap, which is a different and worse position.
The order problem
Even where the customer agrees the extra work and the price, the money cannot be paid without the order being amended.
So the reply has to mention the order as well as the price, or the work is agreed and still unpayable.
Changes that reduce the work
Also worth confirming. Where something is dropped, the order may be reduced, and invoicing the original figure then fails.
Confirming reductions in the same way protects against a surprise at the invoice.
The cumulative note
Where changes are frequent, a running list sent monthly — what was added, when, at what price, whether the order covers it — keeps everybody on the same page.
Five lines, once a month, and the final invoice contains nothing new.
Verbal instructions
Under most purchase terms, work instructed verbally is not authorised. The person asking rarely knows this.
Converting a verbal request into a written exchange is therefore protective for both of you, and can be framed that way.
The absorbing habit to avoid
Keep a private tally and present it at the end. A list of twelve unpriced changes arriving with the final invoice is the single most disputed document in this whole subject.
The two things a change costs
A change of scope costs hours, which is the part everybody sees. It also costs paperwork alignment, which is the part that delays payment.
If the work now differs from what the order describes, the invoice will differ from the order too, and the matching process will stop it. That is true even when the extra work was requested, approved and welcomed by everybody involved — the system is not comparing the invoice to the conversation.
So a change has to be handled twice: commercially, by agreeing what it costs, and administratively, by getting the order amended or a second order raised. Suppliers routinely do the first and skip the second, and then meet the consequence a month later as a rejection with no explanation attached.
Changes that are free and changes that are not
Not everything described as a change is one, and treating every small adjustment as a variation is a reliable way to become difficult to work with.
A sensible line sits roughly where the work stops being absorbable inside what was quoted. A different wording, a reordered section, a small correction — absorbed, without a word, because the goodwill is worth more than the time. An additional deliverable, a second round that was not in the quote, a change that undoes completed work — priced, in writing, before it begins.
The useful part is that the line is yours to set, and that setting it explicitly is what makes the priced changes easy to raise. A supplier who has absorbed four small things without comment and then quotes for the fifth looks inconsistent. A supplier who has said from the start that minor adjustments are included and additional deliverables are quoted is applying a rule the customer already knew, which is a much shorter conversation.
The habit worth building
Nothing outside the agreement gets done until it has been named and priced in a message — even when the answer is "no charge for this one".
Saying "no charge" explicitly is itself worth doing: it records the change and banks the goodwill you were giving away anyway.