Get the extra signed before the drywall goes up.

Most extras start as a conversation in the driveway. The owner says go ahead, and nobody has a price yet. Ridgepole calls that a go-ahead, and it takes three things: what was authorized, who said yes, and how they said it (verbal, text, email or written). The date fills in as today. An estimated value is optional.

A go-ahead is not a change order and does not touch the contract. It is the record that the work was authorized. It sits on the job's Changes tab under Go-Aheads, Not Priced, with the line "No price agreed. You cannot bill this yet." If it has not been priced after three days it is flagged as late.

When you have a price, press Price it. That writes a real change order and keeps the link back, so the change order reads "From GA-002" and the go-ahead is marked priced. A go-ahead you no longer need is voided with a reason, which is kept.

• Go-aheads and change orders belong to the office: owners, admins and project managers set the price of an extra, because they are the ones who carry it.
• The site super's photos of the opened-up wall go in that day's daily log, dated and tied to the same job.

A change order is a title, a description and as many lines as the work needs. Each line has a description, quantity, unit, unit cost and a cost type: labour, material, equipment or other. Add a markup percentage for the change as a whole. A line can carry a negative cost, so a change that takes work out is priced the same way as one that adds it.

Tax is charged in two parts, the way it is in Canada: GST or HST, and PST, RST or QST where your province has one. Both rates start at the job's own: the rate on the proposal the client signed, else your Settings, else your province's. Each line is taxed by its cost type as set in Settings, and you can change it. In Manitoba and BC, labour starts at GST only.

You can also record the schedule impact in days. It prints on the change order PDF.

Send for signature emails the client a link. They open it on their phone, read the change, type their full name and sign. No account and no password. The link is good for seven days, and Resend link gives them a fresh one. The change order also shows on their client portal under Change Orders to Sign.

The client never sees your markup rate or your cost types. The markup is folded into the line prices on their copy, so the lines still add up to the total they are agreeing to. When they sign, they get a confirmation email, and the signing page tells them which address it went to.

If the email could not be sent, Ridgepole says so and hands you the link to text them yourself. It does not claim an email went when it did not.

• The signer's name and email come from the job's client portal, which is set up for you when a client signs a proposal online, or in one click from the Portal tab.
• A client who works on paper is not emailed by default. Print the change order, have it signed, and record the paper signature: who signed, the date, and a photo or scan of the signed copy, filed in the job's Contracts folder.

When the client signs, online or on paper, the change order is approved and the job's contract value goes up by the change's pre-tax amount: the lines plus markup. Not the tax-included total, because every progress claim adds tax to what it bills, and adding the total would charge the client tax on the tax.

A change that adds to the contract becomes its own line on the job's schedule of values, so you bill it on progress claims by its own percent complete. A change that takes work out reduces the contract and is spread across the existing lines instead.

The Changes tab shows the contract sum, and opens to its history: the original contract and every approved change order after it.

The Changes tab is three lists: Go-Aheads, Not Priced; Priced, Not Signed; and Signed Change Orders. A change order sent and still unsigned after seven days is flagged. Work done on an unsigned change order is the money most often lost on a renovation, so it is kept in front of you.

Void a change order and its signing links stop working. Void one that was approved and the contract comes back down by exactly what it added. If an approved change order has already been billed on an invoice, Ridgepole asks you to void that invoice first, so the contract never drops below what the client has been billed for it. Void a change order that was priced from a go-ahead and the go-ahead goes back to waiting for a price, because the owner's yes is still real.

An approved change order cannot be sent or submitted again. Signing it twice cannot raise the contract twice.