Change orders
Full control of change orders – from notice to settlement
The contract sum rarely matches the final bill. AIMZ keeps track of change orders in both directions – claims coming in from subcontractors, and claims going out to the client.
The challenge
A subcontractor's claim that never reaches the client ends up on your bill
A project can have hundreds of change orders. The subcontractor always makes sure their claim gets through – but the claim going on to the client depends on someone catching it, giving notice in time, and following it to settlement. Every claim that slips through is a cost you get without the income that was meant to cover it.
Notified and accepted – but never costed
Email, Dalux and Endre handle notice, dialogue and acceptance of changes. Nobody works out the economics in them – what's left sitting there affects neither the final forecast nor the reporting.
The claim in and the claim out don't connect
The claim from the subcontractor and the claim going on to the client are tracked separately, each in its own spreadsheet. That makes it hard to keep track of which claims have actually been passed on – and easy to lose one out of a hundred along the way.
Deadlines that slip
Notice "without undue delay" applies further up the chain too. Without a date received and a date answered, nobody sees which deadlines are running – and if the deadline against the client slips, the claim can be lost even though the cost from the subcontractor stands.
How AIMZ works
The whole change picture, in both directions
Subcontractor and client change orders in the same chain
A change order from the client often becomes an instruction to a subcontractor – and a claim from a subcontractor often becomes a claim passed on to the client. AIMZ links the two, so the cost and the income on the same change order stay connected. You instantly see which subcontractor claims are missing a matching claim against the client – and what you're actually making on each change order.
The whole course from notice to settlement
A change order isn't always settled right away. It's notified, priced, negotiated – and can end up approved, rejected, disputed or withdrawn. AIMZ tracks every step, with a date received and a date answered, so you see how long a case has been sitting – and with whom.
What the client sees isn't always what it costs you
Sometimes you want to show the client a cost price as the basis for the markup, without the amount hitting the final forecast – because the cost already sits in the subcontractor contract, or because it's marginal for you. AIMZ therefore keeps cost price and cost as two separate fields. They follow each other by default, but can be deliberately decoupled.
What projects get out of it
Questions we often get
What's the difference between a cost claim and a cost?
The cost claim is the amount the subcontractor has notified. The cost is the amount you set aside yourself, and it's the cost that adjusts the final forecast. You can set it before the negotiation is settled.
How is a counterclaim registered?
With a positive amount, like a regular change order. But the counterclaim type makes the amount reduce the final forecast instead of adding to it – you don't have to handle the sign yourself.
Can one change order against the client build on several costs?
Yes. You can link to existing costs, or create an expected addition, a subcontractor change order or a carry-through to site setup and operations directly from the dialogue.
What if cost price and cost shouldn't be the same?
They're set equal by default, but can be decoupled. That's useful when the cost already sits in the subcontractor contract, or when you're invoicing the client for something that doesn't give you a real additional cost.