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The client wants the second bedroom done too. The joinery has to be rebuilt because the survey was wrong. The sofa is discontinued and the replacement costs more. None of that belongs in the proposal the client already signed. It belongs in a change order: a separate, priced, agreed document that says what changed and what it costs.
The original proposal is the record of what was agreed then. A change order is the record of what was agreed since. Keeping them separate is what lets you answer “when did this become part of the job?” a year later.

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The list

Finance → Change Orders. Each row: number, title, project, client, status, created and total.

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Writing one

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What changed

The reason is the part people skip and the part that matters. Additional bedroom added at client’s request, 12 June and joinery rebuilt following survey discrepancy are different conversations six months later, and only one of them is your cost to carry.

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What it costs

Fee lines, each with a type — Service or Goods — then description, quantity, unit, unit price, markup % and tax %. The split matters for the same reason it does on an invoice: design time and purchased goods are priced and taxed differently, and a client reading the document can see which is which.

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When it is paid

Payment trigger: On acceptance or On date.
Note what is missing: there is no on phase completion here, unlike a proposal. A change order is a discrete addition, not a staged programme of work — if the change is big enough to need its own phased schedule, it is really a second proposal.
Terms is optional and free text, for anything specific to this change — a revised lead time, a condition, a deadline for the client to decide.

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When to raise one

  • Scope grows — a room, a piece of joinery, a service that was not in the original proposal.
  • Scope changes shape — same budget line, different work, different cost to you.
  • Costs move materially — a discontinued piece, a price rise, a freight cost nobody expected.
  • A sent document needs correcting — an issued invoice or an accepted proposal cannot be edited. A change order is how you supersede it.
That last one is worth holding onto. Atelier will not let you quietly rewrite a document the client is holding — not by hand, and not through the assistant. The change order is the mechanism for changing your mind, and it leaves a trail.

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Sending it

Mark as sent changes the change order’s status — it does not email anything. Copy the client link and send it yourself.

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Two ways a change order gets accepted

Same pattern as a proposal: the client can accept it themselves on the public link — typing their name, which Atelier records alongside their IP address and the timestamp — or you can mark it accepted from inside Atelier for an agreement reached elsewhere, with no equivalent record of who agreed.

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After it is agreed

Either path creates a DRAFT invoice for the full amount, automatically. It appears in Finance → Invoices, ready to check and send — you do not build it by hand.
Once a change order leaves DRAFT, the assistant cannot touch it. A change order the client has seen is the record of what they agreed to — a further change needs its own change order.