Construction customer change request: approve scope and price before work starts

Customer changes often begin as a short site conversation: move an outlet, use another finish or add a small section. The risk is not the request itself but the gap between conversation, pricing and execution. A controlled workflow captures what changed, who can approve it and how the decision affects programme and invoicing before the crew treats it as instructed work.

Capture the request without implying acceptance

Record customer, project, date, requester and the exact desired outcome. Add location, drawing or photo. Label it as a request until technical and commercial review is complete. A site worker acknowledging the message should not be presented as accepting price or feasibility.

Check whether the requester has authority for the customer organisation and whether another designer or owner must decide.

Define scope and exclusions

Translate the request into measurable work, materials, interfaces and acceptance criteria. State what is not included and identify any unknowns requiring investigation. Link the baseline quote or drawing so reviewers can see the difference rather than reading the change in isolation.

Separate necessary corrective work from a customer-driven change. They can require different responsibility and pricing even when the same crew performs them.

Price and programme the impact

Calculate labour, materials, subcontracting and any disruption or remobilisation. Show tax and commercial terms using the normal company review. Assess effect on dependencies, access and completion date; a small addition can still interrupt a critical sequence.

Keep estimated, offered and approved values distinct. Do not overwrite the original quote to make the new total appear seamless.

Authorise before execution and invoice from evidence

Obtain the required approval with version, amount and schedule consequence. Release the task only when the authorised decision is visible to the site, except for a separately documented urgent safety measure. Capture execution and link the approved change to the eventual invoice line.

The site-report to unbilled-work workflow covers the downstream control. See quote-to-invoice for the baseline commercial path.

Final project check. Before closing this workflow, review three layers. Is the source correct: the right project, customer or supplier and the current document version? Is the decision explicit: who has authority, which exception remains open and who owns the next step? Finally, does execution match the intent: which fields change, what evidence remains and who is notified? For “construction customer change request scope price approval”, another colleague should be able to reconstruct the reason without searching the full WhatsApp conversation or mailbox.

Keep a short exception list for missing data, uncertain record matches and unconfirmed assumptions. Do not bury those points in free text. After several cases, assess whether duplicate entry falls and errors surface earlier, without claiming savings the company has not measured. This keeps the workflow useful and controlled, consistent with how Enfin organises construction administration.