Change orders, done right

If contracts are where paperwork problems start, change orders are where they usually blow up. A homeowner adds something mid-job, everyone agrees verbally, and three weeks later nobody can remember exactly what was approved or what it was supposed to cost.

In Wisconsin, home-improvement changes fall under ATCP 110, the home improvement trade practices rule enforced by DATCP. It’s more specific than most contractors realize. Under ATCP 110.05(1), a change to the contract generally has to be in writing and signed by both parties to be enforceable, a handshake and a verbal “sure, go ahead” isn’t enough. Substituting a different material or product than what was originally specified needs the customer’s consent, documented (ATCP 110.023). Additional permits triggered by the change have their own disclosure requirement (ATCP 110.03). And changes to the completion schedule have their own written-agreement rule too (ATCP 110.027). Skipping any of that isn’t just risky. It can be a compliance problem, independent of whether the work itself was done well. For a field-ready breakdown, here is what to document in a Wisconsin change order.

ScopeAccord treats change orders as a first-class part of the job, not an afterthought. Every change order references the original contract, documents the change with the same “your words to professional” review as the initial contract, and calculates a running total automatically: the new contract price is the original price, plus every prior change order on that job in order, plus this one. That math is unit-tested, it’s not something either of us has to do by hand or trust blindly.

The first time you save a contract, ScopeAccord walks you through why you shouldn’t just edit a signed contract in place, and when a change order is the right move instead, with real examples, not just a warning. After that, starting one takes one click from the contract itself.

Every change order gets logged: who created it, what changed, and when. If your job goes through five rounds of changes, you’ll be able to show exactly what was agreed at each step, not reconstruct it from memory during a dispute.