The Change Order Audit
The Change Order Audit is a $9,999 fixed-price written review of your change-order documentation and dispute exposure: where approvals slip through verbal exchanges and never make it onto paper. A PDF within 5 business days.
$9,999 one-time · 5 business days
A subcontractor on a public construction thread described losing $4,000 in a single month to unbilled T&M work, vague texts from the field, scribbled notes arriving two weeks late, GCs denying change orders because the documentation missed the deadline. On one crew that is $48,000 a year.
Where change orders leak
The dispute risk in most change orders is not whether the work was done, it is whether the approval was captured. Verbal go-aheads on the job site, texts that get buried, emails that were never formally acknowledged: these are the paper trails that go missing when a project sours.
By the time the dispute surfaces, both sides have a different account of what was agreed to and when. The contractor who documented their changes on the record has leverage. The one who relied on the relationship does not.
What this can recover
One subcontractor on a public construction thread described losing roughly $4,000 in a single month to unbilled T&M work: vague texts from the field, scribbled notes that arrived two weeks late, GCs denying change orders because the documentation missed the deadline. On one crew that is $48,000 a year.
Across the broader contractor population, change-order documentation chaos is widely cited as 3–4% of margin lost per project. The audit names the specific points in your workflow where approvals are slipping off the record.
What you send
Recent change order documentation samples in whatever format you currently use, emails, PDFs, handwritten logs, software exports. A short description of your current approval workflow: how you initiate a CO, who approves it, and what constitutes a confirmed approval in your process.
What you get back
A written PDF audit of your documentation practice, identifying the specific gaps that create dispute exposure, the scenarios where your current workflow leaves approvals unconfirmed, and recommended changes to capture approvals on the record. Delivered within 5 business days of intake.
Who this is for
GCs and subs running active projects with regular change activity, particularly those who have experienced a disputed change order or suspect they are undercharging because verbal approvals are not making it into formal documentation. Most useful for firms where the PM or super is handling change orders alongside everything else.
Credited toward a Build
If you act on what this audit finds, the full fee is credited toward a Datumel Build, where we install the fix (automations, a tuned assistant, or a configured workbook) directly into your own tools. The audit is the map; the Build is the work.
$9,999 one-time
Pays for itself on three months of typical T&M leakage.
This audit is currently under construction and we are gauging demand. Join the waitlist to be first to know when it becomes bookable.
Builds: we install the fix in your own tools
An audit names where margin leaks; a Build installs the fix and the partnership keeps it running. Any audit fee you've paid credits toward a Build.
Change-Order System Install
From $8,000A working change-order system in your own tools: a documentation workflow, memo templates, and a tuned assistant that turns field directives into billable change orders.
Anchored to the T&M leakage it recovers.
Job-Costing Workbook Install
From $6,000A configured job-costing workbook in your own Sheets or Airtable: cost codes, estimate-versus-actual, WIP, and over/under billing, with training to run it.
One job caught going over usually covers the build.
Estimating & Scope-Gap System
From $8,000An estimating and buyout system in your own tools: a scope-gap check, a bid-leveling workbook, and tuned assistants that catch missed scope before it costs you.
A single caught scope gap usually covers the build.
Operations Partner
From $2,000/moAn ongoing retainer that rolls your systems out and keeps them running: monthly tuning of your automations, assistants, and workbooks, with a working call when you need one.
The systems only pay off if they keep running.