General contracting operations

No change gets built or billed without a signed change order.

Extra work starts on a phone call, the cost lands on a pay application a month later, and the owner disputes a change they never signed. CrewOS keeps a change order's cost and schedule impact out of the contract until it's signed, so a verbal go-ahead can't quietly turn into billed work.

Start free Book a demo

A general contractor in a hard hat on an active construction site holding a tablet that shows a CrewOS change order with its cost impact, schedule impact, and signature status

The expensive failure

Extra work gets built and billed on a verbal go-ahead.

The owner says press on, the crew does the work, and the cost shows up on a pay application weeks later. There is no signed change order behind it, because the change order was never written, sent, or signed. On paper the job is moving. The dispute is already loaded.

What it costs

An unsigned extra is the line item that never gets paid.

When the owner questions a change they never signed, you cannot make them pay for it, so you eat the cost or you fight for it and sour the relationship. A few of those across a project and the margin you bid is gone, along with the owner's trust that your numbers are straight.

A general contractor in a hard hat and hi-vis vest on an active construction site, checking a set of drawings against the framed structure with a tape measure in hand — The work that only gets built once it's authorized.

What the system will not let happen

The change is priced, sent, and signed before it can touch the contract.

1Every change becomes a change order with its cost impact and schedule impact recorded, so the price of the extra and the days it adds are on the record before the work goes ahead.
2The change order is sent to the owner for signature, and it sits unsigned, with nothing applied, until they sign it.
3Only a signed change order can be applied. Until the signature lands, the change can't roll into the contract sum or a pay application, so an extra can't quietly become billed work.

Real product, real screens

See it happen.

This is the gate, held. The cost and the added days are quantified, but until the owner signs, nothing rolls into the contract or a pay application.A real change order, priced at +$24,500 and +6 days, sent to the owner and sitting unsigned. Signed At is empty, Applied At is empty, and the only action is Void. There is no Apply button, because an unsigned change order cannot be applied.

Apply appears only after the signature. The authorization and the billing are the same act, in that order, every time.The same change order once the owner has signed: Signed At is stamped, and now the green Apply button is there. Signing is the event that turns a proposed change into one that can be applied to the contract.

Nothing gets built or billed off-book. Every extra is a change order with a status you can see and, until it's signed, a signature it's waiting on.Every change on the project in one register, each tagged with where it is, Draft, Sent, or Signed, and what it costs in dollars and days. The lifecycle filters across the top run Draft to Sent to Signed to Applied.

The direct answer

Can CrewOS stop a change order from being billed before it's signed?

Yes. A change order carries its cost and schedule impact from the moment it's drafted, but it can only be applied to the contract once it's signed. Until the owner's signature lands, the change can't roll into the contract sum or a pay application, so an unsigned extra can't be billed.

The gate is the change order's own status. A draft or sent change order has no Apply action; the Apply action exists only once the status reaches signed, and applying it is what rolls the cost and days into the contract.

One platform for the whole job

The whole job runs in one system, not just the changes to it.

Projects and job sites

Every job is a project with its schedule, budget, subs, and field activity in one place, instead of spread across spreadsheets and group texts.

Subcontractors

Track the subs on each job, the trades they cover, and the documents they owe you, so you know who is cleared to be on site.

Permits

Keep each job's permits and their status on the project, so the paperwork a job depends on is tracked, not chased down later.

Cost codes

Code labor and costs to the job so the budget reflects what is actually being spent, line by line, as the work happens.

Crew scheduling and compliance

Schedule the crew across jobs, and CrewOS checks the tickets and licences a job requires before a worker can clock in.

Invoices and pay applications

A signed change order rolls into the contract and out to the pay application, so what you bill matches the scope the owner approved.

The outcome

Every extra on the job is authorized before it's billed.

The change conversation happens once, in writing, before the work rolls into the contract, not in a dispute after the pay application goes out. You get paid for the extras you did because the owner signed for them, and the number you bid is closer to the number you keep.

Start free Book a demo

One platform, your words

Configured in General Contracting terms, out of the box.

JobProject

Crew memberSub

ClientOwner

Change requestChange order

InvoicePay application

Questions

What operators ask before they switch.

Does CrewOS stop the crew from doing the work, or just the billing?

The enforced gate is on applying the change to the contract. An unsigned change order can't be applied, so its cost and schedule impact can't roll into the contract sum or a pay application until the owner signs. It's the billing and the contract that are protected, which is where an unsigned extra actually costs you.

What if the owner gives a verbal go-ahead and signs later?

Then you write the change order and send it for signature now, so the cost and the days are on the record from the start. The work can proceed on the owner's say-so, but the change stays unapplied until the signature lands, so you're never billing an extra that was never signed.

How is a change order different from just adding a line to the invoice?

An invoice line is a number with nothing behind it. A change order carries the reason, the cost impact, the schedule impact, and the owner's signature, and only a signed one can be applied to the contract. The authorization travels with the charge, so the extra holds up when the owner questions it.

Can a change order be edited after it's applied?

No. Once a change order is applied it's locked, so the signed, applied record of what changed and what it cost can't be quietly rewritten later. A further change is a new change order, with its own signature.