Consulting Change Order Template
Five documents and four sheets that price added work, the work your change threw away, and the extra weeks of burn, then start the clock.
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Change Register · Calderhall Instruments · sales and operations planning redesign, 52,000 fixed fee, 65 consultant days
Five changes, and the cost column everybody quotes is the smallest one
| Ref | What changed | Added work | Thrown away | Extra burn | Charged |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CO-01 | Netherlands region added to the demand plan | 5 d | 0 d | 1 d | 6 d 4,800 |
| CO-02 | FY25 volumes restated after the audit, baseline moved | 3 d | 7 d | 2 d | 12 d 9,600 |
| CO-03 | SKU and customer extract arrived 25 days late at summary grain | 8 d | 2 d | 3 d | 13 d 10,400 |
| CO-04 | Weekly steering pack for the group board | 4 d | 0 d | 0 d | 4 d 3,200 |
| CO-05 | Aftermarket parts business added to the process design | 7 d | 0 d | 0 d | Expired. 0 |
CO-02 is the row the category cannot see. Every change order template online has one cost field, so this change gets quoted at three days for the new modelling. The segmentation already built on the old baseline was seven days of work that now goes in the bin, and the two extra weeks of governance are another two. Twelve days, not three.
CO-05 is the row that hurts, and only a date column shows it. Identified 15 May, the right to ask expired 14 Jun, and it was finally raised on 3 Jul. Seven days of work, done, unbillable, and invisible in a register that records only what got signed.
65 days sold. 121 days worked: 35 charged, 14 absorbed, 7 expired. Card rate 800, realised rate 661.
Search this and the change order templates are competent. Sequential references, the original contract cited, a description of the added work, a revised project total, the timeline impact, and a signature line before anything starts. Several tell you to document anything over forty-five minutes. What none of them asks is the only question that decides whether the change was worth taking: what did it actually cost you. Every one of them has a single cost field, and a single cost field can only hold the added work.
Federal procurement segregates a change into three. FAR 43.203 names them: the added distinct work the change caused, the nonrecurring cost of work made obsolete or re-performed, and the recurring cost of carrying the engagement longer. It opens by saying accounting systems are seldom designed to separate them, which is exactly why consultants quote the first and eat the other two. A restated baseline in week seven cost three days of new modelling and threw away seven days already built.
Then the clock. FAR 52.243-1 gives thirty days from receipt to assert the right to an adjustment, so a change spotted in week three and raised in week eleven is a change you gave away. The register carries the date it was identified, the date the right expires, and who asked, because half of scope growth arrives from people who cannot authorise it. It also records what you absorbed, which is the only credible answer when the third change order lands. Build it from the signed scope.
What's in the pack
Change Register
Every request that touched the scope, with who asked, whether they could authorise it, the day it was identified, the day the right to claim expires, and its disposition.
Three-Cost Build
Added distinct work, work made obsolete or re-performed, and the recurring cost of a longer engagement, priced separately per change with the total that follows. Where the added work needs a specialist you don't have on staff, staffing an associate against it is its own margin question, not just a cost line here.
Notice Log
The day you identified each change against the day you reported it, the gap in days, and the response-by date with the reason it is that date. The gap is where the money goes.
Cumulative Scope Tracking
Charged, absorbed and expired days against what you sold, month by month, with the realised day rate and the threshold at which the plan gets re-baselined instead of amended again.
Change Order
The one-page document to sign: what is being added, all three costs, the revised total, the dates that move, and any acceptance basis the change alters.
Impact Note
What happens if the change is not made, what happens to everything already in flight, and the ceiling price where there is no time to scope it properly.
Conversation Guide
How to open, in what order, and the sentences that work: absorbed days first, the price second, and never a defence of the change itself.
What a Change Costs
The standard behind all of it, with the four published rules it is built on and the test for whether a request is a change at all.
Built on the signed scope
Where an engagement already has an acceptance schedule and a change control procedure, the register reads its rate, its rounds and its authorised names straight off it.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send the signed scope with whatever the client asked for, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and fill them in yourself.
- 2
Log it the day it lands
One row per request, with the name of the person who asked, whether they could authorise it, and the date. The date column is the one that pays.
- 3
Price all three costs
Added work, then what your change threw away, then the burn of running longer. The second and third are usually larger than the first.
- 4
Lead with what you ate
Open the conversation on the absorbed days, itemised with names and dates, and put the price of this one after them.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent reads the signed scope and the request, then prices all three costs and drafts the change order and the impact note. The rest sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Five Word documents and four CSV sheets in one zip. The sheets carry the columns that do the work: origin, authority, identified date, assert-by date, the three cost categories and the disposition. Open them in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
Is charging for the work my own change threw away really defensible?
It is the first category federal change-order accounting lists, ahead of the added work. FAR 43.203 segregates nonrecurring costs including obsolete and re-performed work, then added distinct work, then recurring cost. Seven days built on a superseded baseline is a real cost and it is not yours.
The request came from a workstream lead, not the sponsor. Does it count?
Log it, then refer it the same day. FAR 43.102 is blunt about this: only people acting within their authority can modify a contract, and nobody else should direct work that ought to be a modification. Referring it costs three days and one email.
What about a change caused by something the client failed to do?
It gets a row and a type of its own. FAR 52.243-7 requires notice of conduct including actions, inactions and oral communications, and excludes from the adjustment any cost caused by your own late notice. So the log keeps the gap between noticing and reporting at zero, and a late extract at the wrong grain is a condition the proposal already priced.
The client needs the work started before anyone can price it.
Then agree a ceiling. Federal policy prices modifications before execution and, where a significant increase is possible and time does not permit negotiation, requires at least a ceiling price. The worked example ran a ceiling of 11,200 and settled at 10,400. A ceiling is a number; a handshake is not.
How is this different from the change control clause in my SOW?
That clause decides whether a request is a change at all, which the SOW and contract pack handles with an acceptance schedule. This one prices it once it is, tracks the clock on claiming it, and shows the cumulative picture across the engagement.
Price all three, then send it
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River the signed scope and the request and get the three-cost build, the change order and the impact note back.
Edit with AI