Use this guide to group a scope change, create vendor and Prime Change Orders, copy vendor pricing to the owner side, control when values affect SOVs and reports, prepare change documents for signature, and export change exposure.
Start here
- Record a scope change: Create a Change Event.
- Price cost and revenue: Create vendor and Prime Change Orders.
- Start owner pricing from vendor cost: Copy vendor pricing to a Prime Change Order.
- Understand when values count: Understand change status and financial timing.
- Approve and sign a change: Prepare a Change Order for e-signature.
- Report or export: Find, group, and export changes.
- Something is blocked: Troubleshoot Change Events.
Create and price changes
Create a Change Event
A Change Event is the folder for one scope issue: vendor cost on one side, owner revenue on the other. Create it as soon as the issue is real, even if nobody has a price yet — that's how the rest of the project sees the exposure.
- Open Change Events.
- Select Add Change Event. On a phone, that's the plus button in the header.
- Enter a specific Title.
- Save. Constructable opens the new event so you can add a Description, Schedule Impact, line items, and the related Change Orders.
Create the event as soon as the issue is real, even if nobody has a price yet. An unpriced change still represents exposure; add line items when pricing arrives.
Create vendor and Prime Change Orders
Vendor and Prime Change Orders are how you price a Change Event: cost against a Commitment, revenue against the owner. Add each side from its panel on the event, then review them independently before anyone signs.
Inside the Change Event:
- On Vendor Change Orders, select Add CO for each affected Commitment.
- Add vendor lines with cost code, cost type, Qty, Unit, Unit Price, Amount, retention, and subproject.
- On Prime Change Orders, select Add PCO when the owner contract or revenue changes.
- Add Prime lines with revenue coding, Qty, Unit, Unit Price, owner Amount, markup, and Budget impact.
- Attach supporting documents.
- Review each side independently before approval or signing.
If the project has only one matching Commitment, Add CO or Add PCO creates the Change Order immediately. If there are several, Add Change Order asks you which Commitment to use.
Vendor and Prime amounts don't have to match. Margin, allowances, and costs not billed to the owner legitimately separate them.
On a vendor Change Order, the cost-code picker groups codes already on that commitment's SOV under On this commitment, so the codes you're already using float to the top.
Qty, Unit, and Unit Price are optional. When you enter quantity and unit price, Amount follows from that product. Leave them blank for a lump-sum line and type the amount directly. Pricing on executed cost-only edits stays frozen.
The two sides take different access, and they're independent of Manage financials like change orders, contracts, receipts (excluding financial reporting). Create/edit change events and Create/edit vendor change orders let a project engineer run the subcontract side. Create/edit prime change orders is what opens the owner side. Keep Manage financials like change orders, contracts, receipts (excluding financial reporting) for Prepare for Esigning and the rest of the contract workflow.
On a Sage-connected project that isn't excluded from sync, Add PCO is disabled until the Sage Intacct project estimate has synced into the Budget. The tooltip reads Prime change orders cannot be created until the Sage Intacct project estimate has synced into the budget.
Copy vendor pricing to a Prime Change Order
When revenue codes are disabled:
- On the Change Event's Prime side, select Copy all from Vendor Change Orders.
- Choose the Prime Commitment.
- Select Copy All.
- Review the new Prime Change Order.
- Review the new Prime Change Order. Constructable copies every vendor line — including Qty, Unit, and Unit Price — and then applies the Prime Contract's Change Order markups the same way Add Markup Line Items does. Markups without a cost code are skipped, and it won't add a second set if markup cost codes are already on the order.
- Adjust revenue coding, descriptions, Markup Rate, owner amounts, and Budget impact.
The action copies every line from every vendor Change Order on the event; individual-line selection isn't available. Treat the result as a Draft owner-pricing proposal.
Copy all from Vendor Change Orders doesn't appear when revenue codes are enabled. Build Prime lines directly in that configuration.
This action copies change pricing, not invoice progress. To seed an Owner invoice from vendor billing, use Copy Line Items to Prime on the vendor invoice.
Status, approvals, and consequences
Understand change status and financial timing
Change document status and financial timing are separate:
- Pending: the Change Order isn't executed and has no Billable On date.
- Billable On: the date its value begins counting in billable reporting.
- Fully Executed: the approval and signature lifecycle is complete.
- Void: the record remains in history but isn't active.
When a Change Order becomes Fully Executed, its lines become available on the contract SOV for invoicing. When a Prime Change Order reaches Billable On, Constructable creates or updates its Budget Modification and locks it.
A change can be executed before it is billable or billable before the final signature. Don't execute a change merely to include it in totals. Use Billable On or the Budget's Show Pending Change Orders in Totals according to the project's policy.
Prepare a Change Order for e-signature
Finish the Draft lines and supporting documents, then use Actions → Prepare for Esigning to configure approvers, signers, and fields.
That action needs Manage financials like change orders, contracts, receipts (excluding financial reporting) — Change Order write access is not enough.
The document proceeds through Draft, Awaiting Approval when approvers are configured, Out for Signing, Ready to Countersign, and Fully Executed. Notifications go to each configured participant when their action is due.
While the signing flow controls status, don't force a manual status change. Once executed, editing requires Edit commitments and change orders after they have been executed and may not update an accounting document already created from the original execution.
Download PDF on a Fully Executed Change Order uses the values from that execution. Later edits — even with the edit-after-execute permission — don't change that PDF. Mark as Draft or Mark as Void clears the frozen copy. The next time you mark it Fully Executed, Download PDF uses the new values.
Understand Budget, SOV, invoice, and sync effects
- Vendor Change Orders add cost exposure and, once executed, billable SOV lines on the selected Commitment.
- Prime Change Orders add owner revenue and, once executed, Prime SOV lines.
- A Prime Change Order reaching Billable On creates or updates a locked Budget Modification labeled Budget Impact #NNN.
- Invoice progress can be entered only against SOV lines available to that contract.
- The Budget can include or exclude pending Change Orders from totals without changing their records.
Sage Intacct can create purchasing and project-contract change documents from executed Constructable Change Orders according to configured mappings. Some flows create only and don't send later edits. Coordinate corrections with accounting.
Fix and retry a failed integration link. Don't create a duplicate Change Order to work around a sync error.
Find and report
Find, group, and export changes
The Change Events page is three lists — Change Events, Prime Change Orders, and Vendor Change Orders — so you can work one side at a time. You only see the tabs your role can read.
From Change Events:
- On Change Events, desktop can switch Rows view and Table view. Phones stay on rows. The two Change Order tabs always use the table. On a narrow layout the Change Order tabs shorten to Prime COs and Vendor COs.
- In Rows view, filter with Filter change events by title.... Each row shows Created, Prime, Budget, Expenses, and Days of schedule impact, and View Change Event opens the record.
- In Table view, search with Search by change event title, change order title, or company.... Group by Change Event, Company, or Status, and filter by company and status.
- Add the Created Date column from the column controls when you need to see how long a change has been sitting. It's hidden until you turn it on; on a row grouped by Change Event it shows the event's own created date.
- Export the current table to PDF.
- Open Change Orders Report for progress, retention, and invoiced-to-date details. It carries a Description column, so you can read what each change actually covers without opening it.
The empty-state card — No change events have been created yet. — appears only when the project has no Change Events and no Change Orders. If Change Orders exist without an event, they still show on the Prime and Vendor tabs.
Check filters and access before exporting. Some roles see only Non-draft or billable Change Orders, or only those Related to my company, so users can report different totals from the same project.
The Budget provides separate PDF and CSV exports and a Show Pending Change Orders in Totals option. An exported file is a snapshot and doesn't update.
Troubleshooting
Troubleshoot Change Events
Change Events or one side of the event is missing
Confirm the Financial package and the matching read permission: Read change events, Read vendor change orders, or Read prime change orders. A tab you can't read doesn't appear. Company restrictions (Related to my company) and Status access of Non-draft or billable can further limit results. If you have none of those read permissions, the page shows Access denied. You don't have permission to view change events or change orders.
Pricing isn't known yet
Create the Change Event anyway and add pricing when it arrives so the event remains visible as exposure.
Add PCO is blocked on a Sage project
The participating Sage project has no Budget lines from the Sage Intacct project estimate. Sync the estimate, or confirm whether Exclude from Sage Intacct Sync should apply. The disabled tooltip is Prime change orders cannot be created until the Sage Intacct project estimate has synced into the budget.
Copy all from Vendor Change Orders is missing
Revenue codes are enabled. Build the Prime Change Order lines directly.
Copied Prime totals are higher than vendor totals
Review Markup Rate and each owner amount. Copied values are a starting point, not a required match.
No cost codes appear for a Prime line
When the project's revenue codes aren't mapped to cost codes, the line-item picker shows No cost codes are mapped to this revenue code on this project. instead of an empty list. Add the mapping under Project Settings → Revenue Code Mappings, then return to the line.
Change lines aren't available for invoicing
Confirm the Change Order is Fully Executed and its lines were added to the intended contract SOV.
I can add vendor Change Orders but not a Prime Change Order
That's the expected result of having Create/edit vendor change orders without Create/edit prime change orders. The owner side is a separate permission. Prepare for Esigning still needs Manage financials like change orders, contracts, receipts (excluding financial reporting) even when you can create both sides.
Download PDF doesn't match the Change Order I just edited
If the Change Order is Fully Executed, Download PDF is the frozen copy from execution. Mark it Draft, finish the edits, and mark it Fully Executed again when the PDF should reflect the new values.
A colleague sees more Change Orders
Compare vendor and Prime read permissions, Related to my company, Status access, filters, and whether the view includes only billable changes.