Record a change under a CCDC-family contract

Send written notice of the event from the correspondence register on the day it is found, describing what was found and where, and record the date it was given and who received it. Count the period the contract allows in working days against your own site calendar and put that date on the record beside the notice.

Why: The general conditions give a concealed condition, a delay and a claim each their own period counted from the event or from its discovery, and a notice given late can lose an entitlement that would otherwise have been paid in full. Notice first and price second is the order that survives, because the price can be argued and the missed notice cannot.

Open the change, name the contract and the general condition it is raised under in its reference, and attach the notice, the photographs and the survey that establish the condition you found.

Why: A change carrying its clause reference is a change the consultant can assess without asking what it is for, which is most of the delay in getting one approved. Six months later that reference is also the difference between an approved change and an argument about whether it was ever properly raised.

Price the change at the contract's own unit rates where the work is measurable, as cost plus the agreed fee off the daywork records where it is not, or as a lump sum with its build-up attached. State in the change which of the three you used and why that route fits this work.

Why: A number without its method invites the other side to re-price it by a different method, and the method they choose will not be the one that favours you. Naming the route also settles the argument in the right order: first whether the route is right, which is a contract question, and only then whether the number is right, which is an arithmetic one.

Approve the change against the contract so the running price shows the original stipulated price, every approved change with its own code and value, and the current price, instead of a total somebody keeps in a spreadsheet cell.

Why: The contract price is a derived figure, and the only way to defend it at the final account is to walk it backwards to the changes that produced it. A running total nobody can explain is one the payer is entitled to question line by line, at exactly the point in the job where you most need the money.

Issue the change register with the monthly report: what has been notified, what is priced and waiting, what is approved, and what the contract price stands at today.

Why: Changes get sorted out on site and written up later, and later is when the people who agreed them have moved on. A monthly register turns the writing-up into a five-minute review instead of a reconstruction, and it puts the unapproved column in front of the one person who can actually move it.