Variation Control & Registers
Risk mitigationOngoingFor Subcontractors & Main Contractors
I capture change as it happens, confirm the instructions in the contract's form, keep the register current and reconcile it into each month's application so the account never lags the site. The register is the difference between an account and an argument.
The problem
Change arrives faster than the paperwork chasing it: a verbal instruction on the scaffold, a supervisor's aside that turns into three days' work. On a busy job the confirmation never gets written, the register is a spreadsheet updated when someone remembers, and by month end the application shows the measured work but not the change, so the account runs behind the site it describes. At the final account every variation never registered, confirmed or applied for is argued from scratch, months after the only people who could have proved it have gone.
The solution
I confirm each instruction, however it arrives, back in the form the contract requires, so a verbal on site becomes a dated written record before it can evaporate. The register is the single source of truth on change, every variation with its instruction reference, status, value and notice position, so anyone can see what is agreed, pending or at risk. Then it feeds the account: the register is reconciled to each month's application, every open change flagged at its honest current value for the month's submission to carry, because a variation that is never claimed is one the other side gets to forget.
What you receive
The account keeps pace with the site: every change is confirmed in writing on the day, registered with its status and value, and applied for the same month rather than saved up for a fight. At any point the register answers the three questions that matter on change, what is agreed, what is pending and what is at risk, from one document rather than eight months of email. And the final account starts from a list both sides already recognise.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: two working days per cycle.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You tell me about the job and its change
One call on the project, the contract and how change has been arriving and getting lost. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
You send me the contract and the change so far
The list below lets the register be rebuilt from the job's actual history and anything already exposed to be flagged in the first pass.
- A
All instructions, written and verbal
EssentialWithout it: A verbal instruction nobody confirms in writing simply disappears: there is no record of it ever having been given
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder and the inbox of whoever has been fielding the instructions.
Why I need it: A verbal instruction never confirmed becomes no instruction at all
- B
Correspondence
ImportantWithout it: Instructions given in an ordinary email, rather than a formal instruction, never make it into the register at all
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder and the inbox of whoever has been fielding the instructions.
Why I need it: Where most instructions actually hide
- C
Drawing revisions, with the superseded revisions
ImportantWithout it: A change buried in a drawing revision goes completely unnoticed, because there is nothing to compare the current drawing against
Where to find it: The drawing register kept by whoever issues drawings on the job, and the drawings folder itself, including the superseded revisions people usually delete.
Why I need it: A revision is frequently a variation nobody has registered
- D
The contract's variation and instruction clauses
EssentialWithout it: There is no way to tell what counts as a valid instruction or who is allowed to give one, so nothing in the register can be confirmed
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder or the order email normally holds the signed copy.
Why I need it: What decides whether something is an instruction and who may give it
Quality: dates, who gave it, what was said, what was done.
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I set up the register from the contract's rules
Every variation, its instruction reference, status, value and notice position, on one document you hold as well as me, with the confirmation route mapped.
I confirm each instruction as it arrives
Whatever the form it came in, it goes back in the contract's required form with a date, so a verbal on site becomes a written record before it can fade.
Confirmed Inside the Window
Each verbal instruction is confirmed within the contract's own period, recording only what was directed; an expired item is never confirmed as though in time.
I reconcile the register into the month's application
Each period the register total is reconciled to the account, applications made, sums certified, sums paid, with every open change flagged at its honest current value for the month's submission to carry, so the account never lags the site.
Every Period Diarised
Every open variation has each contractual period still running against it diarised with a lead time, a named action and an owner, so nothing quietly expires.
You issue the confirmations in your name
Confirmations and the change lines go out under your name; the other side answers you, and the job's relationships stay where they belong.
I keep the account level with the site
Between projects the service pauses rather than cancels: nothing is re-onboarded, the file and the diary stay warm, and it resumes the day the next project starts.
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
My products used
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
The values this register carries are only as good as the pricing behind them, which is where Variation Pricing does its work. The variation lines feed straight into the month's submission handled by Payment Application Assembly & Issuance, and the confirmations the register calls for are drafted with more weight by Commercial Correspondence Drafting.