Open a file per variation on the day it arises
A variation valued from its own live file takes an afternoon, while one pieced together six months later takes weeks and persuades nobody. Give each change one reference and one file: the instruction, the drawings it changes, the labour and plant it used, and the emails about it.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
Evidence for a variation is created all over the job. The instruction sits in one inbox and the drawing in the document system. The labour is on allocation sheets, the plant on hire notes, and the emails are spread over 3 months. Left where it lands, the variation is just fragments that someone has to piece together when the account is argued.
That someone is usually not the person who was there, and by then the fragments have been moved, archived or deleted. A file opened on the day costs minutes, because each document goes in as it arrives. A file opened at the final account costs days, and it is never complete.
How to do it
- Give every variation a reference number on the day it arises, and open a folder under that number.
- File the instruction, the confirmation, the drawings it changes and every email about it in the folder as they arrive.
- Add the weekly labour, plant and material records for the variation, taken from the allocation sheets.
- Keep a one-page summary at the front: what was instructed, when, by whom, and the running cost.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontractor is instructed to add a plant room mezzanine, reference V27, in month 4 of a £1,900,000 job. The work runs for 6 weeks and involves two drawing revisions, hired access equipment and 240 labour hours.
What happens
- The commercial manager opens the V27 folder on the day of the instruction, with the email and the first drawing in it.
- Each week the site manager adds the allocation sheet lines booked to V27 and the hire notes for the access equipment.
- At the end of week 6, the folder holds the instruction, both drawings, 6 weeks of labour and plant records, and the emails.
- The valuation is built from the folder in an afternoon: 240 hours at £38, £6,200 of materials and £2,900 of hire.
V27 build-up
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Labour, 240 hours at £38 | £9,120 |
| Materials | £6,200 |
| Access equipment hire | £2,900 |
| Total | £18,220 |
The outcome
The £18,220 is agreed within 2 weeks, because every line points to a document in the folder. Pieced together at the final account from the general job costs, the same variation would have been argued down for months.
To have this set up for you, see our Unpaid Variation Prevention service.