bwise, here comes your mactip, and a little speech. Tip: have a premade change order sheet supply with you at all times when doing full size jobs. At the very least, in your truck. Each and every change or extra should be written up, priced, and signed by a party who is authorized to sign for it. I said "should be" because that is in the perfect world. In reality you will face all sorts of arm twisting to get you to just jump in, do the work, and forget about that nasty change order business. The ones who do the twisting have all sorts of excuses why it is a bad endevor to disembark upon, chiefly they hold out carrots of future contract work with them. When they try that, it is best to suddenly reply "Geez, your delay in completing this transaction has resulted in additional cost, so now let me rewrite it and add that back into it."
Always try to get the full payment prior to doing any of the actual change work. This does not apply to any full fledged goverment or big work job, since they are never handled that way. But the signature on the paper is still tantamount to the operation. Take the completed and signed paperwork back to your office each day, use a two hole punch to punch out the top, and hang it on a two hole clipboard. I also use Excel spreadsheets for each project to track co's , but all I have to do to double check the payment progress is reach up to the clip board. Unpaid ones are still on it, paid ones are marked and filed into the job folder. That is the best way to keep track.
