How to manage construction change orders and ÄTA work in Odoo

What standard Odoo offers

• Sales quotes and invoices extra work like any other order, as a separate quotation or as extra lines on the original order.
• Online signature lets the customer accept a quotation in the customer portal.
• Project holds the job, its tasks and timesheets.
• No change order record. Nothing ties a change's scope, its reason, the customer's approval and its invoicing status together, so there is no list of approved extra work that hasn't been invoiced.

The usual workaround

Create a separate quotation for each change and put the change number in the customer reference. Keep the customer's approval email in the chatter and a list of changes per project in a spreadsheet. To find approved extra work that hasn't been billed, compare that list with sales orders and invoices by hand. If the lines go onto the original order instead, the change disappears into the contract total.

Change orders with ScopePay

1. Install Karelia ScopePay on Odoo.sh or your own server (Odoo 18, 19 or 20). Odoo Online can't install custom apps. Give each user the Prepare or Approve role.
2. Open ScopePay / Construction Changes and create a change: project, customer, original sales order, pricelist, and a description of what changed and why it is outside the agreed scope.
3. Add priced lines for hours, material and other costs, each with a product invoiced on ordered quantities, a quantity, an estimated unit cost and a customer price. Lines can also be imported from a CSV file. The change shows the proposed amount, estimated cost and margin.
4. Submit it for internal review. The lines are frozen, and a user with the Approve role approves the change.
5. Print the customer summary, which leaves out internal cost and margin, and get the customer's approval the way you usually do. Then record it on the change: who approved, the date and the attachment, such as the approval email or a signed PDF.
6. Create the draft quotation. It is created once from the approved lines, and you confirm and invoice it in Sales as usual.

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See what has been billed

Each change shows its posted invoices less posted credit notes, excluding tax, and a billing status: not invoiced, partly invoiced, invoiced or paid. A quotation or a draft invoice never counts as billed. The Quoted, Not Invoiced filter lists changes that have a quotation but no posted invoice, and the pivot view compares proposed value, estimated cost and posted invoicing per project.

ÄTA work

In Swedish construction, changed, added and removed work is called ÄTA (ändrings-, tilläggs- och avgående arbeten). ScopePay records the scope, pricing and customer approval for each ÄTA change. Whether the contract entitles you to payment, and which notices it requires, is still decided by your team.

ScopePay records an approval you already have. It has no e-signature and does not interpret construction contracts.