Construction rarely goes exactly to plan. You tear out a wall the architect told you to remove and find a structural steel column hiding behind it. Now you need to frame around it, cover it, and finish it to match the rest of the room — real work that nobody priced. That’s a change order.
Eano Pro’s change order tool lets you capture that extra work, price it line by line, and (when you want) send it to your client for approval — showing exactly which scope of work is changing, right down to the individual line items.
The Short Version
Open your started project, go to the Scope tab (or Payment Milestones), and click Add Change Order.
Fill in a Milestone Name and a Description.
Choose whether the work goes into an existing subproject or a new subproject.
Price the work on the change order’s line items. The change order’s price is simply what those lines add up to — there’s no separate price box to keep in sync.
Want a head start? Generate with AI drafts the line items from a plain-English description, and Upload a scope file turns a sub’s work order into line items.
Click Add Without Approval to record it yourself, or Send for Client Approval to email and text it to your client.
Each change order becomes its own milestone, so it stays tracked and billable alongside the rest of the job.
Before You Start: Change Orders Unlock After You Start the Project
Change orders only apply to active, signed work — not to opportunities or unsigned scopes. So the Add Change Order button stays disabled until you’ve clicked Start Project in the top-right corner of the project.
Starting the project locks your original scope and milestones, which is exactly what makes change orders meaningful: from that point on, anything new flows through a change order rather than quietly editing the agreed-upon contract. If the button is grayed out, that’s your cue to start the project first.
Adding a Change Order
Step 1: Open the change order form
From your active project, open the Scope tab (you can also do this from Payment Milestones) and click the blue Add Change Order button in the top-right.
A full-screen form titled Add a Change Order opens.
Step 2: Fill in the basics
Two fields are required:
Milestone Name — a short label for the milestone this creates (for example, “Kitchen Sink Addition”). This is the name you’ll see on the milestone and on the client’s invoice.
Description — explain what the change order is for, in plain language (“Supply and install a new kitchen sink”).
You don’t type a price here. That comes from the line items in Step 4.
As soon as both fields are filled in, the scope section below opens up. Until then, it shows a blue note asking you to enter a description and milestone.
Step 3: Choose where the new scope goes
Under Scope Destination, you’ll see two cards:
Add to Existing Subproject — fold the new work into a section that’s already on the project (say, adding the column work to your existing “Framing” subproject). This is selected for you, with the project’s first subproject already picked, so you can see your new line right away. To use a different subproject, click its name in the header row and choose another.
Create a New Subproject — start a fresh section just for this change order. Eano names it after your description; click the name to change it.
Just above these cards, Generate with AI and Upload a scope file can draft the line items for you — and pick the destination for you, too. See Letting AI Draft the Line Items below. Or skip them and build the lines yourself.
Step 4: Price the change order on its line items
This is where the change order gets its price. The price is the total of the change order’s line items — whatever they add up to is what the change order is worth.
To get you started, Eano adds one line for you, marked C/O, priced at $0.00:
In an existing subproject, the line is named after your description.
In a new subproject, the subproject is named after your description and the line after your milestone name.
If one line is all you need, just type the price into that line’s Unit Cost and you’re done.
If you’d rather itemize, rename that line and add more beneath it by typing in Add item in scope, press Enter to save…. For each line you can set the cost type, quantity, unit, unit cost, and markup, just like in your regular scope. You can also group several lines into a section using Convert into Group.
This works nicely when you don’t know the final number yet. Say your client decides they want a new kitchen sink after all. You know what each piece costs, so you list them:
Buy sink — $500
Install sink — $200
Check sink install — $100
That’s an $800 change order. There’s nothing else to fill in.
When you choose Add to Existing Subproject, the subproject’s current scope loads in above your new lines for context. Those existing rows are read-only — they’re just there so you can see what you’re adding to. Only the C/O lines can be edited. Use Expand to see the full existing list, or leave it collapsed.
Reading the totals. The amount in the subproject’s header row is the whole subproject, so in an existing subproject it includes the work that was already there. In the example above, the header jumped from $18,900.00 to $19,700.00 — the $800 difference is your change order. In a new subproject, the header total is the change order’s total.
The price your client sees is the line Amount — your unit cost plus any markup — not your internal cost.
How the total sets the direction of the change:
Adding work? Price the lines as normal. A total above zero charges your client.
Removing or crediting work? Use negative amounts. When the total comes out below zero, a Select milestone to apply the discount box appears near the top of the form so you can pick which unpaid milestone the credit comes off of. The amount is deducted automatically once the client approves.
Throwing something in for free? Leave the lines at $0.00. A $0 change order is perfectly fine — it still records the work and gets your client’s sign-off.
If the discount box says “No Available Milestones to Discount.” A credit has to come off a milestone your client hasn’t paid yet. Milestones that haven’t been invoiced and milestones sitting at Payment Required both qualify; once a payment on a milestone is processing or received, it drops off the list. The milestone also needs at least the credit amount left on it — ones that are too small show up greyed out. Late in a job, when every milestone is already paid or has a payment on the way, there may be nothing left for Eano to attach the credit to. If you hit this, don’t force it with a workaround: email [email protected] or start a chat and we’ll sort the adjustment out with you.
Step 5: Add projected dates (optional)
If the change pushes your schedule, set a Projected Start and Projected Completion. Eano shows the resulting duration. You can leave these blank if the timing doesn’t change.
Step 6: Add it, or send it for approval
Two buttons sit at the bottom:
Add Without Approval — record the change order yourself, without waiting on the client. Use this when you’ve already agreed verbally, or for internal adjustments.
Send for Client Approval — email and text the change order to your client so they can review and approve it from the Eano app or web portal.
Either way, an approved change order updates your total contract amount and becomes a tracked milestone.
Finish it in one sitting. There’s no way to save a change order as a draft. If you close the form or click Back, it starts fresh next time. If you’re still collecting prices over a few days, jot them down and enter the change order once you have them all.
Letting AI Draft the Line Items
Some change orders are one line. Others ripple through half the job: the client decides a wall should come out after all, and suddenly there’s demolition, framing, drywall, electrical, and flooring to patch. Typing all of that in by hand is tedious. Instead, let Eano draft the lines for you, then review and adjust them.
Once you’ve filled in the Milestone Name and Description, you’ll see two cards under Add Scope Items: Generate with AI and Upload a scope file. Both are optional — below them, or continue manually takes you back to building the lines yourself.
Generate with AI: describe the change
Click Generate with AI. A Describe the change box opens, already filled in with your description.
Add whatever detail helps — materials, rooms, sizes, what the client asked for. The more specific you are, the better the result. Your description field is kept short, so this box is the place for the extra detail.
Click Generate scope →. It shows Generating scope items… while it works, which usually takes several seconds.
Eano reads your project’s existing scope before drafting, so the new lines fit what’s already there. Here’s what to expect:
Lines come back priced. Each line arrives with a cost type, quantity, unit, unit cost, and markup, so the change order has a total straight away. Treat those numbers as a starting point and adjust them to your real costs before you send anything.
It only adds work. Your existing scope is never edited or removed, even if your prompt mentions it.
It picks the destination. If the new work belongs in one subproject you already have, the lines go there — sometimes inside one of its existing groups. If the work is new or spans several subprojects, Eano creates a new subproject for it.
Check inside collapsed groups. When the lines land inside an existing group, that group stays collapsed, so it can look as if nothing happened. Look for a group whose item count went up, and click its arrow to see the new C/O lines.
If the AI can’t work out what you mean, you’ll see a note under the box asking for more detail. Add specifics about the materials, rooms, or quantities and try again.
Upload a scope file: turn a sub’s paperwork into line items
When a sub or specialist sends you their own scope — say, an asbestos abatement company’s work order — you don’t need to retype it.
Click Upload a scope file.
Drag your file onto the box, or click to choose one. Images, PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, and text files work, up to 10 MB each.
Eano reads the file and fills in the line items, usually within a few seconds. There’s no separate button to press.
A few things to know about file uploads:
Uploaded scope always goes into a new subproject. Add to Existing Subproject is grayed out, and hovering over it shows “This option isn’t available for file-generated scope.”
The new subproject is named after the file. You’ll probably want to rename it — click the name in the header row and type something your client will understand.
Prices come from the document. Quantities, units, and unit costs are carried over as written. If the document doesn’t list a markup, it comes in at zero, so add yours if you’re marking up the sub’s work.
Check the cost type. Lines from a file may arrive without a cost type set. Pick one for each line if you track costs that way.
Changing your mind
After a draft is applied, a summary bar shows where it came from — Generated with AI with your prompt, or Generated from file with the file name.
Edit prompt (or Replace file) reopens the box so you can change what you asked for. Cancel to keep the current lines.
Regenerate throws away the drafted lines and runs the same prompt or file again for a fresh draft. You’ll be asked to confirm with Regenerate scope?, because any edits you made to those lines are cleared too.
Everything the AI drafts is an ordinary editable line. Rename, reprice, delete, or add to them just as you would if you’d typed them yourself, and the change order’s price follows.
Creating Change Orders in the Eano Pro App
You can also add change orders from the Eano Pro mobile app, including Generate with AI and Upload a scope file. The app’s form works a little differently from the web version:
It has a separate Price field, alongside Description and Milestone Name. All three are required before the scope section opens.
If you itemize the scope, the line items have to add up to that price before you can save. If they don’t, you’ll see “Before continuing, the cost of your additional scope items and the overall change order value need to match.” Adjust a line, or the price, until they agree.
What Your Client Sees
When you send a change order for approval, your client gets an instant email and app notification. They can review the description and the cost impact and approve or decline it from the Eano app or the web portal, and you’ll be notified the moment they decide.
A change order moves through three statuses:
Pending Approval — waiting on your client.
Approved — your client accepted it; the contract total updates and the milestone is live.
Declined — your client turned it down.
Your client’s approval view focuses on the key information — the description and the price.
After a Change Order Is Added
Any scope line that came from a change order is tagged with a small C/O badge in your scope, so at a glance you can tell original contract work apart from work that was added later.
Once a change order has been sent to the client or added without approval, it’s locked — you can’t change its price or its lines. What you can do depends on where it stands:
Still waiting on your client? Void it. Go to the project’s Payment Milestones tab and click the red Void button on that change order’s row. In the Void Change Order? box you can add a reason and tick Notify the client, then click Void Change Order. Then create a corrected one.
Already added or approved? There’s no undo or void. Fix it with a second change order for the difference: a regular one if the first was missing money (say you forgot to price it), or a credit with negative amounts if it came out too high.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Each change order is its own milestone. The milestone name you enter is what shows up in your payment milestones and on the client’s invoice.
The line items are the price. There’s one place to enter money — the change order’s own lines — so there’s nothing to reconcile.
Check the amount before you send. Eano starts you with a $0.00 line. If you forget to price it, the change order goes out at $0 — and once it’s added without approval, the only fix is a second change order for the missing amount.
There’s no change-order PDF. Once a change order is billed, you can download its invoice from the invoice’s More Actions menu with Download PDF — that shows the change order’s name and total, not its individual lines. For the lines, use Export on the Scope tab — change-order lines are included along with the rest of the scope.
Credits work too. Use negative line amounts to remove or reduce agreed work, and pick the milestone the credit comes off of.
Start the project first. Change orders are only available after you’ve clicked Start Project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I enter the change order’s price? On its line items, in the scope section of the form. There’s no separate price field: the change order is worth whatever its C/O lines add up to. For a simple change order, type the price into the Unit Cost of the line Eano adds for you.
Do I have to enter line items? You need at least one, and Eano adds it for you. Itemizing beyond that is up to you — one line with the full price is perfectly fine.
Why can’t I see the scope section yet? Fill in both the Milestone Name and the Description first. The scope section opens as soon as both are filled in. In the Eano Pro app, the Price has to be filled in too.
Can AI write the change order’s line items for me? Yes. Fill in the milestone name and description, then click Generate with AI and describe the change in plain English, like “remove the wall between the living room and kitchen.” Eano drafts priced line items based on your project’s existing scope. Review them before you send — they’re a starting point, not a quote.
My sub sent me their scope as a document. Can I use it? Yes. Click Upload a scope file and drop in the PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, text file, or photo. Eano turns it into line items in a new subproject named after the file. Rename the subproject and add your markup before you send it.
I clicked Generate scope and nothing seems to have changed. Where did the lines go? They probably went into an existing group in that subproject, which stays collapsed. Look for a group whose item count went up and click its arrow to open it.
Why is Add to Existing Subproject grayed out? You generated the lines from an uploaded file, and uploaded scope always goes into a new subproject. If you’d rather put the work in an existing subproject, click Back to leave the form without saving, start a new change order, and either type the lines in yourself or use Generate with AI.
Will AI change my existing scope? No. It only adds new change-order lines. Your existing scope stays exactly as it is.
How do I tell what this change order adds up to when I’m adding to an existing subproject? Add up the C/O lines’ amounts, or compare the subproject’s header total against what it was before. The header includes the work already in that subproject, so it’s bigger than the change order itself.
I entered a negative amount but it says there are no milestones to discount. My milestones aren’t paid — what gives? A credit can come off any milestone your client hasn’t paid yet, including one at Payment Required, as long as it has at least the credit amount left. Milestones with a payment processing or already received drop off the list, and other credits never appear in it. If none of your milestones fit, get in touch and we’ll make the adjustment with you rather than leaving you to work around it.
Why is the “Add Change Order” button grayed out? You haven’t started the project yet. Click Start Project in the top-right corner of the project; once the original scope and milestones are locked, change orders turn on.
Can I add brand-new work, not just adjust an existing item? Yes. Choose Create a New Subproject (or add new lines to an existing one) to capture work that wasn’t in the original scope at all, like framing and finishing an unexpected structural column.
How do I do a credit or remove work? Give the change order’s lines negative amounts so the total comes out below zero, then choose which unpaid milestone the discount applies to.
Can I edit a change order after sending it? No. Once it’s sent for approval or added without approval, it’s locked. If your client hasn’t approved it yet, void it from the Payment Milestones tab and send a corrected one. If it’s already added or approved, create a second change order for the difference.
I clicked Add Without Approval and forgot the price. How do I undo it? You can’t undo or void a change order once it’s added. Create a new change order for the missing amount — your client’s total comes out right, and both show up as separate milestones.
Can I start a change order now and finish it later? Not yet. There’s no draft option, so a change order has to be finished and added (or sent) in one go. Closing the form clears it.
Can I download or print a change order as a PDF? Not as its own document, and not before it’s approved. Once it’s billed, open its invoice and use More Actions → Download PDF; that shows the change order’s name and amount. For a line-by-line view, use Export on the Scope tab.
How can I tell which scope came from a change order? Look for the C/O tag next to the line item in your scope. Anything added through a change order is marked that way.