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, and (when you want) send it to your client for approval — and it now lets you show exactly which scope of work is changing, right down to the individual line items.

Each change order becomes its own milestone, so it stays tracked and billable alongside the rest of the job.

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.

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.

Three fields are required:

The Price field is where you set the direction of the change:

If the discount dropdown says “No Available Milestones to Discount.” A credit has to come off a milestone that hasn’t been invoiced yet. On a job where every milestone has already had its payment request sent — common late in a project, which is exactly when work gets cancelled — there may be nothing left for Eano to attach the credit to, even though money is still outstanding. If you hit this, don’t force it with a workaround: email us or start a chat and we’ll sort the adjustment out with you. We know this is a rough edge and we’re working on it.

Under Scope, you’ll see two cards:

Pick whichever matches how you think about the work. If you choose Add to Existing Subproject, select which subproject from the picker; if you choose Create a New Subproject, you’ll be able to type a name for it.

This is the part that’s new and powerful. Once you’ve entered your description, milestone name, and price, Eano builds an editable scope below.

If you don’t need the detail, you don’t have to do anything. Eano automatically creates a single scope line that follows your change order’s name and price, so the numbers always line up. For many change orders, that’s all you need.

If you want to itemize, you can break the work into real line items — exactly the way you build scope in the main estimate editor. Following the steel-column example, you might add:

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.

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 new lines tied to this change order can be edited. Use Expand to see the full existing list, or leave it collapsed.

The one rule to know: if you itemize, the line items have to add up to the change order’s price. A live banner tells you where you stand — green (“You’ve allocated $10,000.00 of $10,000.00 total ($0.00 remaining).”) when everything matches, and an amber warning when it doesn’t. You won’t be able to save until the two numbers agree. The check is based on the client-facing price, not your internal cost. If you leave the scope on its automatic single line, this never gets in your way — it only applies when you’ve added your own line items.

For a credit (a negative change order), your scope lines can hold negative amounts too, so you can reflect work that’s being taken out.

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.

Two buttons sit at the bottom:

Either way, an approved change order updates your total contract amount and becomes a tracked milestone.

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:

Note: This first release of itemized scope focuses on what you, the contractor, see and manage. The client’s approval view still shows the key information — description and price — exactly as before, so nothing about your client’s experience changes.

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 edit it in place. If you need to make further changes, use one of Eano’s existing workflows to undo the change order, then create a new one.

I entered a negative amount but it says there are no milestones to discount. My milestones aren’t paid — what gives? “Unpaid” here has a narrower meaning than you’d expect: the credit can only attach to a milestone that hasn’t had a payment request sent yet. A milestone sitting at Payment Required — invoiced, waiting on the client, not a cent collected — doesn’t currently qualify. If that’s your situation, 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.

Do I have to enter line items? No. If you skip the scope editor, Eano creates a single line that matches your change order’s name and price automatically. Itemizing is there for when you want more precision.

Why won’t it let me save? If you’ve added your own scope line items, their total has to equal the change order price. Check the allocation banner — if it’s amber, your lines don’t add up yet. Adjust a line amount (or the price) until the banner turns green.

Can I add brand-new work, not just adjust an existing item? Yes — that’s the point of the update. 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? Enter a negative price, then choose which unpaid milestone the discount applies to. You can also use negative line-item amounts to reflect specific work being taken out.

Can I edit a change order after sending it? No. Once it’s sent for approval or added without approval, it’s locked. Undo it through your normal project workflow and create a new one if something needs to change.

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.