Field note

Unbilled Change Work: Finding the Break Between the Field and Billing

Extra work can be real, documented, and still miss the final account. Trace the handoff.

The gap is usually a handoff

The field writes the work down. The project manager prices it and submits it. Someone tracks the disposition. Accounting bills the approved value. When those steps use different records, an item can stop between them and still show up in one system.

Work backward from the final account

Start with what was incorporated into contract value and billed. Compare that with the change-order log. Then compare the log with the extra-work record: field directives, T&M tickets, daily records, correspondence, proposals, and pending changes.

What deserves a closer look

Look harder when performed work has no commercial disposition, when a submitted value does not reconcile to the final value, or when the project record shows extra work that is absent from the final account.

Start with one project. Send the job, the approximate completion date, what looks unresolved, and where the records are.