Change Orders gives your team a single, auditable record for every change to a project's scope, cost, or schedule. Build a change order request (COR) with priced cost items and supporting documents, send it for approval with no login required for the recipient, and track every response and signature in one place, right alongside your RFIs and Submittals.

To create and send a change order in Raken:

Recipients respond from a link in their email, on mobile or web, with no Raken account needed.

A change order is a formal, documented change to a project's original contract or plan, adjusting the scope, schedule, or cost after work is already underway. A change order request (COR) is what gets built and sent in Raken to get that change priced, reviewed, and approved.

Change orders typically start with a change event, like a rejected submittal, an RFI response, or a field discovery, and end with a priced, signed record of what changed and who authorized it. Raken's Change Orders tool connects that whole story on one record:

On web: Log into the Raken web app. Click Projects in the left navigation and open your project. In the project left navigation, click Change orders, listed alongside RFIs and Submittals.

On mobile: Open the Raken mobile app. Tap Project Tools in the bottom navigation bar, select your project, and tap Change orders.

To manage change orders across every project at once, go to Company > Change orders > All CORs on web.

From the project's Change orders log, click or tap the orange New COR button. This is available on both web and mobile.

Add one or more free-form cost item rows. Each row has an Item name, Quantity, Unit of measure, and Unit price, and the Total calculates automatically. There are no fixed categories, so a row can be labor, material, equipment, or anything else.

Credits and no-cost items are supported: enter a negative amount for a credit, or $0 to track something without a cost impact.

There is no separate schedule impact field. If the change affects the schedule, describe that in the COR's description.

Click or tap Add attachment to pull in files from:

Click Add link to connect this COR to the RFI, Submittal, or another change order that started it. Links are visible only to users at your company, not to external recipients.

Under To, select the company you're sending the COR to, like the owner or GC. Select who needs to respond as the Assignee, add an optional Customer reference number if the recipient uses their own numbering, like a potential change order (PCO) number, and add any Cc recipients to keep them in the loop. Only contacts with an email address on file are notified.

Turn on Reminder notifications to send an alert a set number of days before the due date, and Overdue notifications to alert recipients automatically once the due date passes.

Click Save, then choose Send COR to notify the assignee and any Cc recipients, with an optional comment. If you want to log a past change order without notifying anyone, choose Don't send instead, this still saves the COR to your records.

Recipients get an email with a View or respond link, no Raken account required. From there, they see the full COR, including cost items, attachments, and any prior responses, and can choose to:

Every response requires a signature, and adds notes or attachments of its own. Once submitted, a response is locked and cannot be edited or deleted. If a mistake was made, the COR manager can create a new version or re-open and resend it.

Each COR is numbered XXX.YY, for example 001.02, where 001 is the COR number and 02 is the revision. Numbering starts at 1 for each project, it does not run company-wide.

A COR's Status is one of Draft, Open, Overdue, or Closed, shown alongside the Last response (Approved, Partially approved, or Rejected) and Days aging, how long the COR has been open.

The Project log shows every COR on that project. The Company > Change orders > All CORs log shows every COR across every project, and can be personalized: use the column selector to show or hide columns, including Created date, COR number, Title, From, To, Status, Due date, Requested amount, Approved amount, Last response, and Days aging, and use Filters to narrow the list, for example to every open COR assigned to one person or cost code.

Each row's own ··· menu in a log view offers Edit and Delete. This is a different, simpler menu than the one described below under History, Versions, and Closing, which only appears once you've opened an individual COR.

Selecting one or more CORs from a log shows bulk actions: Delete, Share, or Close.

From inside an individual COR, open its ··· menu to:

A COR's PDF regenerates automatically whenever a new response is added, and appends every attachment as pages at the back, so it's always a complete, current record.

Navigate to Company > Change orders > Reasons to manage the list of reasons available when creating a COR. Common reasons come pre-loaded, and your company can add custom reasons that fit how your team works.

The Can create/edit/delete change orders permission, under Company > Roles & Permissions, controls which roles can build or change CORs.

Change Orders requires the Performance Plan, alongside RFIs and Submittals. If your account is on a different plan, talk to your account manager about upgrading.

Change Orders is also currently in Early Access and is rolling out to Performance Plan accounts in phases, not all at once. Being on the Performance Plan does not by itself guarantee the feature is turned on for your account yet.

Change Orders is still in Early Access. Performance Plan accounts are being added to the rollout in phases, not all at once, so an account can be fully eligible on plan and still not have the feature turned on yet. If that's the case, Change orders simply won't appear in the project navigation, which can look like a plan or permissions issue even though it isn't.

If you're confirmed on the Performance Plan and still don't see Change orders, contact your account manager or email us to check your account's Early Access status.

No. Recipients respond in guest mode from a link in their email. Owners, architects, and GCs can view, download, and respond without ever creating a Raken account.

Not at the moment. Photos can still be added as uploaded files or pulled in from the project's Documents.

Yes. Choose Don't send when saving. This records the COR without emailing the assignee or any Cc recipients, useful for logging past change orders.

Responses can't be edited or deleted once submitted, to keep the record trustworthy. The COR manager can re-open the COR or create a new version and resend it.

Open View history on the COR. It shows exactly when the email was sent and when the recipient viewed it, so there's no guessing about whether a change order was received.

Not at launch. There is no ERP or accounting sync for approved change order values yet. The CSV export and COR report are the best paths today for getting approved amounts into another system.

Submittals confirm what's being installed before work starts. RFIs clarify something unclear or get a decision in writing. Change Orders document what changed from the original contract, and the resulting cost and approval impact, often after an RFI or submittal triggers the change. Together, they form Raken's full project management suite.

Feel free to email us or call us at +1 866-438-0646. We're always glad to answer your questions!