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.
Quick Answer
To create and send a change order in Raken:
Navigate to your project and click Change orders in the left navigation.
Click the orange New COR button.
Add a title, select a Reason, and set a due date.
Add one or more cost items to price the change.
Attach documents, markups, or forms, and link a related RFI or Submittal if one started the change.
Choose who needs to respond, then click Save and Send.
Recipients respond from a link in their email, on mobile or web, with no Raken account needed.
What Are Change Orders?
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:
Build a COR with priced cost items, attachments, and a link to the RFI or Submittal behind it.
Share it by email, with automatic reminder and overdue notifications.
Review and respond from a guest link, no Raken account needed.
Track every action, response, and signature in the COR's full history.
Navigating to Change Orders
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.
Creating a Change Order Request (COR)
Step 1: Start a New COR
From the project's Change orders log, click or tap the orange New COR button. This is available on both web and mobile.
Step 2: Fill Out the Basics
Title — give the COR a clear, descriptive name.
COR manager — defaults to the creator. A project engineer can draft a COR while the manager stays the point of contact and owns the correspondence.
Reason — pick from a company list, like Design Change or Delay, or add a custom reason.
Cost codes — optional, one or more per COR. Cost codes make CORs filterable in the list views later.
Due date — defaults to seven days from creation and drives reminder notifications and the Overdue status.
Customer reference number — optional, if the recipient uses their own numbering, like a potential change order (PCO) number.
Step 3: Add Cost Items
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.
Step 4: Add Attachments and Links
Click or tap Add attachment to pull in files from:
Documents — from the project's Documents folder.
Markup a plan — mark up a plan from Documents, and save the markup back to the original or as a copy.
Forms — from the project's Forms.
Direct upload — upload a file from your device.
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.
Step 5: Choose Recipients and Notifications
Select who needs to respond as the Assignee, 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.
Step 6: Save or Send
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.
Responding to a Change Order
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:
Approve the full amount
Partially approve a different amount, useful when an owner wants to authorize part of the scope while a design decision is finalized
Reject the request
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.
Tracking and Managing Change Orders
COR Numbering and Status
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.
Project and Company Logs
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 hide fields you don't need, and use Filters to narrow the list, for example to every open COR assigned to one person or cost code.
Selecting one or more CORs from a log shows bulk actions: Delete, Share, or Close.
History, Versions, and Closing
Open the ··· menu on any COR to:
View history — a full, timestamped audit trail of every send, view, and response, downloadable as a PDF.
Create a new version — starts a new revision, useful when a partial approval is followed by a second decision later.
Close — marks the COR closed and lets you choose who to notify.
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.
Reports
Download CSV — export full detail for one or more selected CORs from a log. Filter to one recipient first to get a complete list of everything you're waiting on from them.
COR report — from Reports on the project log, email a PDF summary of amounts and status for a project.
Individual PDF — download any single COR, with its full history and attachments, from the COR itself.
Settings
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.
Troubleshooting & FAQ
Which customers get Change Orders?
Change Orders is available to customers on the Performance Plan, alongside RFIs and Submittals. If your account is on a different plan, talk to your account manager about upgrading.
Does the person I send a change order to need a Raken account?
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.
Can I attach photos directly from the project Gallery?
Not at the moment. Photos can still be added as uploaded files or pulled in from the project's Documents.
Can I log a change order that already happened without notifying anyone?
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.
What if a recipient responds with the wrong amount?
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.
How do I know if a recipient actually received or opened the change order?
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.
Does this sync with Procore, QuickBooks, or other integrations?
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.
What's the difference between Change Orders, RFIs, and Submittals?
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.
Technical Specifications
Compatibility: Web app and mobile (iOS and Android). Mobile requires the app update released alongside Change Orders, on an older app version the feature will not appear.
Offline Capability: No, requires an active connection.
Data Format: USD only. International currency is not currently supported.
Plan Required: Performance Plan.
Add-on Required: None.
Role Required: Governed by the Can create/edit/delete change orders permission; any user without that permission can still respond if assigned.
Considerations
Change Orders requires the Performance Plan.
Mobile users need the app update released alongside Change Orders to see the feature. Without it, Change Orders will not appear on mobile.
Only USD is supported. International currency support is not currently available.
There is no ERP or accounting sync for approved change order values at this time. Use the CSV export or COR report instead.
There is no sequential or multi-tier approval at this time. Every response is signed and logged, so the record shows who approved what, and when.
There is no SMS notification option. Reminders and overdue notices go out by email only.
Responses cannot be edited or deleted once submitted. Re-open the COR or create a new version to make a correction.
Links between a COR and an RFI or Submittal are visible only to users at your company, not to external recipients.
More Questions?
Feel free to email us or call us at +1 866-438-0646. We're always glad to answer your questions!