There is a balance to be sought between lumping a number of different items together on one PC or collecting a number of PC’s under one CO, and keeping each item on its own document. In the first case, there is the potential for less paperwork. The danger is that the entire PC or CO may be held up if one trade is slow in submitting a quotation. For time critical work this can be a disaster. The option then is to split the PC or CO into two or more documents. Doing so eliminates much of the time savings anticipated by combining items in the first place.

If you need to track or report the costs and reasons for individual changes to the client, it is much easier if the items are on individual change documents or if items with the different reasons are grouped on different change documents.

Another difficulty with lumping items together on CO’s occurs when evaluating applications for payment. If each CO is recorded as a single line item on the schedule of values, then side calculations need to be done for each item on the CO each month to evaluate the status of the CO. The contractor typically provides only a percent complete for the CO, not for each item; leaving it up to the consultant to figure things out. These side calculations and explaining them can take more time than that saved by creating fewer change documents in the beginning.

The right balance for any project depends on the complexity of the project, the anticipated number of changes, and the requirements of the client.