GC Not Signing T&M Tags or Change Orders: Get the Signature the Same Day, Then Bill It

How to get a T&M tag signed the same day

The rule that fixes the late tag is simple to say and hard to keep: no extra starts without a tag number, and no tag leaves the site without a signature or a same-day written record of why not. The foreman owns the first half. The project manager owns everything after the tag is written.

A tag that gets signed is short and factual. It records what happened and leaves price and entitlement for the COR. It carries:

• A tag number from a numbered book or app, so a missing tag shows up as a gap in the sequence
• The date, the job, the location on the drawings, and the name of the person who directed the work
• A plain description of what was installed, moved or removed
• Each worker’s name and hours, and the material used, by quantity
• Photos before and after, stored under the tag number
• A signature line that reads “time and material verified,” not “extra approved”

When the super has already left, the foreman photographs the tag and sends it to the super by text or email before the truck leaves the site, with one line: “Hours and material for today’s work at this location, at your direction.” The next morning the project manager follows up for the signature. A same-day message is not a signature, but it fixes the date and the facts. Who is authorized to sign, and whether an email counts as written direction under a given subcontract, are questions for the shop’s construction attorney — worth asking before the next job, not during a dispute.

The notice clock: why the tag can’t ride in the truck

On federal construction work, the Changes clause puts a hard number on delay. FAR 52.243-4 treats an oral or written order from the contracting officer that changes the work as a change order only if the contractor gives written notice stating the date, circumstances and source of the order, and that it regards the order as a change. No adjustment under that paragraph is made for costs incurred more than 20 days before the written notice. The contractor must assert its right to an adjustment within 30 days of the notice, and no proposal is allowed after final payment.

That clause binds the prime contractor and the government. An electrical subcontractor meets it secondhand: a subcontract can flow down its own notice period, and that period can be shorter than 20 days, because the GC needs time to give its own notice upstream. Whatever the number in a given subcontract is, a tag that sits in a truck for three weeks spends that time.

Texas added a different kind of rule in 2023. Under House Bill 3485, a contractor or subcontractor on private work may elect not to proceed with additional work directed by the owner when it has not received a written, fully executed change order for that work and the unsigned owner-directed extras, added together, exceed 10 percent of its original contract amount (Texas Property Code §28.0091). The same bill set a parallel rule for public work (Government Code §2251.0521). Both apply to contracts entered into on or after September 1, 2023, and a contractor that makes the election is not responsible for damages associated with it.

The operating lesson does not depend on the state. The running total of unsigned extras, as a share of the original subcontract, is a number the shop should be able to read on any Monday. Without a tag log, nobody can say whether a job sits at 3 percent or 12. Whether to stop work, send a notice or file a claim is a legal decision; this section explains the rules and is not legal advice, so ask the shop’s construction attorney.

How do electrical contractors get paid for out-of-scope work and unforeseen conditions?

Electrical contractors get paid for both the same way: written notice before the work changes, a priced change order request, and an executed change order that adds a line to the schedule of values a pay app can bill. Out-of-scope work is an extra someone directs, such as a GC asking for added circuits, and the same-day tag routine above covers it. An unforeseen condition is different: nobody directed it, the crew found it. For example, the crew opens a wall set for demolition and finds a live circuit no drawing shows, or hits rock where the drawings show soil along a trench run. Its paper trail has to start when the crew finds it, before anyone asks for anything.

On federal fixed-price construction contracts, the Differing Site Conditions clause, FAR 52.236-2, covers two kinds: subsurface or latent physical conditions at the site that differ materially from those indicated in the contract, and unknown physical conditions of an unusual nature that differ materially from those ordinarily encountered in work of the kind the contract calls for. The contractor must give the contracting officer written notice promptly, and before the conditions are disturbed. The contracting officer investigates, and if the condition does differ materially and changes the cost or time of the work, an equitable adjustment is made and the contract is modified in writing. No adjustment is allowed without that written notice, though the contracting officer may extend the time to give it, and no request is allowed after final payment. Like the Changes clause above, it binds the prime contractor and the government; a subcontract can flow down its own concealed-conditions terms and its own notice period. This explains the clause; whether a condition qualifies under a given subcontract is a question for the shop’s construction attorney.

The field routine follows the clause’s order: photograph the condition and send the GC written notice before the crew disturbs it, then give the condition its own number in the tag log so it travels the same path to a COR, a change order and a pay app. The notice states:

• The date, the location on the drawings, and who found the condition
• What the crew found, and what the drawings or specs showed at that spot
• Photos taken before the condition was disturbed, filed under the tag number
• That the shop regards it as a change and will submit a change order request
• Who at the GC received the notice, and how it was sent

The weekly tag log: from tag to change order to pay app

One list, kept by one named person, follows every extra until a pay app bills it or someone closes it with a written reason. A spreadsheet is enough. Its columns:

• Tag number, job, date, and who directed the work
• Hours and material, from the tag
• Signed by the super: yes or no, and the date
• COR number, amount and date sent
• Change order number and date executed
• The schedule of values line the change order became
• The pay app number that billed it, and the amount
• Status: open, billed, combined into another change order, settled at closeout, or written off — with the reason

Three rules make the list work. A tag with no COR after seven days goes on this week’s call list. A COR with no executed change order 30 days later gets a written follow-up to the GC, timed before the next pay app cutoff. And each job shows one number at the top: unsigned and unapproved extras as a percent of the original subcontract. The list gets read once a week, in the same meeting, by name. Row 03 of the free Friday Ledger asks a version of the same question every Friday: work done beyond the original scope, and how much of it was in writing.

Check one closed job before changing anything

Before building a routine, measure the gap on a closed job. Lay three records side by side: every extra the foreman remembers (the tag book, truck photos, daily reports, a 15-minute conversation), the COR log or the change-order emails, and the final schedule of values with the last pay app.

For each extra, mark five boxes: tagged, signed, COR sent, change order executed, billed on a pay app. A blank between “tagged” and “billed” is labor in payroll with no billing on record, unless the item was folded into a combined change order or a closeout settlement — note which one if so.

Illustrative example: on a closed tenant fit-out, the foreman recalls 12 extras. Nine were tagged, six were signed, five became change orders and four reached a pay app. At an illustrative $1,500 of labor and material per extra, the eight that never reached a pay app put about $12,000 of cost on the job with no billing behind it. The biggest drop between two boxes shows which hand-off to fix first.

When the GC still won’t sign the change order

A same-day routine shrinks the problem; it does not end it. When a tag stays unsigned, the next steps are on paper, not on the phone:

• Send written notice the same day the work happens, stating the date, the circumstances, who directed the work, and that the shop regards it as a change. The federal clause above asks for the same facts, and they make a sound default on any job.
• Submit the COR within the subcontract’s window, with the tag, the photos and the daily report attached, even when the tag is unsigned.
• Ask in writing who is authorized to approve changes on the job, and route the next tag to that person.
• Track the unsigned total against the original subcontract, and take it to the shop’s construction attorney before it becomes the largest open number on the job.

None of this is aggressive. A tag signed the same afternoon is a smaller conversation than a disputed COR at closeout, argued after everyone’s memory of the hours has gone.

When not to hire anyone for this

Skip outside help if the shop already keeps a tag log, every tag carries a signature or a same-day written record, and every executed change order shows a pay app number within one billing cycle. That shop has done the work.

Skip it, too, for solo electricians and one-truck shops, where the owner is the foreman, the project manager and the billing desk, and for shops wiring residential new construction for one builder on one price sheet — the money leaks somewhere else there. Anything that has already become a dispute belongs with a construction attorney, not an operations review.

For a shop with service vans and GC work where nobody can say how many extras were built last quarter and how many were billed, the Revenue Review is two weeks of read-only access to the tag book, daily reports, the COR log, pay apps and the books, ending in a written report that puts a monthly dollar figure on each leak. Implementation is scoped and priced separately. A free 20-minute call is enough to tell whether it fits, including when it does not.