“While you’re here, can we just…” is the most expensive sentence in construction. Not because clients are unreasonable, but because the work that follows it is usually done before anyone has priced it, and by the time it appears on an invoice it feels to the client like a surprise charge for something they thought was included.
Price it before you build it. Always.
A variation priced in advance is a decision. A variation priced afterwards is a dispute. The difference costs nothing except the discipline to stop and write it down.
| Variation VAR-2026-0021 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Original tile allowance (180 m² at GHS 103) | GHS 18,500 |
| Client-selected porcelain (180 m² at GHS 177) | GHS 31,800 |
| Additional laying labour for larger format | GHS 2,200 |
| Net variation | GHS 15,500 |
| Revised contract value | GHS 865,500 |
Write it the way a client reads it
- 1.What was in the original scope, with the allowance you priced.
- 2.What is now being asked for.
- 3.The cost difference — materials, labour and any effect on programme.
- 4.The revised contract value.
- 5.A line for their approval, dated.
Never overwrite the original
The original quotation is the record of what was agreed. Variations sit on top of it and adjust the contract value; they do not replace it. When a disagreement comes six months later — and on long jobs it does — the contractor who can show the original document, three numbered variations and the client’s approval on each is not in an argument. They are in a filing exercise.
The variations you should not charge for
There is a category of small change that costs you almost nothing and buys a great deal of goodwill: moving a socket a metre, a slightly different shade, a door swing reversed before the frame is fixed. Absorb them, say clearly that you are absorbing them, and charge properly for the ones that carry real cost. Clients who see you distinguish between the two rarely argue about the second kind.
The client is not resisting the price. They are resisting the surprise.
— Common observation among contractors who have been paid in full