How to charge for variations on electrical work (and stop doing extras for free)

Ask any electrician where margin disappears on a build and you'll get the same answer: variations. The customer asks for two more GPOs at rough-in, the builder moves the kitchen island, someone decides the alfresco needs a fan — and it all gets done, because you're standing right there and it's twenty minutes of work. Then nobody writes it down, and at final invoice you're arguing about things that happened four months ago.

The fix isn't better arguing. It's better capture.

Rule 1: if it's not written down, it didn't happen

Every builder already knows this — it's why their contracts bury you in variation paperwork. The trades that get paid for extras are the ones with a record: what was asked, who asked it, when, and what it cost. The trades that don't are working from memory against a customer who "definitely didn't ask for that".

Rule 2: capture at the point of the request, not at the invoice

The moment someone says "can we just add…", that's when the record needs to exist — not three weeks later. On paper that means a diary nobody keeps. On an interactive plan it means a note: pinned to the exact spot on the floor plan, with the wording of the request, timestamped, marked with who wrote it.

This is exactly what plan notes in robot® Plan are for. You share the live plan; the customer, the builder or your own crew drop notes on it. "Add double GPO here." "Move this switch to the other side of the door." Each one sits on the plan where the work is.

Rule 3: turn the notes into money in one step

Here's where it usually falls apart: the notes exist, but building the variation quote is an evening job, so it slides. In robot® Plan the notes ARE the variation quote. Open Additional job items, and every note on the plan lines up with a tick box. Tick the ones you're charging for, hit create, and you're in the quote builder with one line per note — the note's own words as the line item, who asked for it in the description. You add prices, hit send, the customer accepts online.

Total time from "can we just add" to a signed variation: a few minutes, mostly typing prices.

Rule 4: the plan is your paper trail

Even deleted notes stay in the plan's notes document, marked deleted with the date. If a dispute ever does surface, you can hand over a document showing every request ever made on the job, in the requester's own words, against the drawing. Disputes tend not to survive that.

The whole flow — notes, ticks, variation quote — is included in the standard plan, free for the first 30 days. Share a plan on your current job and let the customer write on it; the first variation usually pays for the year.