Contract value is the revenue side of your margin. Every gross-margin figure in ReflectHub is contract value minus forecast cost, so the contract value has to be trustworthy: set once at award, moved only by approved change orders, with every change logged. This guide covers how to set the value, how change orders work, and what approval actually does to your numbers.
Setting the contract value
The Contract Value card sits on the project's Finance Overview tab. Press Set contract value and pick a source:
- From accepted offer — pick one of the company's accepted CRM offers. The offer total and currency are copied onto the contract, and the card keeps a link back to the offer: From offer {number}. When someone asks where the number came from, the answer is one click away.
- Manual — type the awarded amount and a 3-letter currency code. The card then reads Set manually.
The card records who set the value and when — Set by {name} · {date} — and every change writes an entry in the project's finance event log. There is no silent editing of the revenue number.
Until a value is set, the margin card says so plainly: it can show forecast cost, but not margin. Set the contract value first; everything downstream depends on it.
Change orders
Scope changes go through the Changes tab — "change orders adjusting contract value and task baselines", as the page header puts it. Press New change order to draft one. Each change order gets a sequential number per project — CO-001, CO-002, CO-003 — and the list shows CO #, Title, Status, Revenue Δ, Cost Δ and Decided.
A change order carries three things:
- Revenue delta — a signed amount added to the contract value on approval. A €25 000 facade extension and a −€4 000 descope are both change orders.
- Baseline lines — the cost side. Each line either targets an Existing task and moves its budget baseline by a signed Baseline delta, or names a New task to be created on approval for new-scope work. New-scope lines need a positive amount, and you can pick a Stage — otherwise the task lands in the project's first stage. A change order can be revenue-only, but cost changes need lines. The form totals the lines into the cost delta as you type.
- Customer reference — a field for the signed CO document or email reference, so the commercial paper trail lives next to the numbers.
Lifecycle
| Status | What it means | Actions available |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Being written. Fully editable. | Edit, Submit, Delete, Cancel CO |
| Submitted | Waiting for a decision. Locked for editing. | Approve, Reject, Cancel CO |
| Approved | Applied. Immutable. | — |
| Rejected | Declined. Baselines and contract value untouched. | — |
| Cancelled | Withdrawn before a decision. | — |
Rejecting requires Decision notes — a rejected CO with no stated reason is worthless six months later. Approval notes are optional; "Signed CO received 3 Aug" is a good habit. The detail view keeps the full record: requested by whom and when, decided by whom and when, and the notes.
What approval does
Approval applies everything in one transaction:
- The revenue delta is added to the contract value.
- Every baseline line is applied: existing tasks get their budget baseline adjusted, new-scope lines become real tasks in the plan.
- One finance event is written per affected task, sourced to the change order, plus one for the CO itself.
If any line would push a task's baseline below zero, the approval is refused and nothing is applied — there is no half-applied state. Once approved, the change order is immutable. It is the record of what was signed; it does not get edited afterwards.
Originals stay preserved
Two rules keep the arithmetic honest.
Current contract value is always computed — the original value plus the sum of approved CO revenue deltas. It is never a typed number, so it cannot drift from the change orders that justify it. The Contract Value card shows both parts: the original at award, and the delta via approved change orders.
Tasks keep their original baseline. When a CO adjusts a task, the task shows its current baseline of 120 000 with the provenance right beside it: orig. 100 000, +20 000 via CO-003. CO-003 links straight to the change order that moved it. The same "orig." figure appears under the Baseline column in the Cost control grid, and the forecast bridge — the step-by-step breakdown of forecast cost in Forecasting & Earned Value — carries a dedicated Change orders step you can drill into for the events behind it.
Margin on the Overview tab
The Gross margin (forecast) card on the Finance Overview tab is where contract value and forecast cost meet. The headline is forecast gross margin — current contract value minus forecast cost, the sum of the engine's task EACs — in euros, with the percentage of contract value beside it. Three figures underneath show the arithmetic: Contract value, Forecast cost and Margin at award.
Next to the headline sits the erosion badge — for example "−€24 000 since award". It compares margin at award (the original contract value minus the sum of the original task baselines: the margin you signed) with the forecast margin now. Margin lost since award shows as a negative figure; a project that has improved shows a positive one. This is the same erosion figure the company-level portfolio sorts worst-first, so the badge on your Overview tab and the owner's portfolio row are reading one number.
Why it matters
Scope creep is normal on a contracting job. What kills margin is scope creep without a paper trail: the client's extras land in the cost, the contract value stays where the award left it, and the margin quietly erodes with nothing to point at. Change orders make each scope change a numbered, decided, referenced record that moves revenue and cost baselines together. Margin at award, margin now, and the erosion between them stay comparable — because both sides of the calculation remember where they started.