For clients
On the client side a variation is a decision about money and time that someone will have to account for at the final account. Fidrel keeps every contractor variation in the project’s register with its estimated, quoted and approved cost and its programme impact, leaves the decision to the project’s administrators, and turns a variation linked to a budget item into a budget change that needs its own approval before the current budget moves.
30 days free · No minimum term.
A change is agreed at a progress meeting, the contractor’s quotation turns up by email a fortnight afterwards and the cost plan catches up whenever somebody remembers. When the employer’s agent writes the next report, nobody can say which figure the client actually accepted.
Quotations sit with the architect, the quantity surveyor and the contractor at the same time. Without one list the client cannot tell the funder or the board how much money is waiting for a decision, or whose desk it is waiting on.
Variations live beside non-conformances under Variations & non-conformances in each project and are numbered VO-001 onwards. Each must be typed as an addition, an omission or an alteration, and can hold an estimated cost, the contractor’s quoted cost, the approved cost, the invoiced cost and an omission value in one currency, with the programme impact in days. Background fields take the client, the contractor, the discipline, the reason and the contract or specification reference. A variation can be started from an RFI, an issue or a non-conformance and stays linked to it, takes PDFs, photos and spreadsheets up to 25 MB each, and keeps a history of every change.
Variations & deviations
Link a variation that carries an amount to a budget item and Fidrel opens a budget change for it. The change tracks the variation: Expected while it is a draft, Submitted once it is sent, and rejected with it. Its amount is the approved cost, or the quoted or estimated cost until an approved one is entered, and an omission lowers the budget. Approving the variation does not move the budget by itself. The budget change is accepted separately by someone with rights to the budget and to approve, and only then do the current budget and the remaining forecast change. From that point later edits to the variation leave the accepted change as it is.
Step 1
A contractor who is a project member with access to the estimates records the variation as an addition, omission or alteration, enters the quoted cost and programme impact, attaches the quotation and sends it.
Step 2
An administrator, or the person named as responsible, moves it to Under review, or to More information needed when the quotation is thin; the contractor answers and sends it back.
Step 3
An administrator approves or rejects it and types the approved cost. If it is linked to a budget item, the budget change it created now waits under Changes & budget approvals.
Step 4
Someone with rights to the budget and to approve accepts the budget change. When the work is done the variation is marked Performed and then Closed, with the invoiced cost recorded against it.
Only a project administrator can mark a variation Approved or Rejected or type its approved cost. Other members are not offered those two statuses, the approved cost field is locked for them, and the database refuses the change if anyone else attempts it. That lets the client keep the decision on its own side while the contractor writes the record. Whoever is named as responsible for a variation is told in Fidrel’s notifications, and the register can be filtered by status, date, person, company and work area.
The cost report splits approved budget changes into variations, revisions and other changes, so the line from the original budget to the anticipated final cost shows how much of the movement came from variations. Beside the invoices to check and approve it shows how many variations are awaiting a decision. The portfolio lists pending variations with their count and amount for every project in the organisation whose costs you may see.
Fidrel holds the record and the decision trail; it issues no instructions, contractual notices, valuations or payment certificates. Under an NEC contract, early warnings and compensation events stay in your own contract administration, and Fidrel keeps no register of them. Nobody outside the project can sign off a variation, and there is no e-signature. The variation register has no export or print of its own. A variation awaiting a decision is not added to the anticipated final cost, its programme impact does not move dates in the programme, and no email goes out when a variation is sent or decided.
Your trial applies to your first own project and starts when that project is created. No card required. Afterwards, choose card or invoice to continue.
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Read moreOnly a project administrator. Other members cannot choose Approved or Rejected, the approved cost field is locked for them, and the database refuses the change if it is tried another way.
No. A variation linked to a budget item creates a budget change, and the budget moves only when someone with rights to the budget and to approve accepts that change. It then appears among the approved budget changes in the cost report.
Yes, when they are a project member with access to the estimates. They can draft and send a variation and attach the quotation, while the approval and the approved cost stay with your administrators.
Filter the register by status. The cost report shows how many variations await a decision, and the portfolio shows the count and amount of pending variations for each project whose costs you may see.
Yes. Type it as an omission and enter the omission value, and its budget change lowers the budget item once accepted. An addition or alteration with an omission value carries its cost less the work taken out.
No. The register itself says that recording an item or approving its status does not replace the notices and decisions the contract requires. Fidrel keeps the record and the decision trail alongside your contract.
