Extracker collaborative COR logs improve communication to speed payment

The only thing consistent in a construction project is change, and managing that change is a challenge for all parties. To ease the administrative burden of change order requests (COR), Extracker is a platform that facilitates communication between the general contractor and their subs.

“Extracker is a communication tool,” says Cameron Page, founder and CEO. “We’re not replacing your financial software, our system is agnostic to any program.”

When subcontractors email CORs to their general contractor, it introduces the risk of the email getting bounced, lost in the shuffle, or hard to locate weeks or months later. To ensure the GC has everything needed, the GC will request a log from each subcontractor, but since each subcontractor uses a different format, which must be manually updated after every new change order, the process is prone to errors, which can result in huge financial consequences if not caught.

The GC must manually download each COR document from every sub from email and manually enter the costs into their accounting/ERP system. They won’t know their true cost exposure until this administrative burden is complete. If the subcontractor COR contains issues, the correspondence is hard to track via email and even harder over the phone.

It’s easy for the GC to fall behind in reviewing these documents, which can result in real financial consequences for all parties involved. Meanwhile, additional costs cannot be billed until the COR is approved and a change order has been issued by the GC. Clear documentation and speed in processing time is incredibly important.

By uploading or creating CORs in Extracker, the user automatically generates a shareable and collaborative COR log. General contractors no longer need to request an updated COR log and subcontractors can keep their GC up to date by sending a shareable link.

Subcontractors and general contractors can both see on one simple dashboard what has been approved to proceed, approved CO issued, In Review or Void.

By uploading change orders through Extracker, the system stores every backup document in its cloud-based log so both contractor and customer have access to the same information. All updates and changes made to an individual COR are logged and tracked in an activity feed so there’s always a paper trail, which can be instantly exported to PDF, Excel and CSV formats.

“The lag time between performing extra work and billing has been reduced by 75% by using Extracker,” said Greg Duckworth, president, Insulpro, a $30-million insulation specialty contractor with locations in Seattle and Portland. “It was not uncommon to spend days tracking down a physical signature on our paper T&M tags, and processing an entire change order could take weeks.”

Extracker is available in three tiers, including a free option alongside the subscription Professional and Enterprise levels.