Every contractor knows change orders can make or break a job’s profitability. Fewer stop to look at how much margin disappears not from the work itself, but from the documentation around it.
Here’s the pattern. A field condition changes. The foreman flags it verbally or in a group text. Work continues because the job can’t stop and wait for paperwork. Somewhere in the next few days, someone is supposed to write it up, price it, and get it in front of the GC or owner for approval. That “somewhere” is where a lot of firms lose money without ever seeing it happen.
Where the Margin Actually Goes
The cost isn’t usually the change order itself. It’s the gap between when the work happened and when it got documented, priced, and approved.
A delay of even a week or two means details get fuzzy. The exact scope discussed on-site doesn’t quite match what ends up in the written change order. Photos that would have made the case clearly never got taken, or got taken and never made it off someone’s phone. By the time the paperwork catches up to the work, the story has softened, and so has the firm’s negotiating position.
Unpriced change orders sitting in a folder are also unbilled revenue sitting on the table. Every week one sits there is a week the firm is financing work it hasn’t been paid for. On a firm running multiple active jobs, that adds up to real cash flow drag, not just an accounting inconvenience.
Why This Keeps Happening
It’s rarely about the team not caring. It’s about the paperwork living outside the flow of the actual work. The person best positioned to capture a change, the foreman or PM in the field, is usually the least available to sit down and write a clean, defensible scope description. So it gets handed off, delayed, or summarized secondhand by someone who wasn’t there.
Add in busy season, multiple active projects, and a small back office, and change order documentation becomes the thing that always gets pushed to “later.” Later is expensive.
What Tighter Change Order Documentation Actually Looks Like
Firms that protect margin here tend to do a few things consistently, not as a big system overhaul, but as habits:
Capture the change close to the moment it happens, even roughly. A voice note, a few photos, and a one-line description recorded the same day beats a polished write-up two weeks later. Detail fades fast; timestamps and specifics don’t need to be perfect, they just need to exist.
Standardize what information gets captured every time. Scope, reason for the change, materials or labor impact, and who authorized it in the field. When this is consistent, pricing it out later takes minutes instead of a reconstruction project.
Separate capturing the change from writing the formal document. The field team’s job is to get the facts down fast. Someone in the office can turn that into a clean, GC-ready change order without needing to have been on-site. This is a place where AI tools can genuinely help, turning rough field notes into a structured, professional document quickly, without changing what actually gets approved or how the firm prices the work.
The Bigger Point
Change orders aren’t just a paperwork obligation. They’re one of the clearest places where the gap between doing good work and getting properly paid for it shows up. Tightening that gap doesn’t require new software or a system overhaul. It requires treating the documentation step with the same urgency as the field work itself, because financially, it is the field work.
People Say
We recently had Chris Carr present to our members on behalf of Dynaimix, and it was an overwhelming success. We had a full classroom, and the engagement throughout the session was outstanding. Many attendees who initially felt intimidated by AI left feeling empowered and confident in how they can begin applying it in their work.
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Brubacher engaged Chris , founder of Dynaimix, in a two-day mind-stretching exploration of current AI capabilities, future direction, and most importantly he outlined the likely impacts to our business. He introduced us to a variety of AI tools to explore using to increase efficiency. Some participants immediately identified ways to save hours per week while others began using AI-enabled tools to offset areas in which they lack skills. Chris is high-energy, kept our attention, and has been attentive in follow-up.
We had the pleasure of having Chris Carr present at our annual planning meeting at Oliver Fire Protection & Security, which is a critical event for setting the direction of our year. Our goal was to give our strategic leadership team a stronger understanding of artificial intelligence and how it will impact our business. Chris delivered his state of AI presentation and completely blew our team away. His depth of knowledge, paired with practical, real-world examples, made the topic both clear and compelling.
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I had the opportunity to bring Chris Carr to the NECA Districts 6 and 9 Summer Conferences on the North Shore of Hawaii, where he came in locked and loaded and delivered two impactful sessions—one for each district. What I appreciate most about Chris and the Dynaimix team is his genuine passion for what he presents and his constant focus on applying AI in practical, meaningful ways for the electrical contracting industry.
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I’ve had the opportunity to see Chris’s State of AI presentation multiple times, and each experience reinforced his strong grasp of AI—where it’s going, how quickly the landscape is changing, and what that means for electrical contractors. What sets Chris apart is his ability to take an incredibly complex topic and make it both approachable and immediately relevant to our industry.
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At the 2025 WICA Annual Convention in beautiful Lake Tahoe, Chris Carr presented on the State of AI for our Insulation Contractor and Associate members. He emphasized the importance of AI literacy, the role of AI governance through an AI council, and how to effectively pair AI with custom code to drive real business impact. Chris has a gift for explaining complex topics in a way everyone can understand, and the session was engaging and highly relevant. Our members found it captivating, the feedback was excellent, and I would highly recommend Chris and the Dynaimix team.
We were extremely pleased with the Program that Dynaimix provided for our Members. From the feedback I received from our Members, it was easy to understand and provided practical grass roots education on understanding how AI could increase time saving skills and knowledge about subject matter. The process of booking the presentation was seamless and the communication with dynAimix leading up to the event was outstanding. We look forward to hosting another presentation with them in the near future.
We had the privilege of having Chris Carr present to our leadership team after first seeing him speak at a peer group event. That experience led us to bring him in for a two-day Intro to AI training where he covered the foundational elements of artificial intelligence. Prior to the training, Chris met with us to understand our business, which allowed him to tailor the content specifically to our needs. What impressed us most was his ability to explain complex concepts in a clear and easy-to-understand way.
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Partnering with Dynaimix AI has been a tremendous step forward for our organization. Their customized, in-person training reached more than 300 of our employees and consistently exceeded expectations. The sessions were engaging, practical, and highly relevant, and many team members shared that they learned far more about AI than they anticipated.
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Chris presented at our Annual Summer Membership Meeting for the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Northeastern Illinois Chapter, and our members were absolutely blown away. The response was so strong that his team followed up with a two-day Intro to AI training for our members, hosted at our location in Illinois. The training was led by Todd Smith, and it was incredibly powerful, highly digestible, and easy to understand.
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Chris Carr
Mark Oestreicher
Todd Smith
Ashetun Jones
Dan Callahan
Erin Larkin
Dynaimix AI Public Speaking Schedule
One of the missions of Dynaimix AI is to educate businesses, industries, and professionals about the transformative impact of the coming wave of artificial intelligence. We aim to share insights into how AI will shape the future of work and provide practical lessons, techniques, and tactics to enhance AI literacy.
Below is our public speaking schedule. Please check back regularly, as new dates and events are added each week.