The scope changed in week three. The invoice didn’t.

Unbilled scope change rarely shows up as a loss. It shows up as a job that ran long, a customer who is oddly hard to make money on, and a quote that no longer reflects the work.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The scope changed in week three. The invoice didn’t.

Most businesses that deliver work to a specification have a process for pricing the work and a process for delivering it. Very few have a process for the moment between the two, when the customer asks for something that wasn’t in the specification and someone in delivery says yes. That moment is where a surprising share of margin goes, and it goes quietly, not as a discount recorded in a system, but as hours that were spent and never appeared on an invoice. The reason it stays invisible is structural.…

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