Variation & Extra Works Tracker Spreadsheet
This spreadsheet shows what the work you did outside the contract was worth, and how much of it ever came back.
Everybody knows they do extras, almost nobody knows what the extras came to, and nobody at all knows what share of them was paid for. This is not an estimating question — estimating is about the work you agreed to do. This is about the work you never agreed to do and did anyway.
What is in it
- Extra Works — one row per piece of work outside the contract: the job, who asked, what kind of change it was, when it happened, when you raised it, the hours and the materials.
- Four money columns filled in as they happen — asked, agreed, invoiced, paid — so the money can be followed from the request to the bank.
- Where It Leaked — the five places it goes, in order, from work never raised at all to invoices never paid.
- By Who Asked — the recovery rate behind every person who can ask you for extra work, because their word is not worth the same.
- Whose Change — theirs, yours or nobody’s, and what each of the three came to.
- The Paperwork, Setup and Overview — the same work sorted only by whether anybody wrote it down, three rates, two lists you name yourself, and the year on one screen.
Who it is for
Anywhere a scope is agreed and then changes: a builder, a machine shop, an installer, a print works, an agency, a haulier, a software team, an event company. Call them extras, changes, additionals, out-of-scope or day works — the file only needs to know it was not in the contract.
The worked example
In the worked year, 260 pieces of extra work took 3,709 hours and were worth $329,379. 51.5% of that was paid, which left -$42,533 once the cost of doing it came off.
Work agreed in writing recovered 69.3% and verbal work 40.0%. The largest single leak was not a dispute: $46,005 of work — 14.0% of everything done outside the contract — was never raised with anybody at all.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. Buy it on Etsy — $9
Sold through my Etsy shop, ThePlainLedger, so the download, the payment and the buyer protection are all handled by Etsy.
A look inside the file
Questions people actually ask
How do I work out how much of our extra work never gets paid for?
The file splits it into five leaks in order: work never raised at all, raised for less than it was worth, raised and never agreed, agreed and never invoiced, and invoiced and never paid. In the worked year those were 14.0%, 2.9%, 25.0%, 5.9% and 0.7% of $329,379 of extra work, and only the last one ever gets chased. Overall 51.5% came back, leaving the year $42,533 down after what doing the work cost.
We are not in construction and we do not call them variations.
Call them what you like: extras, changes, additionals, out-of-scope, day works. The file only needs to know it was not in the contract. It works anywhere a scope is agreed and then changes, so a print works, an agency, a machine shop, an installer, a haulier, a software team or an event company all use it the same way.
We never raise half of them, so where does the data come from?
Leave the raised-it date blank and the file counts that row as never raised; the row is not an error, and it is usually the biggest line in the file. You can use it retrospectively too, because six months from memory still shows the shape and the shape almost never changes once you start logging properly. What the work was worth is priced from your own rates, whether or not anybody paid for it.
Does it run in Google Sheets, and is there a subscription?
It runs in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice, and there is no subscription. It is built as .xlsx for Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, and imports into Google Sheets through File then Import then Upload. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create and nothing to install.
Does it write the variation notice for me?
No. It does not know your terms and it will not draft a notice or a claim; it tells you what happened last year, in your own money. Whether you were entitled to any of it is a question for your contract, and this is not legal or contractual advice. It will not stop anybody changing their mind; it tells you what saying yes without an email cost you.
Need it built around your business?
This file assumes a contract, a scope and somebody on site asking for more. If your changes arrive another way — an agency where the client keeps adding rounds of amends to a fixed fee, a machine shop where the drawing changes after the tooling is cut, an installer whose extras are found on the day rather than requested — I can build the same arithmetic around how the work outside your scope actually shows up.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.