Electrical change order form: get the customer's OK by text before the extra work

Your tech opens a wall for a new circuit and finds aluminum branch wiring, or a junction box buried behind drywall. The fix is real, it's extra, and the homeowner is at work. If the tech does it on a verbal "sure, go ahead" over the phone, you find out at invoice time that the customer remembers the price differently. If the tech waits, the truck sits.

A change order fixes the money part: what the extra work is, why it's needed, what it costs, and a signature before anyone starts. The hard part is getting that signature from someone who isn't standing in the kitchen. This post gives you a change order form you can copy, then shows how to send it as a text link so the homeowner approves or declines from their phone. The workflow comes from our change-order sign-off recipe for electricians on Jobber, and every "what our test showed" note below comes from a mock test, not a live account.

The change order form template

Copy these fields into whatever you use now: paper, a PDF, your field app or the web page in the recipe. Keep it to one screen on a phone.

Two rules make the form hold up later. First, one change per form: if the tech finds two problems, send two change orders, so the homeowner can approve one and decline the other. Second, the price is a number, not a range. "Somewhere around $400-600" is how disputes start.

How to send it by text link, step by step

1. The tech writes it up in the field. In our recipe the tech's phone posts the work, the reason and the price to an n8n webhook. A request without the shop's key gets a 401 and nothing is sent, and a bad price gets a 400 with the reason.
2. The homeowner gets a text and an email with a signed link. The text goes only to customers who agreed to texts and only during daytime hours. The link is signed, so changing the price or the expiry in the URL breaks it. Texting consent rules are covered in our guide to texting consent and whether missed-call text-back is legal; most of it applies here too. This isn't legal advice.
3. They open the form, type their name and tap Approve or Decline. The page shows the job, the work, the reason and the price. A hidden honeypot field catches form bots.
4. The decision is recorded once. The time, the IP address and the browser go into a Google Sheet, a note goes on the Jobber job, the tech gets "OK to proceed" (or "don't do the extra work") by text, and the homeowner gets a receipt.
5. Silence gets one nudge, to the tech. If nobody has signed after 30 minutes, the tech gets one text so they can call the homeowner. The homeowner is never nagged.
6. Expired means call. After 48 hours the link stops working and the office gets an email that the change order expired.

What our test showed

We ran 20 scenarios against mock versions of Jobber, Twilio, the email service and Google Sheets, and all 20 passed on October 31, 2026. The ones that matter most in the field:

• Approve, then double-tap or change your mind: the approval was recorded once. A second submit, including a later "decline", got "already approved" and changed nothing.
• Tampered link: changing the signature or pushing the expiry date out returned a 403. A link opened after 48 hours returned a 410 page that says it expired and to call the office.
• No typed name: the form asked for it and recorded nothing.
• 9:15 p.m., homeowner has text consent but no email on file: no text went out during quiet hours. The tech was told to get a paper signature instead.
• Homeowner texted STOP earlier: the link went by email only. With no text consent on file, same result.
• Jobber rejects the job note as throttled: the decision was still recorded and the tech still got the go-ahead text; the office got an email to add the note by hand.

What a typed-name signature is, and isn't

The federal E-SIGN Act says a contract or signature "may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form" for transactions in interstate commerce (15 U.S.C. 7001). That's a floor, not a guarantee that your change order holds up. State contract and home-improvement rules still apply, and some states have their own requirements for residential contracts. Ask your attorney whether a typed name plus time, IP and browser is enough for your change orders, and keep the receipt the homeowner gets.

The recipe also doesn't change line items in Jobber. The office updates the quote or invoice after an approval, so the invoice your customer gets matches what they approved. If the extra work leads to a bigger job, like a service upgrade, that's a new quote, and a panel upgrade quote follow-up is the better tool.

What it costs to run

The texts are the only per-use cost. Twilio lists US SMS at $0.0083 per segment, plus carrier fees, plus A2P 10DLC registration fees (Twilio pricing, checked October 31, 2026). Illustrative arithmetic, not a measured result: a change order sends the homeowner one text, the tech one or two, so even at two segments each you're under 10 cents in Twilio usage per change order before carrier fees. The recipe page has the full monthly cost breakdown.

How we tested, and what we didn't

All 20 scenarios ran in n8n against mocks of Jobber, Twilio, the email API and Google Sheets, using invented customers and jobs. We have not run it against a live Jobber account, sent real texts or tested a signed change order in any dispute. Jobber says custom integrations are only possible for approved Jobber customers (Jobber Developer Center), so check with Jobber before you build. Read how we test for what "mock-tested" means on this site.

Related for electricians

• Change orders often show up at rough-in, so pair this with tracking every rough-in and final inspection and the permit and inspection tracker recipe.
• EV charger jobs are where surprise panel work shows up most: a pre-check form that sorts leads before you roll a truck and its recipe.
• Night calls about burning smells and tripped mains: after-hours hazard text triage.
• Getting paid for the approved work: contractor invoice reminder texts.
• Following up on quotes that go quiet: a 3-touch estimate follow-up, written for HVAC but the same pattern.
• If you're weighing Jobber's own AI tools: our Jobber AI receptionist review.

All five electrician recipes are on the electricians hub. If you've got a change order process that works for your shop, tell us about it.

Sources

• 15 U.S.C. 7001 (E-SIGN Act), general rule of validity for electronic signatures and records. Checked October 31, 2026. law.cornell.edu
• Twilio US SMS pricing: $0.0083 per segment, carrier fees and 10DLC registration fees. Checked October 31, 2026. twilio.com
• Jobber Developer Center, Custom Integrations: only possible for approved Jobber customers. Checked October 31, 2026. developer.getjobber.com
• Test results: our change-order sign-off recipe, 20 of 20 scenarios passed against mocks on October 31, 2026.