Work Beyond Scope: Authorization in the Field

Purpose

Two things happen on a handyman visit that the work order did not cover: you open something and it is worse than it looked, and the customer asks for one more thing while you are standing there. Both are ordinary. Both become disputes for the same reason, which is that the work got done and the authorization got remembered.

This procedure guarantees that additional work is priced, authorized by a person with the authority to authorize it, and recorded before the tool moves, with one narrow exception for making a live hazard safe. It also gives the tech a stated authority ceiling so they are not asked to guess where their own signature ends. The failure it prevents is the good tech who does the right extra work, invoices honestly, and gets told the customer never approved it, at which point the shop either eats the hours or loses the account, and usually does both.

Scope

Covers additional labor or materials identified during a visit already in progress, in either direction: a condition discovered on site, or a request added by the occupant.

Explicitly not covered:

• The original scope's own sequencing on a multi-task work order, which the multi-task scoping and sequencing procedure owns.
• Work the shop is not licensed or certified to perform. No authorization makes that available, and it goes to referral regardless of who approves it.
• Regulated lead renovation triggered by an expanded scope in pre-1978 housing. Growing the scope is exactly how that threshold gets crossed, and it routes to the pre-1978 paint disturbance procedure before it routes here.
• Whether a signature on a phone screen binds anybody. That is a legal question for the reader's own attorney. This SOP delivers the operational fact instead: a dated record naming who approved what, in their own words, which is what a shop can actually produce later.

Roles and responsibilities

The procedure

1. If what you found is an active hazard, make it safe first and authorize nothing. A running leak gets isolated at the nearest working stop, or at the main if the stop will not close. An energized hazard gets the breaker opened and the circuit proven dead with a tester checked live, dead, live. A fall or falling hazard gets the area cleared and barricaded. Acceptance: the hazard stopped, and the customer told what you did and why, before any pricing conversation. Wrong looks like calling the office while water runs into a cabinet. Stop rule: making safe is never optional and never priced first, but it also stops there, so isolating a leak does not authorize the repair. Hazard: an under-sink space combines water with a disposal or outlet circuit, so when a stop will not close, open the branch circuit and prove it dead before working wet, and do not stand in standing water to reach a breaker.

2. Name which of the two triggers you are in, out loud, because they are handled differently. A discovered condition is something you found that affects work already sold, and it usually cannot wait. An added request is new work the occupant wants, and it usually can. Acceptance: the trigger typed on the ticket as discovered or requested. Wrong looks like folding both into "extra work", which loses the reason the customer will later argue about. Stop rule: none, this is the classification the rest of the procedure sorts on.

3. Photograph the condition before you touch it, and describe it in the customer's language. Wide shot showing where it is, close shot showing what it is, and one shot with something in frame for scale. Write the description so someone who was never there can picture it: "cabinet floor under the sink is soft across roughly the front half, dark staining, deflects under hand pressure." Acceptance: at least two photographs and a written description on the ticket before any material is disturbed. Wrong looks like photographing after removal, which shows a demolished cabinet and proves nothing about what it looked like when you arrived. Stop rule: no photograph, no authorization request, because the office cannot price what it cannot see.

4. Price it in hours and materials, and say plainly whether it fits today. Additional labor hours, materials needed and whether they are on the truck, and whether the work can be completed on this visit or needs a scheduled return. Acceptance: an hours figure, a materials list, and a same-visit or return-visit call, all written before it is quoted to anybody. Wrong looks like quoting a number out loud and refining it later, which the customer will treat as the price whatever you say afterwards. Stop rule: work you cannot price with confidence goes to the lead rather than getting a padded guess.

5. Compare the priced work against your authority ceiling and route accordingly. A workable default, which each shop should tune to its own rates and trust level: a tech may authorize up to 0.5 additional labor hours plus materials already stocked on the truck, on their own signature. Anything above that, anything needing a purchased part, and anything the customer questions goes to the lead. Acceptance: the ceiling applied as a number, with the routing decision on the ticket. Wrong looks like a ceiling that lives in each tech's head, which produces a different answer from every tech on the same finding. Stop rule: above the ceiling, the tech does not start, does not negotiate, and does not tell the customer a price. That is one phone call.

6. Get the authorization from the party named on the work order, not from whoever is standing there. In a rental, the occupant is frequently not the payer, and a tenant approving work on a landlord's property is a problem the shop discovers at invoicing. Acceptance: approval from the named authorizing party, by signature, text, or email, recorded with the time and the exact scope approved. Wrong looks like a tenant saying "yes, go ahead" on work a property manager will be billed for. Stop rule: the named party unreachable, the added work waits and the tech finishes the original scope, unless step 1 already applies. Whether any given signature binds any given person is a question for your own attorney; what this step produces is a dated record naming who said yes to what.

7. Record the outcome either way, including the refusal, in the customer's own words. Approved, deferred or declined, with the scope, the hours, the time, and who decided. Where the work is declined and the condition matters, write the consequence you explained and note that you explained it. Acceptance: a disposition on every item raised, none left blank. Wrong looks like recording approvals and leaving refusals off the ticket, which erases the shop's warning the one time it matters. Stop rule: none, but a refusal on anything affecting safety or on a condition that will worsen gets escalated to the lead the same day.

The record this produces

An authorization block per item raised, which is what a shop hands over when an invoice is disputed six weeks later:

• Trigger type, discovered or requested, and what was being done when it surfaced.
• Photographs and the plain-language description, taken before disturbance.
• Priced additional hours and materials, and the same-visit or return call.
• Authority routing: inside the ceiling and authorized by the tech, or above it and routed to the lead, with the ceiling figure that applied.
• Who approved, by what channel, at what time, and the exact scope approved.
• The disposition of anything not approved, including the consequence explained and the refusal in the customer's own words.

The office invoices from this block rather than from the tech's memory. The lead reads it when the same condition resurfaces, which on a deferred item it reliably does.

Worked pass: kitchen faucet replacement in a managed rental

Booked as a 1.0 hour faucet replacement, tenant home, property manager named on the work order as the authorizing party.

Step 1 came first because the cabinet was wet. The old faucet was weeping at the base and the hot angle stop would not close, so the water went off at the main, the tenant was told the house is off water until this is resolved, and the disposal circuit was opened and proven dead before anyone worked in a wet cabinet. Nothing was priced yet, which is the point of step 1.

Step 2: discovered condition, two of them. The corroded hot angle stop, and a cabinet floor soft across roughly the front half with dark staining that deflected under hand pressure.

Step 3: four photographs, wide and close on each, description written before anything came out.

Step 4: the angle stop replacement priced at 0.75 additional labor hours, stop on the truck, doable today. The cabinet floor priced at 2.5 hours with material to buy, and a return visit. Together that is 3.25 additional hours against a 1.0 hour original scope, so more than three times the job that was sold, which is the moment a tech is most tempted to just start.

Step 5 is where it failed, and it failed correctly. The angle stop at 0.75 hours is above the 0.5 hour ceiling, one and a half times it, and it needed no purchased part but the hours alone put it out of reach. The tech did not start and did not quote it. One call to the lead.

Step 6 caught the second trap. The tenant, understandably, said go ahead and do both. The tenant is not the authorizing party on this work order, and an approval from her would have produced an invoice the manager had never agreed to. The lead called the manager, who approved the angle stop on the spot by text and deferred the cabinet floor to a scheduled visit after she had looked at the photographs.

Step 7: the approval recorded with the manager's name, the channel, the time and the scope. The cabinet floor recorded as deferred by the owner's agent, with the consequence explained, which was that the deck will keep absorbing and the repair grows.

The visit ran 1.0 hour of original scope plus 0.75 approved hours, so 1.75 hours against a 1.0 hour booking, 75 percent over the block, which the office needed to know before it dispatched the next call.

Read back against the general section: step 1 says making safe stops at making safe, and this run shut the water and the circuit without pricing anything, then went back to step 2. Step 5 states the ceiling as 0.5 hours plus stocked materials, and the 0.75 hour stop was routed up even though the part was on the truck, because the rule is hours and materials both, not either.

References

• See related: multi-task work order scoping and sequencing, for how the original scope is built before any of this applies.
• See related: pre-1978 paint disturbance stop and assess, which a growing scope in older housing routes to first.
• See related: customer-supplied materials acceptance, for the decline that turns into a scope change.
• Whether a given signature or verbal approval binds a given party, and how apparent authority is treated where you work, is a question for your own attorney.