Variations: how to stop giving work away for free

Every trade knows the moment. You're on site, the job's going well, and the client says "while you're here, can you just...". You say yes — it's only small — and you crack on. Do that four or five times across a job and you've handed over a day's work for nothing, then wondered why the margin vanished.

Extras aren't the problem. Unpriced, unrecorded extras are. Here's how to stop them eating your profit without being awkward about it.

1. Log it the moment it's asked

The second a client asks for something outside the original quote, write it down — what it is, and that it's extra to the agreed price. If you wait until the end of the job to remember them all, you won't. You'll remember the big ones and eat the rest.

2. Price it there and then

Put a price against it straight away, using the same rates you quoted the main job with. A variation is just a mini-quote. When it's priced immediately, there's no awkward lump-sum surprise at the end and no arguing about what "just" meant.

3. Get it agreed before you do it

"That's an extra — it'll be about £X, happy for me to crack on?" Most clients say yes without blinking, because they asked for it. Now it's agreed, in writing, and you're not chasing money for work nobody officially ordered. The trades who lose out are the ones too polite to say it's chargeable until it's too late.

4. Keep variations with the job — not in your head

The reason extras get given away is that they live in your memory, and your memory is full. Kept in the same place as the original quote — logged, priced, signed off — they're impossible to forget and easy to add to the final bill. A signed variation is money you'd otherwise have waved goodbye to.

Do this properly and variations flip from a profit leak into a profit source. The work was always going to happen — this just makes sure you get paid for it. All it takes is capturing each one the moment it comes up, in the same system you priced and tracked the job with.