Approve a subcontract variation

Review and approve a variation against an existing subcontract, with full delta context — original contract value, prior approved variations, and the specific change up for approval — and let the system amend the linked Purchase Order automatically.

When to use this

When a subcontractor (or your own project manager) raises a change against an existing subcontract — additional scope, scope reduction, rate change, or defect-driven adjustment — and the variation is now sitting in Pending Approval waiting for your decision.

Prerequisites

• Subcontract in Signed, Active, PC, or DLP status (variations can't be raised against Draft or Closed) — see Subcontract states
• The Variation has been created and submitted for approval — variations can come from three places:
  • The New Variation action on the Subcontract record
  • An approved variation cost estimate (fan-out from the estimating side)
  • Cloning an existing variation as a template
• Permission to approve variations for this subcontract's subsidiary

Walkthrough

1. Open the Variation record in Pending Approval status (from the dashboard reminder, an email notification, or the Subcontract's Variations subtab).
2. Review the delta-context summary at the top of the form. It shows:
   • Original Contract Value — the subcontract value at award
   • Prior approved variations — the running total of variations already approved
   • This variation — the value of the change in front of you
   • Resulting Revised Contract Value — what the contract will become if you approve
3. Below the summary, review the variation lines — what scope is being added or removed, and the Variance Reason on any line being adjusted.
4. Click Approve.

On approval, the system:

• Amends the linked Purchase Order automatically (no manual PO edit)
• Updates the Subcontract's Revised Contract Value
• Notifies the subcontractor
• If the variation is flagged as Pass-Through to Customer Variation, the approval is blocked until the linked customer-side variation is itself approved

What success looks like

• Variation status changes to Approved, with an approval timestamp and approver name on the record.
• The Subcontract's Variations subtab shows the variation with its new status.
• The Purchase Order linked to the subcontract has been amended — you'll see the amended-date stamped on the variation.
• The Subcontract's Revised Contract Value has updated automatically.
• The subcontractor sees the new contract value in their Connect view at next sync.
• The audit trail records the approval and the PO line IDs that changed.

Gotchas

• Approval is blocked if the variation would push the Revised Contract Value below what has already been claimed and paid — this prevents over-approving deductions.
• Approval is blocked if the linked Customer Variation isn't yet Approved (pass-through variations only).
• Approval is blocked if the subcontractor's pre-qualification has expired — administrators can override this with a reason.
• Rejected variations aren't deleted. They sit on the subcontract in Rejected state and can be re-submitted.
• Post-approval reversal isn't supported directly. If an approved variation needs to be undone, raise an offsetting variation with a negative value — see Raise a back-charge for the same pattern applied to recoveries.

Related

• Create a subcontract
• Assess a subcontractor claim
• Raise a back-charge