RFI software: the clock on every question, and the answer reaching the drawing
- Work order total
- $863.16
- Labour
- $510
- Parts, marked up
- $288
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Jobcardo publishes no tax rate, no wage figure and no trade standard: the rate, the markup and the tax on the parts line are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
An RFI is a request for information: a written question from the contractor to the designer where the drawings and the specification disagree, where a detail cannot be built as drawn, or where a condition on site is not what the documents assumed. It is a small piece of paperwork with an outsized commercial effect, because an unanswered RFI stops work and an answered one frequently changes the scope. The point of RFI software is not the form, it is the clock: who was asked, when, and what has it cost while we wait.
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Write the question so it can be answered once
State the drawing and detail, what is unclear, the options as you see them and which one you propose, and the date you need an answer by to avoid delay. An RFI that describes a problem without proposing an answer takes two rounds; one that proposes takes one.
Keep the RFI log with dates, with RFI tools that maintain it themselves
Number, subject, drawing reference, date raised, date needed, date answered, and whether the answer changed scope or cost. The rfi tools worth having are the ones that make this register maintain itself, because the register is the evidence in any later conversation about delay.
Carry the answer back into the drawing and the record
An answer that lives in an email and never reaches the drawing set produces the same mistake on site three weeks later. The answer belongs against the drawing revision it affects and against the job, and where it changes scope it becomes a change order rather than a favour.
RFI software: common questions
What does RFI mean in construction? Request for information. It is a formal written question from the contractor to the design team about the contract documents, and its answer becomes part of the record of what was agreed.
How long should an answer take? The contract usually says, and a working week is common. What matters more is recording the date you needed it by and the date it arrived, because delay claims are argued from exactly those two dates.
Does an RFI change the contract? Not by itself. An RFI clarifies. Where the answer instructs work beyond the original scope, that is a variation or change order and should be priced and signed as one. Treating a scope change as a mere clarification is how contractors end up building extras for nothing.
Jobcardo Pro
Keeping what you raise
The worksheets are free forever. Pro turns them into the record: every order you raise kept against the customer with its status from raised to done to invoiced, every change dated, your company name and logo on the sheet, no watermark, and an export when the bookkeeper asks.
- Download as PDF
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- Save every work order and sales order and reopen it later
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- Export every order and worksheet in one go
- Job-done and balance-due reminders emailed to your customers
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
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