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How to Work with Variation Orders (VO) in Next Project

This article describes how to work with Variation Orders (VO) in Next Project.

Variation Orders (VO) - General

Consider the following when handling Variation Orders in Next Project for effective project monitoring:

For ongoing work: Create Variation Orders directly in the project under the Variation Order tab. When invoicing, you can either invoice Variation Orders separately or create a cumulative invoice that includes all costs and markups, regardless of Variation Orders or work orders.

For fixed-price jobs: Create a separate VO project. Have a dedicated project for the fixed part of the main agreement. The reason for this is to differentiate Variation Orders from the fixed part in your monitoring.

In the Variation Order (VO) module in Next Project (as mentioned above), all Variation Orders are listed, allowing you to view each individual VO's VO amount, type of VO, recorded costs/revenues, bid amounts, and more.

In the lower part of the window, details for each VO are displayed, with the following tabs:

  • VO General: General information about VO, including name, description, internal notes.

  • Order Lines: Order lines associated with VO, such as materials, machinery, etc.

  • Photos/Documents: Images and documents registered with VO, which can be attached as appendices.

  • Booked Costs: All costs associated with VO, including hours, materials, and supplier invoices.

  • Booked Revenue: All customer invoices linked to VO.

  • Booked Hours: Logged hours on VO, which can be invoiced continuously or included in a fixed price.

Variation Order Buttons and Reports:

On the Variation Order tab, the following buttons are displayed:

Create New Variation Order (VO)

Save Variation Order / Save Changes in Variation Order

Delete Variation Order (Delete all content in Variation Order first)

Create a separate Variation Order invoice for the selected Variation Orders in the Variation Order list.

Print Variation Order, Variation Order Specification, Variation Order Journal. It can be saved as a PDF and emailed, for example.

Notify the customer that a Variation Order has occurred; the customer receives an email with the information.

Create Variation Order

In the Variation Order module, you can create a new Variation Order using the "+" button and then enter relevant details. Note that the customer reference number will appear on the customer's invoice. The markup template may differ from the project's master contract, and the cost regulation specifies how the Variation Order should be regulated, against the client, subcontractor, or internal.

Once the Variation Order is created, it's possible to report back on it from a mobile device.

To Create a Variation Order (VO), Follow These Steps:

  1. On your computer, log in to Next Project, select the project, and click on the Variation Order tab.

    Here, you'll see a list of your Variation Orders with their respective statuses and financial information. Refer to the image above for an example.

  2. To create a new Variation Order, click on:

  3. Fill in the details about the Variation Order (description, customer, type of Variation Order, compensation form, etc.).

  4. Click on Add. The Variation Order is now created, and you can start adding materials to it. For the Variation Order to appear on the mobile device, the status must be set to at least Ordered.


Reporting a Variation Order (VO) in Mobile:

To report changes and additional work (Variation Orders or VO) using the mobile app, follow the steps below. When you reach the screen where you report your time, click on + VO in the upper right part of the window. This will open a page displaying any existing Variation Orders.

  1. Click on + to create a new Variation Order.

  2. Fill in the description for the Variation Order, specify the customer, choose the compensation form, and set the status. In the description, provide details about the origin and the action to be taken.

  4. Click Save. Now, you can take one or more pictures with your mobile device. Press the Image button to do this. You can also have the Variation Order signed using the button in the upper right corner of the screen.

  5. Once the Variation Order is signed, you can send it to the customer via email using the button with an envelope symbol. When you're done, click Save. The Variation Order will now appear when you press Work Order/Variation Order when reporting time (provided that the status allows the Variation Order to be displayed on the phone).

Fixed Price Variation Order (VO) and Link to Forecast

Create the Variation Order as described above. Then, add an order line for the fixed price, either as free text or by selecting an existing fixed-price item from the price list.

Note the following:

  • Specify the correct cost account for accurate matching in the Forecast.

  • Enter either the total fixed price to the customer in the a-price column or your cost in a-price and Markup% thereafter. The bid amount is the amount the customer will pay and what will be included in the Forecast's revenue side.

  • Ensure that "Calculation amount" is filled in, and enter the cost/unit under the Budget cost forecast section to include the cost of the Variation Order in the Forecast's cost side.

In the case of reporting back on the Variation Order, it will be presented in the sub-tabs Order Lines and Booked hours.

Variation Order invoices are created from the Variation Order module, refer to a separate article for details.

Explanation of Fields in the Variation Order (VO) Module

  • Project Number

    • Project number to which the Variation Order is linked, visible only if you have "Show Subsidiary Data" selected.

  • VO Number

    • VO number, entered, for example, during a purchase to link an expense to the Variation Order.

  • Description

    • Name of the Variation Order.

  • Mission Description

    • Description of the work to be performed in the Variation Order.

  • Customer

    • Customer linked to the Variation Order; it doesn't need to be the same as the project's customer.

  • Customer Contact

    • Contact person at the customer's end

  • Compensation Form

    • Form of compensation for the Variation Order.

  • VO Amount

    • Sum of calculated order lines with calculated unit prices, excluding surcharges.

  • Surcharges

    • Sum of surcharges on order lines. Individual surcharges on order lines are also displayed.

  • Bid Amount

    • Sum of calculated order lines with calculated unit prices + Surcharge.

  • Surcharge Template

    • General surcharge template for the entire Variation Order, overrides individual surcharges on order lines and costs. Affects all order lines, supplier invoices, and imported vouchers. If you have or need individual surcharges on order lines, they won't appear here but on the specific order line instead.

  • Hide Surcharge

    • Hides surcharges in reports and invoices.

  • Contract Type

    • Type of Variation Order; choices can be modified under Administration in Next Project by an authorised person.

  • Booked Cost

    • Sum of booked costs in the Variation Order, including performed quantities on order lines, associated costs, supplier invoices, and hours.

  • Booked Revenue

    • Sum of booked revenues linked to the Variation Order. The revenue must be linked to the Variation Order.

  • Booked Hours

    • Compilation of reported hours on the Variation Order.

  • Accumulated Revenue

    • Sum of all chargeable items (order lines, hours, and supplier invoices) with unit prices including surcharges in the Variation Order.

  • Not Yet Invoiced

    • Accumulated chargeable costs including surcharges that have not yet been invoiced. If the sum is 0, everything has been invoiced.

  • Variation Order Status

    • Status of the Variation Order.

  • Order Date

    • Order date.

  • Order Amount/Budget Revenue:

    • If the Variation Order is on a fixed price: The sum of budgeted/calculated revenues (calculated order lines on the Order Lines tab, including surcharges). Performed quantities won't be included; only calculated order lines are considered for the budget. Á-pris (unit price) on the order line is required.

    • If the Variation Order is on a time and material basis: Includes order lines with performed quantities, unit prices + hours + supplier invoices. Provided it is set as chargeable.

  • Budget Cost Forecast

    • Sum of budgeted/calculated costs (calculated order lines with costs on the Order Lines tab). Performed quantities won't be included; only calculated order lines are considered for the budget.

  • Approved by Customer

    • If using Next Portal, customers can approve the Variation Order via the Portal. If approved, the checkbox is marked.

  • Customer Comment

    • If using Next Portal, customers can provide comments when approving the Variation Order. The customer's comment is displayed here.

  • Invoiced

    • If all chargeable items are invoiced in the Variation Order, this box is checked.

  • Invoice Date

    • Date of the last invoice.

Order Lines Tab in the Variation Order Module

In the Order Lines tab of the Variation Order module, order lines are entered as both calculation lines and reported material/machinery from the field.

When working on a Variation Order bid, you can use order lines to perform the calculation by specifying the Calculated Quantity and unit price/cost in order lines.

  • Code

    • Article code (from the price list or manually entered).

  • Description

    • Article description (from the price list or manually entered).

  • Account Number

    • Article's account number, affecting budget, forecast, and invoicing.

  • Unit

    • Unit.

  • Quantity

    • Number of units for the article.

  • Á-pris (Unit Price)

    • Price to the customer per unit.

  • Price List Á-pris

    • Indicates which price list the article comes from (if the article is retrieved from the price list).

  • Number

    • Factor for calculation and performed quantity. Number * Quantity; for example, if I have 10 in quantity and set 2 in number, it becomes 20 in quantity.

  • Performed Date

    • Date when the order line was reported from the field or added manually.

  • Variation Order Amount

    • Quantity * Number * Unit Price.

  • Surcharge %

    • Surcharge on the order line in percentage.

  • Surcharge

    • Surcharge, calculated automatically based on the surcharge percentage.

  • Bid Amount

    • Bid amount on the Variation Order (Variation Order amount + Surcharge), applicable only to order lines marked as Chargeable .

  • Calculation Quantity

    • Used for budget/forecast. Calculated quantity of the order line, can be entered manually or calculated automatically via Quantity * Number.

  • Cost/Unit

    • Cost per unit on the order line.

  • Budget Cost Forecast

    • Amount transferred to the budget/forecast, linked to the account specified on the order line.

  • Chargeable

    • Should the order line be included in the invoice and also generate an accrued revenue + become a budgeted revenue? If yes, check this box.

  • Comment

    • Comment on the order line (for example, for invoicing).

News – latest updates from release notes

Summary of changes and improvements retrieved from Next Project's release notes.

2026

May 2026

  • Revenue recognition in customer invoice: A single invoice line can now be split into multiple revenue lines with individual dimensions (project, AO/ÄTA, account). This simplifies the workflow for customers who need to categorize invoiced amounts in different ways in their accounting system, for example when applying for ROT deduction

April 2026

  • A filtering menu has been added to the ÄTA view. The filter contains the options:- Show active- Show closed- Show allThe function makes it possible to display only active, only completed, or all ÄTAs.
  • Nuvo import - we have updated the import interface so that only available file formats are displayed. The update of Nuvo also brings new functionality in the step where rows are reviewed. You can now use enhanced table interactions – including sorting, filtering, hiding and freezing columns – via the new column menu (three dots in the column header)

March 2026

  • The customer reference is now retrieved from the project, according to the project settings, when work orders and ÄTA are created on mobile

February 2026

  • Users with forecast rights can now edit the field "Revenue account, ÄTA" in the forecast module even if they lack write permissions to the project. This facilitates forecast work without having to expand project permissions
  • Now favorite items can also be used in the client. As before, items can be marked as favorites linked to a specific project or customer. The selected favorite items are automatically displayed when items are added, for example from an AO or ÄTA. This makes it faster to find the right items. It is also possible to choose which price list items should be displayed from when you add an item to an AO or ÄTA. In addition to filtering on item categories, you can now select a specific price list – or display only items that are marked as favorites for the current customer or project

January 2026

  • A new checkbox, "Recommended", has been added to the supplier registry and makes it easy to mark and filter for preferred suppliers
  • Frame agreements are now possible to specify on ÄTA
  • Now favorite items can also be used in the client. As before, items can be marked as favorites linked to a specific project or customer. The selected favorite items are automatically displayed when items are added, for example from an AO or ÄTA. This makes it faster to find the right items. It is also possible to choose which price list items should be displayed from when you add an item to an AO or ÄTA. In addition to filtering on item categories, you can now select a specific price list – or display only items that are marked as favorites for the current customer or project. - Postponed to next release, February 9, 2026
  • When changing or adding a customer contact on a customer invoice, you can now choose whether the customer's reference number should be updated with values from the new contact or kept unchanged, in accordance with the behavior that already exists in ÄTA and Work orders
Earlier updates

2025

December 2025

  • Checkbox "Invoiced" and column for customer invoice number have been added to Order lines in ÄTA so you can see which lines have been invoiced and on which invoice
  • When the customer contact is changed on a work order or an ÄTA, it is now possible to choose whether the customer's reference number should be updated with values from the new customer contact – or kept as they are
  • It is now possible to adjust AO/ÄTA (within the same project) on already created journal sheets in Journal 2.0

November 2025

  • Under status settings for work orders and ÄTA in the client's administration interface, you can now choose which statuses should not be selectable when a user manages work orders or ÄTA via mobile

October 2025

  • A new permission setting has been introduced to control editing rights: Revenue recognition (as before) - Full access – the user can change all dimensions. Revenue recognition dim Proj/AO/ÄTA - Makes it possible for users to only edit the project dimension and AO/ÄTA in the revenue recognition view at line level
  • There are now four reference fields available on projects, work orders and ÄTA:
  • Fixed an issue where ÄTA in some cases was not updated correctly in the reconciliation in Forecast

September 2025

  • Column for Staffing has been added to work orders and ÄTA. This enables assignment of an AO and/or ÄTA to multiple people who then see the assignment in the new mobile solution under "Assigned to me". Previously, assignment was only handled via Work Manager, Service Person and Pool (which is based on user groups) and via Planning. The Staffing dialog in the client shows all users who are planned (Planning-Resource Planning and Planning-Work Order) on the work order and those added in the Staffing column on the work order. In the new mobile solution, Service Person and Work Manager are displayed as before in the details for AO and ÄTA and information about Staffing has been added there showing all staffed people in a row that you can click on to see details for planned times for each user
  • When a project is changed on a time entry, the information in the AO/ÄTA column is now cleared immediately. Previously, it could take a while before it was removed, which could create follow-up problems

August 2025

  • When sending email from Procurement, the list of suppliers can be long. Now we have made it possible to filter in that view so that you can, for example, filter for all suppliers with a certain quote status
  • Adjusted the English version of the ÄTA specification and journal report where spaces were missing between certain headings which made the report difficult to read
  • A bug has been fixed in the xlsx export from Forecast where True/False values in some cases were displayed incorrectly in the exported files for the Warning and Include ÄTA columns
  • In the document tabs in Procurement, it was not possible to filter on "missing" in the Document Type column, this now works fine
  • The project overview cannot be exported to Excel if it is filtered or sorted on an extra field, which is now explained in an information message
  • Fixed an error where items from a checklist in a work order in a certain state could be displayed incorrectly in the checklist in ÄTA

June 2025

  • It is now possible to write internal comment/note when editing work orders and ÄTA
  • Adjusted the report in Forecast so that "Include ÄTA" is now outside the heading "Current budget"
  • It is now possible to set financial status on work orders and/or ÄTAs. To be able to see and manage financial status, you need to give the administrative right "financial status" to the relevant groups in Administration - Users/Permissions - Groups/Rights. You create the statuses in Administration - Settings - Statuses - Financial status and choose there whether they should be selectable in work orders and/or ÄTA. Financial status is intended to be used as a possible marking and should be seen as a help to be able to distinguish between status for work and for finances. Financial status is in the xls export and will be added to the xlsx export later. For now, the status is not included in any report

May 2025

  • New columns "Booked cost (excl ÄTA)" and "Booked revenue (excl ÄTA)", including their period variants, have been added to the project overview. These show booked values excluding ÄTA. Corresponding row "Booked, excl ÄTA" (columns for cost and revenue) has also been added on the project card under Key figures and invoicing
  • Now it is possible to create customer and customer contact from work order and ÄTA
  • Now the customer is updated when you change project in Create AO and in Create ÄTA dialog
  • Fixed some filters that did not work in Procurement

April 2025

  • Solved so that order lines copied in Journal 2.0 get the same ao/ÄTA number as the line you copied
  • The filtering of extra fields in the project overview became incorrect if the result was more than what was displayed in the view, then the filter was lost on the remaining rows. Now works as it should again
  • Surcharges on hours are now included in the summation in ÄTA specification and ÄTA journal

March 2025

  • Problem with changing AO/ÄTA for revenues created when locking customer invoice has been resolved
  • Responsible service person and work pool can now be specified on ÄTA. Set in the client or in the new mobile solution
  • Quick access to available reports added via the "+More" button when viewing a work order or ÄTA
  • New button, calendar icon showing today's date, to jump to today's date added in Work order/ÄTA view. It is visible when sorting by production start
  • Improved search for work orders and ÄTA where you can now search for, for example, project name and project number to find the right work order or ÄTA

February 2025

  • For a journal entry, you can now "Fetch notes" from Work Order, ÄTA, Deviation and Booked hours for a date other than when the journal entry was created. When you press "Fetch notes", the dialog opens as before but with an addition, a date picker. Select project and date and notes will be listed, if any, for the selected date and project

2024

December 2024

  • It is now possible to filter columns with account numbers with the selection "not in" and then select one or more accounts to filter out
  • The new checklist, which was initially only available in Journal 2.0, is now available in Work Order, ÄTA and Procurement. Items in the checklists can be formatted with bold, italic and underline in the client. Updated work order reports and ÄTA specification to handle new checklist format. Some adjustments have been necessary to handle data from the new checklist in the mobile version of Next pending the new mobile that comes during 2025. For example, only one field for Comment is in the mobile while in the client there are now two columns, Report Back and Comment. See below mapping to solve this in the current version
  • Procurement - Added new column, "Purchase Order No". The field is read-only and is set to a unique value when a quote from procurement reaches a final status. There are new fields in the procurement module, information fields have been added in a new sub-tab, Procurement – Overview, and also the ability to add checklists in procurement in the same way as in work orders, ÄTA and Journal 2.0
  • Reports – Mobile users receive a more informative message in the event that sending a report via email fails. Added the option to filter on non-billable order lines in the Day Report in Work Orders

October 2024

  • In the ÄTA specification, it is now optional whether you want to display receipt number or supplier invoice number
  • It is now possible to filter Activity and Status with the selection "not equal to"

September 2024

  • Two new options are in the ÄTA journal, Show budgeted cost (incl surcharge) [Running account] and Show Quote price [Running account]

August 2024

  • The ÄTA journal has more options, Show quote amount, Show order total, Show invoiced amount
  • The ÄTA specification can now exclude non-billable costs, hours and order lines

June 2024

  • A new checkbox has been added to invoices to hide phone number in the field Our Reference. This can be done when creating an invoice from invoice, work order, ÄTA and journal, or on the invoice line itself. Phone number will be hidden, if selected, when printing or emailing the invoice
  • It is now again possible to choose not to include ÄTA on specific accounts in the forecast
  • It is now possible to determine which account revenues from ÄTA should belong to in the forecast module. The choice can be made for each project. The default value for new projects is the value defined in the setting "PrognosisRevenueAccount" first and if it is missing, the value from the setting "InternalRevenueAccount" is taken

April 2024

  • It is now possible to filter on more than one project manager in the project manager column in E-invoice

February 2024

  • Summation of more columns on order lines in ÄTA has been added, for example in the columns Quantity and Estimate quantity
  • To make room for longer status names and have them wrap, some adjustments have been made in the ÄTA specification

The list can be filtered using the filter menu: select Show active, Show closed, or Show all to quickly narrow the view depending on whether you are working with ongoing or completed ÄTA.