A client approval workflow you can rely on later
Verbal agreements do not survive a disputed invoice. Every MarginFence proposal is a snapshot: what was agreed, for how much, by whom and when.
The problem with 'the client said it was fine'
A lot of scope disputes come down to two different memories of the same phone call. One side remembers a quick yes; the other remembers a vague acknowledgment. Neither memory is reliable evidence months later when an invoice is questioned. A written, timestamped approval removes that ambiguity, but only if creating one is fast enough that your team actually does it.
How the approval link works
When you charge for a logged request, MarginFence generates a change proposal and a secure, expiring link to it. You send that link to the client through whatever channel you already use, email or your project management tool. The client opens it, reviews the description, fee and timeline impact, and clicks approve or decline. That single action is recorded immediately with a timestamp.
What gets recorded, and why it holds up
The record includes the proposal content at the time it was sent, the decision made, and when it was made. Because the proposal is generated from the logged request rather than typed freely each time, the numbers in the approval match the numbers in your project's revised margin automatically, so there is no risk of the client-facing figure drifting from your internal figure.
Handling declines and non-responses
Not every proposal gets approved. A decline is recorded just as clearly as an approval, which is useful: it shows the client was asked and said no, rather than the work simply never being brought up. If a proposal expires without a response, that is visible too, and you can choose to follow up, re-send, or treat the request as declined by default for your own records.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does the client see on the approval page?
Only the description of the extra work, the fee, and any timeline impact. They do not see your internal cost rate, billable rate, target margin, or anything about your other clients or projects.
Can more than one person at the client approve?
The approval link itself does not manage multiple named approvers or signatures. It is a single decision point: approve or decline. If your client needs internal sign-off first, that happens on their side before they respond to the link.
What happens if the client ignores the link entirely?
Nothing is charged or assumed. The proposal sits as pending until it is approved, declined, or the link expires. MarginFence does not treat silence as consent.
Is the approval record available if we need it later, like for a dispute?
Yes, it stays attached to the project indefinitely, showing what was proposed, what was decided and when. It is documentation you control, not a formal legal instrument.
How MarginFence works
Set the financial baseline for a project, log each extra request, see what it costs and what it should be quoted at, then choose Comp, Decline, Trade, Charge Recommended or Charge Custom. Charged work becomes a plain-language proposal your client approves from a secure link.
Related
- Change ordersTurn extra requests into short, signed-off change proposals with a fee and timeline impact.
- Unpaid revisionsCount included revisions, price the extras, and record goodwill as a deliberate choice.
- Scope managementRecord deliverables and included revisions, then measure new requests against them.
Protect the margin on every client project
Create your workspace and log the next out-of-scope request in under a minute.