What a written confirmation of a verbal instruction is

It is a short note — usually an email — recording a spoken direction and sent back to the person who gave it, the day it happened. It is not a claim, and it does not decide whether the direction was validly given under your contract: that turns on the clause wording. What it does is fix the facts while everyone still remembers them.

On an Australian subcontract the paperwork rules are set by your own contract, and the clause governing a change to your scope usually states what form a direction must take — written only, or verbal confirmed in writing inside a set time. That is the first thing to read: what to check in a variations clause.

What to put in the confirmation

  1. The date, time and place. Notice windows and valuation both run off dates, and “sometime last week” is not a date anyone can test.
  2. Who gave the direction, and their role. Your subcontract names who may direct a change, so record their name and role — it is the first thing anyone assessing the change looks for.
  3. What you were told, as close to their words as you can get. A quoted sentence is hard to argue with; a paraphrase invites a second version of events.
  4. What it changes against your priced scope — work added, or work taken off you. An omission is a change too: Queensland's Act defines a variation, for its statutory-trusts and subcontractors'-charges chapters, as an addition to, or an omission from, the contracted work (Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) ss 8, 104).
  5. What it consumed or will consume — crew, plant, materials, access, sequence, programme. That list is what a price gets built from, and it is accurate on the day and guesswork a month later.
  6. Who else was there. A second name turns your recollection into a corroborated one at no cost to you.
  7. How you are recording it from here — as dayworks, as a variation, or as a direction you are seeking written confirmation of before you proceed. Say which, because the record type decides what your crew captures each shift: dayworks vs variation.
  8. An invitation to correct it. One line — “if that doesn't match your recollection, let me know today” — gives the other side the chance to correct the record now instead of months later.

A model you can send before the crew starts

Hi [name], confirming the direction you gave me on site at [7.15am] on [date] at [location]. You asked us to [what was instructed]. That sits outside our priced scope at [drawing or item reference]. We have put [2 carpenters and 1 EWP] on it from [time] and expect [duration]. We are recording it as [dayworks / a variation] and will submit the records daily as the subcontract requires. If that doesn't match your recollection, please let me know today.

Keep it factual and keep it short. Nothing in it needs to argue entitlement, price the work or quote a clause — a confirmation that argues gets a reply arguing back.

Why the same-day note is what decides the money

Because the valuation machinery points straight back at your own contract, and your contract prices what you can show. In Queensland, construction work is valued in accordance with the contract where the contract provides for the matter, and only failing that having regard to the contract price, any other rates or prices stated in the contract, any variation agreed by the parties that adjusts a price by a specific amount, and the estimated cost of rectifying defective work (Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) s 72(1)). The rates in your subcontract do the work — against the hours, plant and materials you recorded.

The claim end runs the same way. In Queensland a payment claim is a written document that identifies the construction work, states the claimed amount and requests payment, and a document bearing the word “invoice” is taken to satisfy that last requirement (s 68(1), (3)). If the respondent proposes to pay you less, its payment schedule has to state why, including its reasons for withholding payment (s 69(c)), and it cannot put reasons into an adjudication response that were not in that schedule (s 82(4)). The reasons get fixed early, which is why the version of events you created on the day matters — more on getting a SOP claim right.

That is Queensland's Act. Every state and territory has its own, with its own wording and timeframes, so check the one covering your project rather than carrying a number across a border.

What your own subcontract still decides

  • Whether a verbal direction counts at all, and if it does, how long you have to confirm it before it stops counting.
  • Who is allowed to give one — superintendent, contract administrator, project manager, site foreman — and whose say-so the clause does not count.
  • What form the confirmation has to take: an email to a nominated address, a particular form, or an entry in the main contractor's own system.
  • Whether you must keep working while the price is unagreed, which decides how much of this you fund before anyone values it.

Read those four sentences in your own copy tonight and write the deadlines where your site team will see them. Then make the record match the claim you will eventually submit — what to include on a dayworks docket is the same discipline applied to the shift that follows the instruction.

The takeaway

You cannot control how you get told to do extra work. What you can control is what exists in writing an hour later, and whether it names a person, a time and a change. If you are working off a phone at the gate, generate a dayworks docket and let the record build as the shift goes.