Using such a form will create a process for approving and 'coding' the invoice relating to the extra costs.

The last thing you need is for accounts payable staff, estimators and supervisors to be wandering around the office chasing people for reasons why there was an extra cost on the project.

Depending on the management structure in the business, extra costs usually need to be also approved by a higher level of management so that the amount of extra costs is monitored not only by ETS reports but by seeing the actual invoice. This form allows management to approve of the extra cost and introduces a level of corporate governance into the business so that fraud and misuse of company resources is limited or eliminated.

The use of this form and the process is useless if a mandatory reporting system is not also part of the reporting structure within the business. The owner and senior management must use this ETS system to monitor the extra costs. If no reporting is used then the owner and senior management will have no idea why and where profits are being eroded.