The inspector walks up at 3:30 with a clipboard and asks your foreman what the crew did on the extra work today. The foreman says "electrical, eight hours." That is what gets written down.
On public work, force account work documentation for an electrical contractor is not paperwork that supports a bill. It is the bill.
There is no second chance to explain the day at closeout. The charge was fair; the explanation was missing, and the window to supply it closed when the crew drove off.
Below is your side of that record: what has to be on it, who writes it and who signs it, what belongs in the description box, and what to do when nobody shows up to sign.
What force account work actually is
Force account work is extra work outside your contract scope, paid at documented actual cost — labor, equipment, material, and whatever markups your spec allows — instead of at a bid unit price.
The name changes depending on who is paying. The document does not.
| Where you hear it | What they call it | The daily record |
|---|
| State DOT / public works | Force account | Agency form, usually written by the inspector, signed daily by both sides |
| Federal contract | Changes clause work | Your own daily record, plus written notice |
| GC on private commercial | T&M ticket, extra work order | A tag signed by the super |
| Building owner direct | Cost-plus, "work it on a tag" | Whatever you can get initialed |
Public jobs give you a form and a rule. Private jobs give you neither, which is why the same crew that documents a DOT day perfectly bills a GC on a sticky note.
Both get paid the same way: a same-day record, specific enough that someone who was not on site can picture the work, signed by the other side.
The two rules that decide whether you get paid
Two sentences do most of the work in Michigan DOT's force account rules. Both are stated as bare rules and never explained.
Rule one: if it is not on the daily record, it is not payable. MDOT's construction manual puts it plainly — "Any item not shown on form 1101A will not be eligible for payment." Rule two: if you do not sign, the owner's record governs. MDOT again: "In the event the contractor declines to sign form 1101A, the department records will govern."MDOT states both directly. Do not assume your agency words it the same way — go read your own spec's force account article and find the two equivalent sentences: the one that says what happens to items not shown on the daily record, and the one that says whose record governs when the contractor does not sign. For Oregon that language lives in Construction Manual Chapter 12G; for TxDOT, in Item 9.7 and the instructions behind Form 316. If you cannot find both sentences in your contract, ask the engineer in writing which provisions apply before the extra work starts.
Read those two rules together and the daily record stops being paperwork. It is a settlement, agreed at the end of each shift, and the owner's version is the default that applies whenever yours is missing, late, or vague.
That is the whole game. Everything below is how to win it before 3:30, not after.
The forms, by agency
Your spec names your form. These are the common ones, listed so you know what to search for in your own contract:
| Agency | Daily force account form | Where the rule lives |
|---|
| TxDOT | Form 316, Daily Report of Force Account Work | Item 9.7, payment for extra work |
| MDOT (Michigan) | Form 1101A daily (Force Account Daily Field Record Sheet), rolled up weekly by the contractor on Form 1101-SP109 (Form 1101 on projects let before Oct 7, 2016) | Construction manual, force account |
| MoDOT | Daily force account record — labor account, and equipment and materials account | EPG 109.5; daily records summarized on the Force Account Worksheet (which replaced Forms C-FA1/C-FA2/C-FA3) — record-retention guidance in EPG 137 |
| ODOT (Oregon) | Daily Force Account Record (DFAR), form 734-3428 | Construction Manual Ch. 12G, extra work performed on a force account basis |
Find your form before the extra work starts, not after.
And know who holds the pen, because on most agency forms it is not you. MDOT's 1101A is completed by the engineer. Oregon's DFAR is prepared by the inspector, and the contractor is expressly not permitted to fill it in. TxDOT's Form 316 is a department record that you sign.
That does not make the description box someone else's problem. Whatever your foreman tells the inspector at 3:30 is what gets written, and whatever gets written is what governs. Give the inspector the sentence, read it before you sign it, and keep your own copy of the same sentence.
What goes on the daily record
Five blocks, on every agency form, in roughly this order:
- Header — contract number, date, the directive or change order number authorizing the work, weather.
- Labor — each worker by name and classification, with actual start and stop times, straight time and overtime split out.
- Equipment — each unit by number, hours operated, hours on standby, listed separately.
- Material — quantities installed, with invoices where they exist and a stock-price basis where they do not.
- Description of work performed — free text, no prompts, usually the smallest box on the page.
Block five is the one that gets a claim rejected, and it is the block that comes out of your foreman's mouth whether he holds the pen or not.
The description line, rejected versus paid
A description has to let a reviewer who was not there decide that the work happened, that it was outside your base scope, and that the hours are proportionate to it.
"Electrical work, 8 hrs" fails all three. It is an assertion, and the reviewer's only options are to take your word for it or cut it.
| Rejected | Paid |
|---|
| Electrical work, 8 hrs | Thu 7:02a–3:48p — pulled and terminated circuits 12–18, second-floor east wing, per FCO 14 |
| Rough-in, extra | 220 ft 3/4" EMT and fittings for relocated panel EP-2, column line D to G, per RFI 44 response |
| Crew standing by | 2 JW idle 9:15a–11:40a awaiting engineer direction on conflict at beam pocket, col. D-4; reported to inspector 9:20a |
| Demo | Removed abandoned 3/4" conduit and #10 conductors, 6 devices, corridor 2E ceiling, not shown on E-201 |
The pattern in the right-hand column is the same every time: times, quantities, locations by drawing reference, and the document that authorized it.
On an agency job you are usually saying that sentence out loud rather than writing it. Say it in that shape anyway, then read the box before you sign — if what the inspector wrote is shorter than what you said, ask him to add the missing quantities and locations while you are both still standing there.
Write it in trade language. "Circuits 12–18, second-floor east wing" is checkable against a panel schedule. "Detailed electrical scope" is not.
If your crew is already writing a daily field report, the force account description is the same sentence, copied over. The work does not double.
An electrical force account day, filled in
Here is a complete daily record for a directed extra: relocating a panel and its branch circuits after a structural conflict.
Header — Contract 04-2291, Fri 2026-08-14, weather clear 84°F, work directed under FCO 14 dated 2026-08-12. Labor| Name | Classification | In | Out | Lunch | ST hrs | OT hrs |
|---|
| R. Alvarez | Journeyman | 7:02a | 3:48p | 0.50 | 8.25 | 0.00 |
| D. Whitfield | Journeyman | 7:02a | 3:48p | 0.50 | 8.25 | 0.00 |
| K. Osei | Apprentice, 3rd period | 7:02a | 3:48p | 0.50 | 8.25 | 0.00 |
| Line | Inputs | Extension |
|---|
| Journeyman | 2 workers × 8.25 hrs = 16.5 hrs, at $42.00 base + $18.50 fringe = $60.50/hr | $998.25 |
| Apprentice, 3rd period | 1 worker × 8.25 hrs, at $25.20 base + $12.00 fringe = $37.20/hr | $306.90 |
| Labor subtotal | 24.75 man-hours | $1,305.15 |
| Boom lift, operated | 6.0 hrs at the rate-book figure your spec names — example $28.40/hr | $170.40 |
| Boom lift, standby | 2.25 hrs at the standby rate your spec names — example half of operated, $14.20/hr | $31.95 |
| EMT, 3/4", stock | 220 ft at example $1.18/ft, priced per your spec's stock-material rule | $259.60 |
Every rate above is an example so the arithmetic is visible. Payroll burden and markup come off your contract's force account article, which sets them by percentage and does not negotiate at the daily-record level. Read that article before the first day of extra work.
Getting it signed before the crew leaves
The signature is worth more than anything else on the page, and it is the part every agency manual skips.
When the numbers match: sign, hand over their copy, keep yours. Photograph the signed sheet before it leaves the site; the timestamp fixes the date the record existed, which is the fact in dispute later. When the numbers differ: do not leave it blank and do not refuse outright. Refusing is the exact condition that hands the record to the owner under rule two.Write the exception on the face of the form, above your signature, then sign:
Contractor does not agree with hours and quantities as recorded. Contractor's record attached and submitted [date, time]. Signature acknowledges receipt only.
That preserves the disagreement in writing on the same day, which is the only time it is cheap to preserve.
When nobody is there to sign: send your own record the same day and make the transmittal do the work of the signature.Subject: FA daily record — Contract 04-2291 — 2026-08-14 — FCO 14>
Attached is our daily force account record for 2026-08-14 covering work directed under FCO 14. No representative was available to sign at end of shift. Please sign and return, or send written correction, by end of day tomorrow. Absent correction we will submit this record with our force account summary.
An unsigned record sent the same day with a request for correction is still a contemporaneous record. One produced weeks later is not, and that difference is the one the reviewer looks at. Same principle as getting a T&M tag signed on private work — you are converting a memory into a document while the other party still remembers the day.
And a signature is not an admission that the owner owes you the money. It confirms the hours, equipment, and quantities that occurred. Entitlement — whether the work was extra at all — is argued separately and is not settled by the inspector's initials.
Four traps on an electrical force account sheet
Generic agency forms were written around dirt work. Four things bite electrical subs specifically.
Classification has to match certified payroll. The daily record says "journeyman"; your certified payroll says the same worker at the same hour under the same classification, or both get questioned.On federally funded work, certified payrolls are generally submitted weekly under the Davis-Bacon regulations at 29 CFR 5.5. A daily force account record that disagrees with the payroll you already certified is the fastest way to lose an otherwise good claim. Apprentice ratio matters too — if the ratio on that day exceeded what your program allows, expect the excess billed at a lower rate.
Small tools are usually a percentage, not an hourly rate. Benders, threaders, hand tools and cords typically get recovered as a percentage of labor under the spec rather than logged as equipment. Log lifts, tuggers, and generators by unit number and hours; check the spec before logging anything smaller. Stock material off the truck has no invoice. Most electrical material on a force account day comes off a spool you already own, and "material invoices attached" assumes a purchase that never happened.Record quantity installed the day it goes in, and price it by whatever basis your spec allows — last purchase invoice for that item, a supply house quote, or a published price list. Do not wait until closeout to reconstruct footage.
Standby and idle crew is the most contested line you will write. Waiting on a decision is real cost, and it reads as padding unless the record says who was idle, between what times, waiting on what, and who you told.Report it to the inspector while it is happening, and put the time of that notification in the description. Standby time billing turns on contemporaneous notice more than on the hours themselves.
Keep force account hours out of your base contract hours
Force account hours have to be separable in your own books before payroll runs, not reconstructed from memory afterward.
The practical version: set the extra work up as its own job or cost bucket the day the directive is issued, so the crew picks it at clock-in and the hours never mix.
That can be a separate job number in your accounting file, a second column on the paper timesheet, or a time app where the extra work is its own job and the clock-out note carries the description. FieldTimesheet is one option there — it captures the hours and the crew's note and prints a signature-lined record, but it does not track equipment hours, material, classifications, or markup, so the agency form still carries those four blocks.
Whatever you use, the test is the same: on Friday, can you produce the force account hours separately, with descriptions attached, without asking anyone what they did on Tuesday?
If the answer is no, the reconstruction happens at closeout, months later, after the foreman who did the work has moved to another job.
Deadlines and retention
Two clocks run against you, and both are in your contract rather than on the form.
Notice. Most specs require written notice of extra work before or as it starts. On federal construction contracts, the changes clause at FAR 52.243-4 generally requires written notice within 20 days of a change that was not issued as a written order. Blowing the notice window can bar the claim no matter how good the daily records are. Submission. Daily records are due within the number of days your force account article names, with a weekly or monthly summary behind them. Past that window the engineer is not obligated to accept them. Find the number before the work starts, because it is usually short. Retention. Force account disputes surface at closeout and in audits long after. Federal-aid records generally run three years past the final expenditure report under 2 CFR 200.334, and that obligation reaches you through the retention clause in your contract — check it, because many specs require three years after final payment, which is later.Scan the signed daily records the week they are signed, filed by contract and date. The originals live in a truck, and trucks are not archives.
The same record, on private work
None of this stops being true when the payer is a GC instead of a state.
Private jobs have no Form 316 and no spec article telling either side what counts, which means the standard is whatever you set. A verbal change order with no daily record behind it is the private-side version of an unsigned 1101A, and it loses the same way.
Run the public-work discipline on private jobs: same-day record, specific description, signature or time-stamped transmittal, and a directive reference. If the change came out of an RFI, tie the labor impact to the RFI number on the record itself.
The T&M Billing Backup Kit covers the private-side set — work authorization, daily field report, change order log, and labor backup sheet. All four print, all are free, and none of them require an account.
To see what the finished package looks like when the same information is assembled for a customer rather than an inspector, there is an annotated sample billing packet.
Frequently asked questions
What is force account work in construction?Extra work outside the contract scope that gets paid at documented actual cost — labor, equipment, material, plus contract-specified markups — rather than at a bid unit price. The owner directs it, and the daily record substantiates it.
What is the difference between force account work and a T&M ticket?The payer and the paperwork, not the concept. Force account is the public-agency term with a mandated form, prescribed rates, and a spec article. A T&M ticket is the private-side equivalent with no standard form. Both require a same-day record of who worked, how long, on what, signed by the other party.
Who writes the daily force account report, and who signs it?On most agency jobs the owner's inspector or engineer writes it — MDOT's 1101A is completed by the engineer, Oregon's DFAR by the inspector — and your foreman signs it, ideally at end of shift. That means the content comes from what your foreman reports on site. Read the box before signing, and keep your own copy of the same information.
What if the inspector will not sign, or is not there at quitting time?Send your own record the same day by email requesting signature or written correction, and keep the transmittal. If the inspector disputes your numbers, note the exception on the form and sign anyway — refusing to sign is generally the condition under which the owner's record governs.
Does the inspector's signature mean the owner agreed to pay for the work?No. It confirms the hours, equipment, and quantities that occurred that day. Entitlement — whether the work was extra at all, and at what markup — is decided separately, which is why signing a record you agree with factually costs you nothing.
What do I put in the description of work performed box?Usually you are giving the inspector the sentence rather than writing it yourself, so have the sentence ready: times, quantities, location by drawing or column reference, and the directive number. "Pulled and terminated circuits 12–18, second-floor east wing, per FCO 14" is checkable. "Electrical work" is not. Then read what got written before you sign it.
Can I bill material I already had on the truck?Usually yes, but not on the strength of an invoice you do not have. Record the quantity installed on the day it goes in and price it by the basis your spec allows — last purchase invoice, supply house quote, or published price list. Check the stock-material language in your force account article before the work starts.
Can I submit a force account record late or reconstruct it after the fact?You can submit it, and it will be worth much less. Reconstructed records get discounted precisely because they were made after the dispute existed — and your spec sets a submission window measured in days, after which the engineer is not obligated to accept the record at all. Write the note the same afternoon.
Does any of this apply to private commercial jobs with no DOT spec?Yes, and it matters more there, because nothing external defines the standard. The GC has no obligation to hand you a form, so the record you produce is the only record. Same-day, specific, signed or time-stamped.
The one-sentence version
Force account pays actual documented cost, and the operative word is documented — a same-day record, described in trade specifics, signed before the crew leaves.
Everything else is arithmetic that an engineer can already check. The description is the one part that has to come from you, whether you hold the pen or hand the sentence to the inspector, and it is the part that decides the money.