An invoice for extra work goes out at the end of the month. Two weeks later the GC's project manager calls and says the hours don't line up with what he saw happen on site.
Nothing on your end was wrong. The crew worked those hours. The charge was fair — the explanation was missing.
Closing that gap is the entire job of a T&M tag electrical contractors actually get signed. The ones who write the tag the day the work happens don't get that call; the ones reconstructing hours at the billing desk get it every month.
The complaint is almost always the same shape: the customer can't square the hours on the invoice with the work he watched happen.
This post is the whole method — every field, a filled-out electrical example you can copy, what to write in the description box, the notice window, and what to do when nobody will sign. The blank forms are free at the end, no email required.
What a T&M Tag Is
A T&M tag is a one-page field record of the labor, material, and equipment spent on work outside your contract scope, written the day the work happens and signed by the customer or GC. You'll also hear it called a T&M ticket, extra work ticket, or field ticket.
It is not an invoice, and it is not a change order. It is the evidence a change order gets priced from, and the backup the invoice line points to.
The core contents are the same ones the trade has always used, paper or digital: who authorized the work, the labor and materials, photos or receipts where they exist, and a signature or written approval.
That list is the easy part. What almost nobody publishes is what to write in the fields — which is where tags actually die.
When to Open a Tag on an Electrical Job
Open a tag the moment you're asked to do something the contract doesn't cover — before the first hour is worked, if you can. On electrical work, that's usually one of these:
- Existing conditions that weren't on the demo drawings. Energized circuits in abandoned MC above a ceiling, a full panel with no spaces, aluminum branch wiring, no accessible feed path.
- GC-directed adds during rough-in. "While you're up there, add two receptacles and a data box in each office."
- Anything driven by an ASI, RFI response, or bulletin. Device counts change, fixture types change, homerun routing changes.
- Sequence and access impacts. Grid went up before your homeruns, so a one-pass pull is now two.
- Gear and material delays. Switchgear slipped, and temp power plus re-mobilization is on someone's dime — not automatically yours.
- Service calls and troubleshooting. Nobody can quote a fault they haven't found yet.
- Owner-directed changes after rough. "The cabinets came in taller — move the receptacles up four inches." Fourteen devices in a kitchen is a real day.
If you're not sure whether it's extra, write the tag anyway. An unnecessary tag costs ten minutes. A missing one costs the argument.
What Goes on a T&M Tag
Every field on a good tag exists because something went wrong without it. Here is the full set, and what each one is actually defending.
| Field | What it does | What happens without it |
|---|
| Tag number | Gives the invoice line something to point at | "Which day are we talking about?" — every review meeting starts over |
| Date and day of week | Anchors the work to a calendar the customer also has | Hours float; nobody can check them against anything |
| Job, address, floor/suite/area | Locates the work inside the building | The charge can't be tied to a space anyone walked |
| Contract, PO, or work authorization number | Ties the extra to the agreement it sits outside of | Reads as unauthorized work |
| Reason the work is extra | States entitlement in one sentence | Treated as part of base scope by default |
| Who authorized it, how, and when | Names a person and a time — verbal counts if you write it down | "I never told anyone to do that" |
| Worker names and classifications | Justifies the rate on each line | Foreman hours get challenged at journeyman rate |
| Time in, lunch, and time out per worker | Shows the day, not a lump | "8 hours" looks rounded, because it usually is |
| What was done, per worker | The only field that ends a dispute | The tag becomes a bill with no explanation |
| Materials: quantity, description, unit price, extension | Makes material reviewable line by line | The whole material total gets challenged over one item |
| Equipment, lift, and small-tool charges | Captures costs the contract allows but nobody remembers | Absorbed silently |
| Photos and attachments | Shows existing conditions before, and the work after | Conditions become a memory contest |
| Signature block, printed name, title, date | Converts the record into an accepted record | One party's word, filed in a truck |
The two most-skipped fields are "reason the work is extra" and "who authorized it." Those are the two a project manager reaches for first when he wants to reject a tag.
A Filled-Out Electrical T&M Tag
Below is a complete tag for a commercial fit-out. Example only — fictional job, fictional workers, sample rates. Use the rates from your own signed authorization.
Tag #EX-2026-014 · Thursday, July 16, 2026
| Job | Riverside Commons — Suite 210 tenant improvement, second floor east |
| Contract / authorization | Subcontract 24-118; T&M Work Authorization #3, signed 07/09/2026 |
| Reason work is extra | During ceiling demo, four energized circuits were found in abandoned MC cable above the Suite 210 grid. Not shown on demo drawing E-2 or the as-builts provided. Circuits feed exterior signage from the adjacent tenant's panel. |
| Authorized by | Site superintendent, verbal on site 6:45a; confirmed by email 7:10a (thread attached) |
| Weather / conditions | Clear, 94°F. Suite unoccupied, power to LP-2 available. |
Labor
| Worker | Class | In | Out | Lunch | Hrs | What was done | Bill rate | Amount |
|---|
| R. Alvarez | Foreman | 7:02a | 3:48p | 11:30a–12:16p | 8.0 | Traced four unidentified energized circuits above Suite 210 grid back to panel LP-2 in the adjacent tenant space; confirmed feed to exterior signage; walked findings with the building engineer and the super; marked routing for re-feed | $112.00 | $896.00 |
| D. Nguyen | Journeyman | 7:02a | 3:48p | 11:30a–12:16p | 8.0 | Isolated and locked out circuits 12, 14, 16, 18 at LP-2; removed 90 ft of abandoned MC above the east grid; pulled and terminated circuits 12–18 in new 3/4" EMT along the east corridor; labeled all four at the panel | $95.00 | $760.00 |
| M. Ruiz | Apprentice | 7:02a | 12:02p | none | 5.0 | Set and secured three 4-11/16 boxes at the east wall; assisted MC removal and material handling from the second-floor stage; hauled and staged EMT | $62.00 | $310.00 |
The tag shows in, lunch, and out for every worker instead of a daily lump, so the hours can be checked against the clock. Alvarez and Nguyen were on site 8.77 hours and bill 8.0 after a 46-minute unpaid lunch; Ruiz left at 12:02p and took none. That deduction is the first thing a careful reviewer looks for.
Material — priced from supply house invoice 88-41207, attached. Markup 15% per Work Authorization §4.
| Qty | Description | Unit | Extension |
|---|
| 90 ft | 3/4" EMT | $1.35 | $121.50 |
| 6 ea | 3/4" EMT set-screw connector | $1.10 | $6.60 |
| 750 ft | #12 THHN (3 colors, 250 ft ea) | $0.21 | $157.50 |
| 4 ea | 20A 1P breaker, QO120 | $14.20 | $56.80 |
| 3 ea | 4-11/16 box with cover | $6.40 | $19.20 |
| 1 lot | Circuit labels, straps, misc. | $8.00 | $8.00 |
Tag total (example arithmetic): $1,966.00 labor + $425.04 material = $2,391.04.
Attachments: four photos — abandoned MC above grid before removal (7:21a), LP-2 directory before relabel (9:04a), completed EMT run east corridor (2:52p), relabeled LP-2 (3:30p).
Signature block — two lines, on purpose:
A. Received and hours confirmed. Signature below confirms the workers and hours shown were on site and performed the work described. It is not agreement on entitlement, scope, or price.
>
B. Scope and price accepted. Signature below accepts the work described and the amount shown as extra work under the referenced authorization.
>
Printed name ______________ Title ______________ Signature ______________ Date __________
Why it's written that way: the reason line names the drawing that didn't show the condition. The authorization line names a person and two timestamps. Every labor line says where in the building. The material list can be checked against an attached supply house invoice. And the signer is given something he can sign without conceding price — which is the difference between a signature and a standoff.
The Work-Performed Box Is the Whole Tag
Write it so someone who was never in the building can picture the work and find it. Name the area, the equipment by its tag, the quantity, and the state you left it in.
That's the difference between a number and an answer. 8.77 hrs loses an argument. Thu 7:02a–3:48p — pulled and terminated circuits 12–18, second-floor east wing ends it.
| Loses the argument | Ends the argument |
|---|
| Rough-in | Roughed 14 devices and 2 data drops in offices 204–207; 3 homeruns to LP-2, 3/4" EMT, boxes set and secured |
| Trim-out | Trimmed and tested 22 receptacles and 6 switches in the east corridor and offices 204–207; installed 9 2x4 troffers on circuit 14 |
| Panel work | Added 4 20A 1P breakers to LP-2, re-fed circuits 12–18, updated and typed the panel directory |
| Troubleshooting | Traced intermittent trip on circuit 9; megged branch, found damaged conductor above the ceiling at grid line D-4; cut in a junction, re-spliced, verified 0.4A leakage clear |
| Extra work per Bob | Per super's 6:45a direction: isolated 4 energized circuits found in abandoned MC not shown on E-2, re-fed from LP-2 |
| Misc. labor / job cleanup | Removed 90 ft abandoned MC above east grid, capped and labeled 4 dead circuits at the adjacent tenant's panel, hauled debris to the second-floor dumpster |
The right-hand column follows a formula: what you did + where + how many. That's it.
Give your crew that formula, not a lecture on paperwork. The note protects them too — it's what stops a customer chiseling the company on work the crew actually performed.
And write it once. That same line belongs on the daily time record, not on a second piece of paper the office has to reconcile later.
The Notice Window Nobody Writes About
Subcontract changes clauses commonly require written notice of extra work within 24 to 72 hours. Some are shorter, and a few follow the 21-day AIA A201 baseline. A flawless tag delivered after your window can be denied on the window alone, no matter how good the documentation is.
The number is in your changes clause. Go read it before the next tag.
Three habits that keep you inside it:
- Tag written and presented the same day, before anyone leaves the site. Budget ten minutes of the foreman's day for it.
- Emailed by the next morning whether or not it got signed, so there is a timestamped transmittal.
- Logged, so you know on Friday which tags from the week are still out.
Sample transmittal — copy it as-is:
Subject: T&M Tag EX-2026-014 — Riverside Commons Suite 210, work performed Thu 7/16
>
Attached is the T&M tag for Thursday's work at Suite 210, covering the four energized circuits found in abandoned MC above the ceiling during demo, which were not shown on E-2. Directed on site at 6:45a and confirmed by your email at 7:10a.
>
Labor: 21.0 hours across foreman, journeyman, and apprentice. Material priced from supply house invoice 88-41207, attached. Photos attached.
>
Please sign and return, or reply with any correction, by close of business Monday 7/20. This tag is submitted as written notice under the subcontract.
Have your attorney review your standard notice language once. Then reuse it forever.
When Nobody Will Sign
An unsigned tag delivered on time and in writing still does most of the work. A signed tag delivered three weeks late often does not. Get the signature when you can — and when you can't, document the delivery.
The super already left. Note it on the tag:
"Presented at 3:50p; superintendent off site. Emailed 3:58p to [address] for signature." Send the transmittal the same evening.
He refuses to sign at all. Ask him to sign line A only — hours observed, not scope or price. A super who won't accept a charge will often still confirm three electricians were in the building; refusing that is refusing something he watched.
He signs "received — not approved." Take it. That stamp documents that the tag was delivered on that date, which is the notice question. Entitlement gets settled later, on the strength of the description.
The person on site can't bind the GC. Get the signature anyway, write the title next to the name, and copy the PM who does have authority the same day. A foreman's signature plus a same-day email to the PM is a much better record than nothing.
Residential or an unoccupied site. Photograph the condition, text the homeowner or property manager a plain-language summary the same day, and save the thread.
"Found the panel full — no spaces left for the two circuits you asked for. Adding a subpanel, about 4 hours plus material. Reply OK and we'll proceed." A returned "OK" is written approval.
What never works: silence. If a tag sits unsigned for a week and nobody hears from you, it reads as a charge you weren't confident about.
Writing a Tag Three Weeks After the Fact
Some extras only become visible at the billing desk, when someone notices a job absorbed 60 hours nobody planned. You can still write the tag. You just have to write it honestly.
Never backdate it. Label it plainly:
"Reconstructed from records on 08/03/2026 for work performed 07/16/2026."
Then build it from evidence you already have, not from memory:
- Supply house pull tickets and will-call receipts for the EMT, THHN, and breakers charged to that job, dated to the work
- The AHJ rough-in inspection date and the sticker on the panel — the inspector's own record fixes when those circuits existed, and it isn't yours to argue with
- Megger and test readings with their timestamps, from the meter's memory or the tech's notes
- Panel directory photos showing the pre-relabel and post-relabel state, with the file metadata behind them
- Daily time records showing who was on that job that day and for how long
- Text and email threads where the work was directed
Write only what the evidence supports. A reconstructed tag with three defensible lines beats one with ten guessed lines, because the customer only has to break one line to make the rest look invented.
Then say what it is in the cover note: "This tag was written from job records after the fact. Hours are from daily time records, material from invoice 88-41207. Happy to walk through the backup." Candor about the reconstruction is what makes the reconstruction credible.
Keep a Running Tag Log
One tag is a document. A column of tags is a position. Keep a single log — a spreadsheet is fine — and update it the same day a tag goes out.
| Tag # | Date of work | Description | Hours | Amount | Submitted | Signed by / status | Invoice # |
|---|
| EX-2026-014 | Thu 07/16 | Abandoned MC / re-feed circuits 12–18, Suite 210 | 21.0 | $2,391.04 | 07/16 | Received–not approved 07/17 | — |
| EX-2026-015 | Fri 07/17 | Added 2 receptacles + data, offices 204–207 per ASI-14 | 12.5 | $1,318.00 | 07/17 | Signed A+B 07/17 | 1142 |
Now the structural problem worth naming, because it kills more tags than bad handwriting.
A T&M tag only exists for work somebody already recognized as extra, in the moment. Payroll hours come from the timesheet. That's two records of the same day, written by different people at different times.
When they disagree — and they do — the discrepancy is the first thing a PM uses to reject a tag. "Your ticket says 21 hours, your certified payroll says 19."
The fix is not more forms. It's one daily record per worker that already carries who, when, where, and what got done, so the tag is a filtered view of the timesheet instead of a competing document. Some time-tracking apps, FieldTimesheet among them, prompt for that note at clock-out for the same reason; a foreman who writes the same line on the daily report every day gets there without buying anything.
Either way, the test is whether the hours on the tag and the hours on payroll come from the same entry. If they do, they can't disagree.
If you want to see what the customer-facing version of that record looks like when it's finished, there's an annotated sample billing packet — ungated, with the reasoning marked up on the page.
Rates and Markup on the Tag
The rate on a T&M tag is the bill rate from your signed authorization — never what you pay the electrician. Cost, burden, and margin stay off any page a customer sees.
Settle four numbers in the authorization before the first tag, so the tag is arithmetic instead of a negotiation:
| What to fix in writing | Example arithmetic (sample inputs — use your own) |
|---|
| Labor bill rate by classification | Foreman $112/hr, Journeyman $95/hr, Apprentice $62/hr. 8.0 + 8.0 + 5.0 hrs = $1,966.00 |
| Premium and overtime treatment | OT billed at 1.5× the classification rate: 4 OT hours at $95 base = 4 × $142.50 = $570.00 |
| Material markup percentage | $369.60 of material at 15% = $55.44, total $425.04. State whether tax and freight are marked up too — that's where arguments start |
| Equipment, lifts, and consumables | Scissor lift at a $185/day rate; small tools and consumables at 3% of labor: 3% × $1,966.00 = $58.98 |
Prevailing wage and union work add one more line: name the classification and the wage determination on the tag, because the classification is what the rate is defensible against.
Run your own numbers through the same four rows. The arithmetic isn't the hard part — agreeing to it in advance is, which is what the work authorization form is for.
More on structuring the invoice these tags support: T&M billing best practices for electrical contractors. If you want to put a number on what unsettled charges are worth in your own shop, the invoice dispute worksheet uses your inputs, not assumed ones.
When Dedicated Tag Software Is Worth Buying
Be honest about the fit. If you're a sub to a national GC, working in Procore, running a formal COR process with dozens of tags a month, a purpose-built tag platform is a reasonable buy — signature routing, revision history, and one-click conversion of a signed tag into a change order request are real time savings at that volume.
If you run 10 to 30 electricians, bill through QuickBooks, and write four to ten tags a month, a printed form plus a disciplined daily record does the same job for nothing.
The deciding question isn't features. It's which version your foreman will actually finish at 3:45pm after a ten-hour day.
The Forms
The T&M Billing Backup Kit has the four documents this post describes, free and ungated — no email required:
- T&M work authorization — signed before the work starts, where the rates and markup get fixed
- Daily field report — crew, hours, conditions, and what each person worked on
- T&M labor backup sheet — the customer copy that rides along with the invoice: date, worker, what was done, hours, bill rate, amount
- Change order log — the running tag log, so nothing sits unsigned
Print them, retype them on your own letterhead, or rebuild them in a spreadsheet. They work the same either way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a T&M tag the same as a change order?
No. The tag is the field record of what was actually spent on a given day; the change order is the priced, executed contract amendment. On a well-run job the tag comes first and the change order is priced from a stack of signed tags. Plenty of tags never become change orders — they get billed directly under a T&M authorization.
How fast does a T&M tag have to be submitted?
Check your subcontract's changes clause; 24 to 72 hours for written notice is common. The practical standard in the trade is same-day: the tag gets written and presented before anyone leaves the site, and emailed by the next morning whether or not it came back signed.
Who is supposed to sign a T&M tag?
Whoever has authority to direct extra work — on commercial jobs that's the GC superintendent or project manager, on residential it's the homeowner, and on a property it's the manager or building engineer. Print the name and title next to the signature. If the person on site can't bind the company, get the signature anyway and copy the person who can, the same day.
What if the GC superintendent won't sign it?
Ask for a signature on hours observed only, with language on the tag stating it isn't agreement on scope or price. If even that's refused, email the tag the same day so there's a timestamped delivery record, note on the tag who declined and when, and keep the photos. Delivery on time with a good description is worth more than a signature obtained three weeks late.
What markup can I put on materials on a T&M tag?
Whatever your signed work authorization says — that's the only number that holds. Fix it in writing before the first tag, and spell out whether sales tax and freight are marked up too, because that ambiguity is a common source of line-item fights.
Do photos count as proof if there's no signature?
They corroborate; they don't authorize. A timestamped photo of an over-filled panel or abandoned MC above a grid is strong support for the existing-condition claim, and a photo of the finished run supports the work claim. Neither replaces a written direction from someone with authority.
Can one tag cover several days or several workers?
Several workers on one day, yes — that's the normal format. Several days on one tag is where trouble starts, because a reviewer who disputes one day can hold the whole tag. Write one tag per crew per day and tie them together in the log.
How do tag hours get to payroll without writing everything twice?
Make the daily time record the source, and build the tag from it rather than alongside it. When the hours on the tag and the hours in payroll come from the same entry, they can't contradict each other — and that contradiction is the most common reason a tag gets kicked back.
