Do not compress different acts into “approved”.
An email saying “looks fine” may be technical advice, coordination, acceptance of a drawing format or permission to proceed. Those are not interchangeable. Start with the exact words, document purpose and applicable contract or delegation. Do not infer contractual authority from seniority, a copied recipient or a professional title.
| State | Useful record | Question still open |
|---|---|---|
| Requested | RFI, change request, field condition or instruction with an item ID. | What problem or requirement triggered it? |
| Assessed | Technical disposition, alternatives, estimate and assumptions. | What was assessed and what was excluded? |
| Authorized | Applicable delegation, instruction or approval with limits and conditions. | Could this person authorize this scope, amount and purpose? |
| Issued | Controlled drawing, specification or instruction with revision and transmittal. | Which version became the working instruction? |
| Received | Acknowledgement, distribution record or point-of-use register. | Did the relevant team have that version? |
| Implemented | Site record, test, inspection or completion evidence. | Was this exact instruction carried out? |
| Valued and paid | Priced change, certified amount, invoice, allocation and credits. | Did the money relate to the same work? |
Find the baseline in force at that time.
Locate the executed contract, scope schedules, amendments, exclusions, approved design basis and the revision register. A later summary is useful for orientation but should not silently replace the contract or contemporary instruction. Keep each source’s status visible.
When a clause is disputed, capture the whole relevant provision and its cross-references. The reviewer can map the records; qualified counsel should interpret legal obligations and remedies. An architect’s or engineer’s technical assessment may also be necessary to understand the effect of a design or field change.
Use an item key that survives across organizations.
A change may be CH-08 in an owner register, RFI-31 in correspondence and VO-12 on an invoice. Build an identifier crosswalk and show why those entries are linked. A similar amount or date alone is not enough.
Record scope, location, quantity, revision, amount basis and affected period. If the identities remain uncertain, label the match as inferred. A single row that joins request, approval and invoice without explaining the join can create a convincing but false chain.
Carry conditions forward.
A conditional approval may depend on a test, revised calculation, cost ceiling, owner consent or interface check. Keep those conditions attached to the next stage. Separate the condition being stated from evidence that it was met.
Track superseded approvals and cancelled work as well as effective instructions. Do not erase an abandoned option from the record, and do not count it as implemented work. A contract change, design revision and payment certification may describe related events while carrying different authority and consequences.
Use a missing-link question, not a verdict.
Illustrative example: an owner holds a priced change and an invoice, but not the authorization. The useful statement is “The reviewed set links INV-07 to the CH-08 description; no authorization was located within the agreed date and custodian boundary.” It is not “CH-08 was unauthorized.”
The next requests might be the relevant approval register, delegation for that decision date and the issued instruction. If they show a recorded conditional approval, test its authority and conditions. If the custodian confirms a different approval route, reconstruct that route rather than forcing the records into the initial theory.
Give the next owner a live boundary.
Close the working map with effective scope, outstanding conditions, unresolved interfaces and the role carrying the next decision. For a portfolio, keep that map per project before combining totals. An approval on one property or phase should not migrate into another by analogy.
Use the decision-record template to record the decision and the fair-attribution guide to test any proposed finding. The chain explains what the sources show; it does not itself establish a breach or personal liability.