The third free favour is invisible because nobody wrote the first two down. Six fields fix that.

Write the request down the moment it arrives, before you decide anything about it. A change request is one row with six fields: the date they asked, what they asked for in their own words, a yes or no on scope, your estimate of the extra time, the decision, and the date they answered. The row exists whether you charge for the work or not. Scope creep survives on the requests nobody recorded, because the third free favour looks like the first one when there is no list to read.

Six fields, filled in when the request arrives rather than when the work is finished. Date asked is the date they asked, not the date you got round to it. What they asked for is one line quoted from the client, because a request restated in your own words is a request you have already half-agreed to. In or out of scope is a yes or no against what was actually agreed, decided before anyone estimates anything, since estimating first turns a scope question into a pricing argument. Extra time is your honest estimate in hours or half-days. Decision is one of three values. Answered on is the date the client replied and what changed as a result: the new price, the new deadline, or nothing.

No, and that is why the decision has three values instead of two. Absorb is small, one-off and worth the goodwill: it still gets a row and it still gets an hours estimate, because an absorbed request with no number on it cannot be added up later. Quote is priced as extra work with its own number and its own date, and the quote does not have to be big. Decline is not doing it, and saying what it would take instead. A plain in-scope or out-of-scope verdict leaves no box for a small favour, so the favour goes in no box at all.

Decline with the number attached. Saying that it is roughly two days, which would move delivery to the 14th, is a different conversation from a flat no, because the client is then choosing between two things rather than hearing a refusal. Say what it would take, then let them decide whether they want it at that price or on that date. If they say yes, the decision moves to quote and the row already carries the estimate.

Four places, and none of them looks like a change request at the time. Mid-call, as an aside, while we have got you, could you also, and nobody writes it down because the call was about something else. Buried in a reply, in paragraph four of an email that was answering a different question. From someone who was not at the kickoff, asking in good faith for something that was ruled out before they arrived. And as feedback on delivered work, framed as a revision and sized like a new piece of work. The guide lists all four so you recognise them while they are happening.

Yes. Sixteen A4 pages, sent as a PDF in exchange for an email address, in English, Spanish, German and Portuguese. It covers what counts as a change request, the four places one arrives, the six fields, the three decisions and the words for each, the arithmetic on a small favour, and a six column sheet with two rows worked. It is vendor-neutral and works on paper, in a spreadsheet, or in any CRM. No phone call and no drip sequence.