When you take over someone else's half-finished project, scope creep is already built in: nobody can say what was agreed, so every request looks reasonable. Fix it in three steps. Write a one-page note of what you understand the project to be, get the client to confirm it in writing, then treat anything outside that note as extra work with its own price.

It's for consultants who picked up a "quick tidy-up" from an ex-colleague or another freelancer and now find the files are a mess, the messages never stop, and their weekends are disappearing.

What's happening is that the work is growing and the agreement isn't. You're doing more, for longer, than anyone planned, and you aren't being paid for it. When you're new to working for yourself, that can feel less like a project problem and more like a sign you're bad at this. It isn't. Inherited projects start with no agreement, so the first job is to create one.

Spot the signs early

Inherited projects usually show it straight away:

No clear brief, only old slide decks and random folders
Email threads or WhatsApp chats that go on for miles
Files named "FINAL_v7_really_final"
A client saying, "I'm not sure what was agreed, but can you just…"

You'll also feel it:

You dread the next client call
Your to-do list grows faster than your timesheet
Every "quick favour" takes another evening
You start cancelling plans because "this thing just needs finishing"

Step 1: write a one-page scope reset

Book one session with yourself, with no calls or notifications. Then:

Skim the old proposals, emails and files.
Note the tasks that come up again and again.
Write one page, in your own words, headed "This is what I understand we're doing".

Keep it short:

The main goal of the project
Three to five key deliverables
A rough timeline or phases

This page is your new map for the project.

Step 2: get the reset confirmed in writing

You weren't there for the original deal, so don't argue about it. Turn your one-page note into a reset email:

Thank them for the chance to pick up the work
Paste your "this is what I understand we're doing" list
Add dates for the main deliverables, even rough ones
End with: "Can you confirm this is still accurate, or suggest changes?"

You aren't blaming anyone. You're inviting them to correct the record in writing, and their reply becomes your new agreement.

Add one line that protects you from here on:

"If anything new comes up, I'll flag it with a quick estimate before I start, so you can decide whether it's worth it."
"If we find extra pieces beyond this list, we can treat them as a small add-on so your budget stays predictable."

If your clients are in other time zones, or expect WhatsApp replies at all hours, state your working hours once:

"My normal working hours are [X to Y, local time]. I'll always confirm I've seen key updates on the next working day."

Writing it once is easier than saying no every time.

Step 3: turn vague requests into priced work

Scope creep rarely arrives as a formal change request. It turns up as a nudge:

"While you're in there, could you also look at our sales deck?"
"Since you're tracking this already, can we add a report for the French team?"

Slow the conversation down enough that you don't say yes on autopilot:

Ask one clarifying question.
Give a small estimate.
Ask where it should sit.

For example: "Sounds good. Done properly, that's around half a day. Shall I add it to this phase, or set it up as a small add-on?"

Now the client chooses. If they want it, they know it has a cost. If they don't, you haven't lost an evening.

Tag every new request in your notes as either included (already in the reset) or extra (new work). Once a week, on Friday for example, send a short summary of what you did in the agreed scope and the extras they asked for, each with a one-line description and your rough hours or fee.

For any extra over an hour or two, write a short proposal, even three or four lines:

What you'll do
What it won't include
When you'll do it
How you'll bill it

When the invoice goes out, nobody is surprised, because you both saw it in writing.

Step 4: track where your time goes

Unpaid hours are only part of the cost. The bigger one is the stress of working later than you did in your old job.

Track your time against the reset scope, even if the client never sees every entry. Split it three ways:

Agreed scope
Client extras
Your own fixes, the small tidy-ups you choose to do so the work feels right

After a week, the pattern is usually clear. Client extras might be nearly as big as the agreed scope, or your own fixes might be taking hours nobody asked for. Then you can decide what to keep absorbing and what to price.

When you invoice, give extras their own line in words the client will recognise, such as "Extra reporting setup for the French team, as requested by email on [date]". Point back to a conversation they remember.

A checklist for the next inherited project

Some inherited projects become your best long-term clients. Each time someone asks you to take something over, run the same checklist:

A one-page scope reset in your own words
Written confirmation from the client
A clear rule for extra work and how you'll price it
Time tracked against agreed scope, extras and your own fixes
Small, frequent conversations about changes, instead of one big confrontation at the end

Keep the checklist somewhere you'll find it, so the next handover follows your own process from day one.

How I run this in Kiaro

Here's how each step maps onto Kiaro:

The scope reset as a proposal. Write your one-page reset as a proposal and send it. Your client accepts it in the client portal by typing their name, and Kiaro records the name, time and IP address. That's your written confirmation, and an accepted proposal is locked so it stays as agreed.
Extras as small proposals. For an add-on, write a short proposal, or Duplicate the accepted one and edit the copy. The AI can draft a proposal in the style of your past ones for you to edit. For a formal change to a contract, start from the Change order contract template.
Time split by task. Create tasks for agreed scope, client extras and your own fixes, and log time against each one. Mark your own fixes as non-billable, so they show up in your hours without reaching the invoice.
Budget burn. Give the project a budget and an hourly rate, and the project page shows how much of the budget your billable hours have used.
Extras on the invoice. Create the invoice from tracked time, and each task's hours become their own line. Edit a line's description to name the request and the date it was made.
The reset note on the project. Paste your one-page note into the project's notes, so it's there whenever you open the project.

Kiaro has no project templates, so keep the checklist above as a document and run it each time you take on a project.