Two approval clocks come between you and the factory
Nothing releases to the factory until the hardware schedule submittal comes back and the keying conference happens. Neither clock starts when you sign.
Both clocks belong to the design team and the owner, and neither starts the day you get the contract. A finish trade that buys stock material never needs an architect's stamp plus an owner's keying decision before anything can ship. Five weeks with the architect and an unscheduled keying conference compress your buyout window to whatever is left, while the price you signed keeps aging.
The size of it
Every week the submittal waits is a week closer to the next manufacturer increase, and on a hard bid you cover that difference yourself.
Two other people have to finish their part before your material moves. The hardware schedule submittal has to come back approved or approved-as-noted, and a rejected item resubmits and restarts the clock from the top. The second clock is the keying conference, where the owner, the distributor, and the locksmith build the master key hierarchy, and no cylinder or core can be ordered until that meeting happens. Master key system design alone runs $1,500 to $25,000 depending on project size, and the meeting gets scheduled around the building owner's calendar.
Three moves, in order
Step 06: Project management
Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them.
What else costs door and hardware contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What door and hardware owners ask
Hardware submittal approved but keying conference not scheduled?
Nothing releases to the factory until the hardware schedule submittal comes back and the keying conference happens. Neither clock starts when you sign.
What does it cost?
Every week the submittal waits is a week closer to the next manufacturer increase, and on a hard bid you cover that difference yourself.
What do I do first?
Log the transmittal date and the contract's stated review period on the same line, and send a one-sentence status ask every Friday until it comes back.
What are door and hardware contractors supposed to be making?
No survey separates door and hardware, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Interiors, which runs 19% gross margin, 13% overhead and 6% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10% net. Those are derived figures, not door and hardware's own. Read them as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.
Which part of the system fixes it?
The step is number 06, project management. Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them. It comes from chapter 6 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for door and hardware contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.