Your Door Hardware Stays in a Crate for Nine Months
You cut the deposit on doors, frames, and hardware in the spring so hollow metal frames can go in before the walls close, and the leaves and closers stay crated until finishes.
A framing sub buys studs and track, then installs them the week the truck unloads. Interiors has to buy finish hardware at framing time, because the frame and the leaf come off the same made-to-order submittal against an approved hardware and keying schedule with fire labels. That makes the package non-returnable and non-substitutable. Electrified sets routinely take 20 to 30 weeks, so you can't split the buy to match the two install dates.
The size of it
On a $900K interiors contract the DFH package commonly costs $120K to $180K, and the money goes out long before it comes back in. You fund the single largest material buy in the contract for six to nine months on terms that came due back at frames.
The DFH package gets released early because hollow metal frames have to be set before either side of the wall goes on. Frames are the cheap part of that order. Money is in the leaves, closers, exit devices, electrified hardware, and access control prep, and none of that installs until finishes. You end up with one purchase order, one deposit, one supplier net-30 clock, and two install dates six to nine months apart.
Three moves, in order
Step 01: Job cost structure
Seven cost categories and three levels of granularity, built so the estimate and the ledger use the same words.
What else costs interiors contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What interiors owners ask
Paying for door hardware months before hanging any doors?
You cut the deposit on doors, frames, and hardware in the spring so hollow metal frames can go in before the walls close, and the leaves and closers stay crated until finishes.
What does it cost?
On a $900K interiors contract the DFH package commonly costs $120K to $180K, and the money goes out long before it comes back in. You fund the single largest material buy in the contract for six to nine months on terms that came due back at frames.
What do I do first?
Split the DFH package across two cost codes on the day you issue the PO, putting frames, anchors, and prep on the framing phase and leaves, closers, and electrified sets on the finish phase.
What are interiors contractors supposed to be making?
Interiors has 19% gross margin, 13% overhead and 6% net profit after taxes at $1M to $5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 1 point below it. The CFOS target is 10%.
Which part of the system fixes it?
The step is number 01, job cost structure. Seven cost categories and three levels of granularity, built so the estimate and the ledger use the same words. It comes from chapter 1 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, and CONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for interiors contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, led by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.