How to track cabinet orders from signed contract to install day

The cabinets ship on a Tuesday. The ack said 36-inch sink base. The drawing said 33. Nobody compared the two when the ack came in six weeks ago, and now the install crew is booked for Monday.

Most cabinet order problems look like this. Not a disaster at the factory, just a check that nobody owned.

What are the stages of a cabinet order?

A cabinet order moves through eight stages: spec sign-off, deposit received, field measure confirmed, order placed, ack checked, ship date confirmed, delivered and inspected, then installed and closed out. Each one has a condition that must be true before the job moves on. If you can't say who confirmed it and where it's written down, it isn't done.

Here's the tracker. Use it as a checklist on paper, a sheet, or whatever system you run jobs in.

Two things in there trip up even experienced showrooms.

Stage 5 should be done by someone other than the person who placed the order. People read what they meant to order, not what's on the page.

And stage 6 is a date you re-confirm. A ship date from six weeks ago is a guess by now.

How long do semi-custom and custom cabinets take to arrive?

Published figures cluster around 4 to 8 weeks for semi-custom and 8 to 12 weeks or more for custom, with stock often 1 to 3 weeks. Ranges vary a lot by manufacturer, line and options. Some semi-custom lines quote under two weeks; upgrades can push them out. Always plan from the ship date on the ack.

Here's what a few sources report.

Fine Homebuilding's guide to semi-custom cabinets gives specific examples rather than a range: it cites Merillat's Classic semi-custom line shipping in as little as 5 to 10 days, Canyon Creek's Katana line in as little as four weeks, and notes that upgrades can push lead times to six weeks or more.

So treat these numbers as a sanity check, not a promise to the client. Paint-grade finishes, glazes, custom sizes and specialty interiors usually add time. So does the holiday shutdown many manufacturers take between Christmas and New Year's, which Kitchen Cabinet Kings flags as a regular cause of delay.

When should you place the cabinet order?

Place it once three things are true: the client signed the final spec, the deposit cleared, and the field measure confirms the order. Not before. A week saved by ordering early is lost many times over if a single box is wrong, because a remake starts the lead time again for that piece.

Don't order on a verbal approval, and don't order before the deposit clears. The client who says "go ahead, I'll drop off the check Friday" is usually fine. The one who isn't costs you a full kitchen of cabinets you can't return. Our deposit and payment schedule guide covers how much to collect and when.

What should you check on a cabinet order acknowledgment?

Check every line against the signed spec: cabinet codes and sizes, door style, finish, box construction, hinge side, interior options, fillers, panels, toe kick, crown and moulding quantities, plus the ship date, ship-to address and total price. Then mark the ack as checked, with the date and who did it.

A quick ack checklist:

• Door style and finish match, including the exact finish name. Two similar names can be two different colors.
• Every cabinet code and width matches the drawing.
• Hinge side on single-door cabinets.
• Fillers, panels, toe kick, crown and light rail are all there, in the right quantities.
• Box construction and interior upgrades (drawer boxes, roll-outs) match what was sold.
• Ship-to address is right, and so is the delivery contact.
• Total matches what you expected to pay. A higher number often means a line was added. A lower one often means something's missing.
• Ship date is written down where the whole team can see it.

If you don't have the ack within a few business days of ordering, chase it. An order with no ack might not be in the queue at all.

What do you do when the ack comes back wrong?

Call the manufacturer or your rep the same day, then confirm in writing with the line numbers that need to change. Ask for a revised ack and check it again from scratch. Record the original error, who you spoke to and the new ship date, because a correction can move the ship date even if it's their mistake.

Some rules of thumb:

1. Never let a wrong ack sit "until it's fixed". Fix it now, while the order is still in the queue and not on the line.
2. If the error is yours (a wrong code on your order), the fix still needs to happen today. The cost is lower before production than after.
3. Re-check the whole revised ack, not just the lines you changed. Corrections sometimes introduce new errors.
4. Tell the client only if the ship date moves. They don't need the drama of a fixed typo.

What do you do when a backorder hits?

Find out exactly which pieces are short and when they'll ship, then decide: wait and move the install, or take a partial shipment and install around the missing pieces. Partial delivery only works if the missing parts aren't structural to the layout. Tell the client early, with a new date.

Think about it in terms of what's missing.

• A few panels, crown, or a decorative piece: usually install the rest, finish later. Log it on the punch list straight away so it doesn't get forgotten.
• A sink base or a cabinet the counter templates off: usually wait. The fabricator can't template around a hole.
• A whole run of doors in one finish: depends on the client. Some will live with boxes and no doors for three weeks. Many won't.

Whatever you decide, write the reason into the job and put the job on hold if the install date is now unknown. A job on hold with a reason is manageable. A job everyone thinks is still on schedule is the one that blows up.

How do you work back from install day?

Start from the ship date on the ack, not the lead time you quoted the client. Add freight transit, a buffer for inspection and damage, then the install. Counters usually come after: the fabricator templates on the installed base cabinets, then fabricates. That makes the finished kitchen date later than most clients assume.

Here's a worked example, counting in weeks from the day the order is placed.

So a "six-week" cabinet order is a kitchen with tops somewhere between week 11 and week 14. The 3 to 6 week fabrication figure is what the Phoenix Home Remodeling tracker reports; your fabricator's actual turnaround is the one that counts.

Tell the client that full timeline at contract, not the six weeks.

The buffer week between delivery and install exists for one reason. If something arrives damaged, you find out with time to react, instead of on install morning. The cabinet delivery inspection checklist covers what to check and how to note damage on the freight receipt.

What should cabinet order tracking software do for a dealer?

At the least: one record per job with the spec, a row for each supplier order with cost and amount owed, the ack attached and marked checked, ship, delivery and install dates on a shared calendar, a status for where the job is, and a way to log remakes against the original job. Anything less and the gaps go back on the whiteboard.

A spreadsheet can carry this for a handful of jobs. It gets shaky when several people edit it, when one job has four suppliers, and when you need dates on a calendar. The spreadsheet guide gets into where that usually breaks.

Salone is one option built around this tracker. Each order has your own fields, supplier rows with what's paid and owed, the ack and drawings attached, delivery and install dates on a shared calendar, and statuses including HOLD for backorders. A replacement door after install goes on as an add-on order under the original job. It doesn't place orders with manufacturers or pull their pricing; you still order the way you do now.