In the last post I called an RFI “the record of asking,” and said the next one would cover submittals — “the record of getting approved.”
That preview was already wrong. A submittal is not a document you get approved.
People work for years without knowing this, because Procore clearly stamps Approved on the screen. Ask the consultant who pressed that button and you will usually hear: “We did not approve it. We reviewed it.”
It sounds like semantics. It is not. That distinction decides who pays when something is wrong.
What a Submittal Actually Is
A submittal is the process of saying “here is exactly what we intend to build, and how” before you build it.
Drawings and specifications stop at what to build. Which manufacturer, which model, at what dimensions, fixed how — the contractor decides all of that. A submittal puts those decisions in front of the designer so they can confirm the result does not depart from the design intent.
If an RFI is the record of asking about something you do not know, a submittal is the record of declaring something you have decided. The direction is reversed. And so is the damage a delay causes: an RFI stalls one area while you wait, but a submittal has to clear review before you can order the material at all. The back half of this post is really about that.
One thing first. The specification decides what you submit. Requirements are written into each Division, and the more detailed the spec, the clearer the list. That is why “how many submittals does a project have?” has no answer — the spec differs every time. You do not count them, you build the list by working through each Division’s requirements.
It Says “Approved.” The Consultant Means “Reviewed.”
This is the most important section in this guide.
Consultants dislike the word approved. Given the choice they write reviewed. Systems like Procore have that button label hard-coded, so the screen says Approved — but read it as reviewed.
The reason is liability. The moment you say “approved,” the designer appears to have warranted the contractor’s dimensions, quantities, means and methods, and field conditions. So review stamps almost always carry language to this effect: reviewed only for general conformance with the design concept; this review does not relieve the contractor of its contractual responsibilities.
Clearing review means “this does not depart from the design intent.” It does not mean “build this and nothing will go wrong.”
So Where Does the Responsibility Sit
This misunderstanding is what creates the incident.
Say you submit with a wrong dimension and it clears review. You fabricate, it does not fit — that cost is yours. “But you approved it” goes nowhere. The reviewer looked at design intent; nobody went out and measured the field for you.
So the mindset when you submit has to be different. The goal is not to get it past review. The goal is to send it with nothing wrong in it. Review is a design-intent check, not a final safety net. If you take one sentence from this post, take that one.
Who Prepares It and Where It Goes
The route itself is simple.
The trade prepares the submittal for its own scope and gives it to the GC. The GC sorts it by specification section, reviews it, and forwards it to the consultant. Out through Procore, back through Procore.
The GC’s role here is not forwarding. Wrong section numbers and the reviewer cannot tell which spec clause to read it against. A missing item is a resubmittal on its own. Sometimes it is a question already answered. Screening is the GC’s job. And unscreened submittals pile up in the queue ahead of the ones you actually need back.
One exception: items the owner has to see personally, like samples, go to the owner for review alongside the consultant. Colours and finishes, where taste and a decision are involved. That means two reviewers, so allow for it in the schedule.
How submittals are raised and tracked in Procore is covered in Procore on Site.
Two Weeks for Review — And You Are the One Who Sets It
Two weeks is typical. And as with RFIs, the contract often does not set it for you.
So it goes in the Communication Plan, agreed at project start and put in writing. You can set it internally or agree it with the owner; the second is much stronger.
Without that, you have no baseline to point at when a review takes three weeks. With no baseline, even a month gets explained away as “that item was always complicated.”
The line from the RFI post applies here unchanged: to claim delay you first need a standard. Submittals just get a longer one than RFIs, because the reviewer has to check it against the spec and coordinate across disciplines.
Types — And Why Close-Out Gets Its Own Package
| Type | What it is |
|---|---|
| Product data | Manufacturer literature, cut sheets |
| Shop drawing | Fabrication and installation detail, with dimensions |
| Sample | A physical sample, often for the owner |
| Mock-up | Built on site to be looked at |
| Close-out (O&M, as-builts) | Handover documents |
Close-out belongs in its own package. And starting to collect it at substantial completion is already late.
The reason is straightforward. Trades need time to produce close-out documents too. Ask at the end and they start hunting for records then — and if the people who did the work have already left, sometimes they never find them. Drag that out and the cost lands on the GC.
So from the moment you start receiving submittals, know which close-out documents are required and put the trades on notice. That is what actually saves money.
Do Not Run Samples and Mock-Ups Through Paper
This one is a judgement call from experience.
Samples that the owner needs to see go up as a submittal with photographs, with the physical item sent separately. Paper alone cannot carry colour or texture; the item alone leaves no record. Both have to travel.
Mock-ups are different. Building it on site and getting the parties in front of it is far faster. Put it through the submittal workflow and you get: submit, review, comment, relay to the trade, revise, re-review. Weeks disappear per lap.
Standing in front of it and settling it there takes a day. The entire point of a mock-up is judging the real thing — there is no reason to send that round trip on paper.
So mock-ups only need a list. Which items require one, when and where it goes up. Forcing them into a document workflow makes them slower, not more controlled.
Shop Drawings That Need a Seal — The Schedule S-B and S-C Chain
There is one more structure to know in BC.
The submittal process itself is a contractual process, separate from the Letters of Assurance (Schedules A, B, C-A, C-B) covered last time. But some shop drawings sit inside that chain.
Items the trade designs as well as builds — non-structural framing, glazing, formwork — require the responsible engineer to seal the shop drawing before it goes out. Those engineers file as Supporting Registered Professionals.
The chain runs like this:
Supporting professional files Schedule S-B and S-C → the discipline’s Registered Professional of Record cannot file Schedule C-B until all of those are in → only then does the CRP issue Schedule C-A
Which means a late shop drawing from a trade eventually delays the closing documents. This is how a finished building sits waiting for its C-A. The RFI guide covered the CRP role; this is the back end of that story. The permit and inspection side is in BC Building Permit: Inspections and Occupancy.
Review Outcomes — And When You Can Place the Order
| Outcome | Meaning | Can you order? |
|---|---|---|
| Approved | Proceed as submitted | ✅ |
| Approved as Noted | Proceed, incorporating comments | ✅ |
| Revise and Resubmit | Fix it and send it back | ❌ |
| Rejected | Rejected | ❌ |
Rejected and Revise and Resubmit are effectively the same thing. Rejected means you revise and resubmit. Do not spend energy on the distinction.
The distinction that matters is between Approved as Noted and Revise and Resubmit.
Approved as Noted means you can place the order. When the schedule is tight, asking the consultant for that outcome is legitimate practice. But as noted means a final version incorporating the comments should still come back in. How firmly depends on the comments — a colour designation and a dimension change do not carry the same weight.
The Real Exposure — The Clock Only Starts After Review
RFI delay and submittal delay are different animals.
RFI delay means “we cannot build that part until someone answers.” It is local.
Submittal delay is not. Review has to close before the purchase order goes out. The PO starts fabrication, fabrication ends before delivery, delivery precedes installation. So a review delay pushes every one of those durations back with it. Two weeks of delay does not cost two weeks.
And if that material sits on the critical path, the whole project moves.
Which Is Why Long-Lead Items Start at Contract Signing
The moment a trade is under contract, start pulling their submittals. The usual offenders:
- Structural steel
- Elevators
- Generators
- Electrical panels
- Mechanical equipment
- Fire-rated aluminum frames and glazing
- Tile, where it is imported
The longest ones in my experience were the elevator and the structural steel. On the steel, problems between the steel contractor and its own subcontractor compounded the design review delay, and the effects followed the project for months.
Build the Submittal Schedule Backwards
Submittal dates are derived backwards from the installation date. You need the master schedule and the construction sequence to do it. Procurement planning should follow the sequence of installation, not the order of the spec book.
Installation date − delivery − fabrication − PO processing − review = submittal due date
For a September 10 installation: subtract 3 weeks delivery, 8 weeks fabrication, 1 week PO processing and 2 weeks review — about 14 weeks, so the submittal needs to be closed out by early June. Durations vary enormously by item and supplier, so treat those numbers as an illustration of the method rather than a rule.
Run that calculation once and “start at contract signing” stops sounding dramatic. For long-lead items, picking it up after mobilization is already late.
Put Review Delay on the Schedule
The three steps from the RFI post apply unchanged.
When a review passes the agreed turnaround, add “submittal delay” to the schedule as its own activity. That is what turns the delay from an assertion into a fact visible on the programme.
Manage it that way and you have evidence later: the material was late because review was late, not because we were unprepared — and you can show it rather than remember it.
Approved as X, Delivered as Y
It happens. The drawing said X, it cleared review, and Y shows up on site.
Either the trade made a mistake or they swapped it to hold more margin. Either way you usually find out after the material has arrived.
The test is clear:
- If what arrived exceeds the specification, there is nothing to pursue.
- If it falls short, they owe a defensible reason, and the practical resolution is usually crediting the material cost difference back to the owner while protecting the schedule.
That second case is where judgement shows. By the book you send it back. That is not always the best answer.
The worst outcome is reordering. Remaking and reshipping pushes the whole schedule, and if that delay reaches the owner’s opening date, you are no longer arguing about material cost. A building that cannot open is not comparable to a price difference on a product. Which is why “credit the difference and hold the date” is often better for everyone.
The Resubmittal Deadlock — What Accepting a Draft Costs
This one did not go well.
A trade submitted an unfinished draft, on the logic that they would finish it once comments came back. The consultant refused to review it. Commenting on a draft is wasted effort when the finished version means starting the review over. So they did not start at all.
We tried to broker it in meetings. On that project it never really resolved. The material was late, and closing that gap in the field was genuinely painful.
Looking back there was one answer. The GC should have pushed the trade until the design was actually finished, and only then put it into review.
For the trade, throwing a draft over the wall and finishing it on feedback is the comfortable route. But when that route is blocked, the loss does not land on the trade. It lands on the GC, because the GC is the one standing in front of the owner holding the schedule.
Where a Submittal Becomes an RFI, and Where It Becomes a Change Order
The three documents are not separate systems.
Submittal → RFI. When a review comment is unclear, or you have a better alternative, raise an RFI referencing the submittal number. “We read this comment as follows — is that correct?” or “we think this alternative is better; is it acceptable?” Settle the direction, then resubmit the final version. The order matters: resubmit without resolving it and you will collect the same comment again. How to write one is in RFI in Canadian Construction.
Submittal → change order. When the specified product is discontinued or simply unavailable, you find a conforming substitute and run the change process.
Watch one thing here. Proceeding on the strength of a substitution approval leaves you with cost committed and revenue unapproved. Where that gap turns into loss is covered in Cost Commits First, Revenue Comes Later.
What You Eventually See
Two things stay with you.
First, a review is not absolution. An Approved stamp leaves the responsibility for dimensions and methods exactly where it was. So submitting in the hope that review will catch your errors is the wrong posture — and it is that posture that sends a trade’s draft upstream and produces the deadlock above.
Second, managing submittals is schedule management, not document management. Two weeks late in review does not make the material two weeks late; it moves fabrication and delivery with it. Which is why good PCs read the submittal log in installation order, not spec order. Same list, different axis.
Next, the last post in this series: change orders. The changes that start in RFIs and flow in from submittals — which documents they pass through, and how they turn into money.