A separate document from the BOM. The takeoff is organised around the BUILDING (Girt, 64 pcs); a yard prices STOCK (2x6 SPF in 16-footers). The order sheet is one line per material x stock length, with quantities in PURCHASED pieces, merged so girts, cripples and sills coming off the same bunk are one row.
Also called: material order · supplier order · purchase order · send to lumber yard · get a quote from the yard · material order sheet · supplier quote request · order by stock length · send my BOM to the lumber yard
Formatted the way a yard prices, not the way a building is built
The takeoff is organised around the building: Girt, 64 pieces. A yard sells stock: 2x6 SPF, 16 foot, 41 pieces. The order sheet is the second one — one row per material and stock length, quantities in pieces you can actually buy. Cut-to-length steel gets a row per length, because that is how a yard cuts it and how they price it.
One row for lumber that comes off one bunk
Girts, cripples and sills are three jobs on the building and one product at the yard. The sheet merges them into a single 2x6 line at each stock length, so a supplier is not quoting the same lumber three times and you are not receiving it three times. The building usages stay on the row for whoever unloads the truck.
Identified by description, so any yard can read it
2x6 SPF #2 — 16ft means the same thing at every yard in the US and Canada. A distributor's internal code means nothing outside their own network, so the description is the identity and a supplier's own code rides along only where you have given us the mapping. The sheet asks the yard to state what they can supply rather than quietly substitute something else.
Send it under your name, and it is on the record
Pick the supplier out of your contacts, add a delivery address and a needed-by date, and the order goes out inside your own email branding — the yard sees the builder, not the software. The send is recorded on that supplier's card and marks the project as ordered. A yard that would rather import than read gets the same rows as a file.
The piece count counts pieces
Screws are pieces, underlayment is square feet, concrete is cubic yards — and adding them together produced 8,030 pieces on one building, which is a number that means nothing to anybody. The total counts discrete units only and leaves measures as measures, so the figure at the bottom of the sheet is something a yard can act on.
- 1Each BOM line's stock breakdown becomes one order row per stock length.
- 2Cut-to-length pieces (steel panels) get one row per length, because a yard cuts to it and prices it separately.
- 3A packed line with no stock breakdown infers a common length rather than dropping it — better an approximate length than none.
- 4Identity is the DESCRIPTION, not a SKU: '2x6 SPF #2 - 16ft' is unambiguous at any yard in the US or Canada, while a distributor's internal code is meaningless outside their own network. A supplier's SKU rides along only when a mapping exists.
- 5Usages are kept on the row for the foreman even though the yard ignores them.
- 6The piece count only totals discrete units; linear feet, square feet and cubic yards are measures, not pieces.
An order sheet only works if any supplier can quote or fulfil it without a phone call, which means every line has to stand on its own. The old summary added everything into a single piece count: 8,030 pieces turned out to be 5,625 screws plus 1,559 sq ft of underlayment plus 4.7 cubic yards of concrete — a number that means nothing to anyone. The sheet now groups by what a supplier actually sells, keeps every line in its own unit, and totals only within a unit.
- A building-shaped list that a supplier cannot price.
- The same bunk quoted on several lines.
- Orders identified by codes the supplier does not use.
See it on your own jobs
Twenty minutes, your numbers, no slide deck. We’ll build one of your real buildings in front of you and send you the estimate link at the end — yours to keep either way.
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