A construction selections deadline should not be a date picked because it feels early enough. It is arithmetic: the date the item installs, minus the supplier's lead time, minus the days you need to price and place the order. That date goes into the contract as a schedule exhibit, next to a sentence that says what happens if it passes — the schedule moves day for day and any rush or restocking cost becomes a change order. Once that is written and signed, a late tile pick is a documented client delay. Without it, the delay is yours to explain.

The deadline is three numbers subtracted from one

Every selection has an install date on the schedule. Work backward from it, in this order.

  1. Install date — from the schedule, not a guess. Cabinets install after drywall and paint, so their date is fixed by the work ahead of them.
  2. Lead time — what the supplier quotes for that specific product, in writing. A stock vanity and a custom cabinet run are different numbers. Add shipping and a few days to receive, check for damage and stage.
  3. Order date — install date minus lead time. This is the last day the order can go out and the item still lands on time.
  4. Processing time — the days you need between the client's pick and the order: confirming dimensions, pricing any overage against the allowance, getting a signed change order if there is one. Subtract it from the order date. What is left is the selection deadline.

A worked example with round numbers. Cabinets install on May 26. The cabinet shop quotes 10 weeks plus one week of delivery, so the order date is March 10. You want a week to verify the layout and price the upgrade, so the client's deadline is March 3. That date does not bend the way a paint color does — moving it moves the install, and the install moves everything after it.

Note what the formula does to the conversation. The client is not being rushed by the builder. The date comes from the cabinet shop's calendar and the drywall schedule, and the client can see both numbers beside the deadline.

One 'all selections due' date is wrong for almost every item

A blanket due date fails in both directions. Set early enough for windows, it forces cabinet hardware and light fixture decisions months ahead, clients pick under pressure and then change their minds after the order is placed — which costs more than a late pick. Set at a midpoint, the long-lead items are already late on the day the contract is signed. Different items run on different clocks. What sets the deadline for each:

  • Windows and exterior doors — needed for dry-in, so the deadline lands early, often before the client has walked the framed house. Lead time is the supplier's quote for that size and finish.
  • Plumbing valves and tub/shower bodies — needed at rough-in, well before the visible trim goes on. The client can pick the trim finish later; the valve body cannot wait.
  • Appliances — model numbers fix cabinet openings and electrical and gas rough-ins. The deadline is set by the cabinet drawings, not by appliance delivery.
  • Cabinets and countertops — fabrication lead time for the boxes, then template and fabrication time for tops after the cabinets are set.
  • Tile, flooring and lighting — often shorter lead times, but a backordered or discontinued pick can wreck them. Get current stock status, not the catalog lead time.
  • Paint colors — almost no lead time. The deadline is a few days before the painter starts.

Most items carry a hidden early deadline: the date the selection affects something upstream. An appliance installs last, but its dimensions are needed before cabinets are ordered. When an item has two dates, the earlier one is the deadline.

Write the dates and the consequence into the contract

A deadline the client never signed is a request. Put the selection schedule in the contract as an exhibit, then add the language that gives it weight. The pieces that matter:

  • The schedule itself — each item, its deadline, its install date and the lead time the deadline was based on. State that dates update when the construction schedule changes and that revised dates will be sent in writing.
  • What a miss does to time — the completion date extends by at least the number of days the selection is late, plus any days added by a lead time that grew while the client was deciding.
  • What a miss does to cost — expedite fees, restocking charges, storage and re-mobilizing a trade are billed as a change order.
  • The builder's option — after a stated grace period, you may order the standard item the allowance was priced on so the job keeps moving. This only works if the allowance names that standard item and its basis.
  • Changes after ordering — once an item is ordered, a different pick is a change order, priced with whatever cancellation or restocking cost the supplier charges.

If the contract is silent on selections, a late pick that idles the cabinet installer for two weeks is your two weeks. You may still have an argument, but you will be making it without a signed date and without a stated remedy. Have an attorney review the clause wording for your state — it is the paragraph that turns a client's indecision into a time extension and a billable cost instead of lost margin.

A missed date is a change order, not a conversation

The clause only helps if you act on it the week it applies. Delay claims turn on contemporaneous records — what was due, when it was due, what notice went out and what the miss did to the schedule. The sequence:

  1. Remind before the date. Send a written reminder a week out and again two days out, through the same channel every time.
  2. Give written notice the day the deadline passes: the item, the deadline, the new order date it forces and the install date it now affects.
  3. Record it in that day's daily log. The log is the evidence that the crew and the schedule were ready and the selection was not.
  4. Issue a change order for the days and any cost. State the number of days, even if it is zero because the item had float.
  5. Update the schedule and re-send any selection dates that moved as a result.

Step four is the one builders skip, usually because the client is pleasant and the delay is small. Small unrecorded delays stack up across a job, and at closeout there is nothing to point to. A zero-day change order still documents that the client was late and that you absorbed it — which matters the second time it happens.

The dates move when the schedule moves

A selection schedule set at contract signing is out of date by the second month. Inspections slip, a trade runs long, weather takes a week. Every shift changes install dates, and every install date carries a construction selections deadline behind it. If the schedule slips three weeks, the client just got three weeks back — tell them. If a trade finishes early and pulls cabinet install forward, the deadline moves up, and that needs written notice too.

This is one of the points where the client's picture of the job has to be reset on purpose, which is the argument behind the four expectation resets on a construction job. The selection schedule is the reset clients feel most directly, because it is the one part of the schedule they control.

Running it in BuilderSolve

The schedule in BuilderSolve is built from the estimate, so install dates come from line items already on the job. Order-by dates and selection deadlines can sit on the same Gantt as tasks tied to the install they feed, so when the install moves, the dependent dates move with it.

Clients see current dates in the branded client portal rather than in a PDF that was accurate in March. When a deadline is missed, the AI assistant can draft the schedule shift and the change order — days, reason, cost — and someone on your team approves or rejects it before anything reaches the client. Change orders keep an audit trail, and the daily log records the day it happened.

What it does not do: purchase orders are in development and not shipped, so the order itself still goes out through your current process. If the hours to maintain all of this are the real problem, the operations and admin team on the services side can keep the selection schedule current, send the reminders and draft the notices for your sign-off.

What to do this week

  1. Pick one active job and list every open selection.
  2. Get lead times in writing from each supplier for the specific products in play, with stock status.
  3. Compute each construction selections deadline from the current schedule — install date minus lead time minus your processing days.
  4. Send the client the list with the install date and lead time printed beside each deadline.
  5. Add the selection exhibit and the missed-deadline clause to the next contract you send, after legal review.

Common questions

When should clients make construction selections?

By the item's order date: install date minus supplier lead time, minus a few days for you to verify and price the pick. That puts window and door selections before dry-in, plumbing valves before rough-in and appliance model numbers before cabinets are ordered. Paint colors can wait until shortly before the painter starts. One due date for everything is wrong for most items.

What happens if a client misses a selection deadline?

Whatever the contract says — which is why it needs to say something. A workable clause extends the completion date by the days of delay, bills expedite, restocking or re-mobilization costs as a change order and lets the builder order the allowance-standard item after a grace period. Without that language, the delay is easy to argue is the builder's.

Should the selections schedule be part of the construction contract?

Yes, as an exhibit listing each item, its deadline, its install date and the lead time it was based on. Add a line stating that dates update when the construction schedule changes and that revised dates will be sent in writing. A deadline the client never signed is a request, not an obligation either side can enforce.

How do you get accurate lead times for selections?

Ask the supplier for a written quote on the specific product, size and finish, and ask for current stock status rather than the catalog lead time. Add shipping and a few days to receive and inspect the delivery. Re-confirm long-lead items before the deadline arrives, since quoted lead times can change between contract signing and the order.

Does a late selection always justify a schedule extension?

No. If the item has float and the late pick does not move the critical path, the honest number of days is zero. Issue the change order anyway with zero days stated — it records that the client was late and that the builder absorbed it, which matters if the same client misses the next deadline.