What Are Construction Submittals? A Guide for Specialty Trade Subs

DEFINITION

Submittal

A document, sample, or product data sheet submitted by a subcontractor (or supplier) to the GC and design team for review and approval. Submittals confirm that proposed materials, equipment, and methods match the contract specifications before work begins. Types include shop drawings, product data, and material samples.

DEFINITION

Shop Drawing

A detailed drawing prepared by the subcontractor or a supplier showing exactly how a specific component will be fabricated or installed — dimensional details, connection points, coordination with other trades. Shop drawings are submitted for design team review because they show what will actually be built, not what the contract drawings show abstractly.

DEFINITION

RFI

Request for Information — a formal written question from a contractor to the design team seeking clarification on plans or specifications. An RFI asks a question. A submittal provides documentation for approval. The two serve different purposes in the project record, though both feed the change order process when scope ambiguities arise.

DEFINITION

Submittal Log

A tracking document (often managed by the GC) that records every submittal required on a project — what's been submitted, when, current review status (under review, approved, approved as noted, revise and resubmit, rejected), and who holds the ball. Specialty trade subs should maintain their own submittal log independent of the GC's.

DEFINITION

Revise and Resubmit

A submittal review status indicating the design team has identified issues with the submitted documentation and the sub must correct and resubmit before receiving approval to proceed. Each revision cycle takes time and may delay material ordering or installation start.

What a Submittal Is and Isn’t

A submittal is not a change order. It does not modify the contract scope or price. It’s documentation that says: “Here is specifically what I plan to install — confirm it meets your specifications.”

The three main types specialty trade subs deal with:

Shop drawings. Fabrication and installation drawings prepared by the sub or a supplier. For a mechanical contractor, this might be ductwork layout drawings showing dimensions, connection details, and coordination with structure. For an electrical sub, a one-line diagram of the switchgear installation. For a structural steel sub, connection details for each joint type. Shop drawings show what will actually be built — not the abstract design drawings, but the specific fabricated components.

Product data. Manufacturer’s cut sheets, technical specifications, performance data, installation instructions for standard products. An HVAC sub submitting product data for a rooftop unit includes the manufacturer’s datasheet confirming the unit meets the specified cooling capacity, efficiency rating, and electrical characteristics.

Samples. Physical samples of materials — paint colors, tile, flooring, roofing material — for the architect to approve before installation. Less common for mechanical and electrical subs, more common for finish trades.

Each submittal type has a different review process and a different time cost when it comes back rejected.

The Submittal Approval Workflow

The sequence runs: sub prepares submittal → sub sends to GC → GC reviews and stamps → GC forwards to architect/engineer → design team reviews → response comes back through the GC → sub receives approval or rejection.

Each hand-off adds time. A 14-day contract review window often means 21 calendar days in practice. For long-lead equipment — a custom air handling unit, a medium-voltage transformer, a large elevator package — the submittal approval must happen early enough that you can place the order and receive the equipment before the installation date on the schedule. The lead time clock starts at approval, not at submission.

Common approval statuses:

• Approved — proceed as submitted
• Approved as Noted — proceed with minor corrections noted on the returned documents; verify you understand and can comply with the notes
• Revise and Resubmit — corrections required before approval; do not order or fabricate
• Rejected — the submitted item does not meet the specification; start over with a different product or approach

“Approved as Noted” is the one that causes field problems. Subs sometimes read it as a full approval, miss the notes, and install items the architect intended to be corrected. On the next inspection, they have a field reject.

Submittal Rejection: The Hidden Cost

Rejected submittals cost money. The cost rarely shows up in job costing because it’s scattered across labor hours (time spent on the revision), expediting charges (rushing a reorder when the schedule is tight), and sometimes rework in the field (when installation happened before a proper approval and must be corrected).

A specialty trade sub who tracks a project’s submittal revision rate is collecting data that improves future estimates. Projects with complex specifications, difficult-to-specify systems, or design teams with high rejection rates should carry more contingency than projects with straightforward specs and responsive design review.

Tracking this requires a submittal log with revision history — not just a list of required submittals, but a record of how many submission cycles each item required and what the cost consequence was.

Submittals and Your Schedule Rights

Your subcontract should specify the GC’s review period for submittals. When the GC exceeds that window, you have a schedule impact claim if the delay pushes your work start. The requirement is documentation.

When you submit a shop drawing with a 14-day review window, log the submission date. When day 15 arrives without a response on a critical-path item, send written notice to the GC citing the submittal number, the original submission date, the contract-required response window, and the schedule impact of the continued delay. That email becomes the basis for a delay claim if the project schedule slips because of design team review time.

Subs who skip this step during the project and try to reconstruct the delay record at closeout rarely win. The paper trail has to be built in real time.

Tracking Submittal-Driven Costs in Job Costing

Most job costing software doesn’t have a “submittal rework” cost code out of the box. That doesn’t mean you can’t track it — it means you have to set it up.

Specific cost tracking approach:

1. Create a cost code for submittal-related rework labor (hours spent on revisions, resubmittals, coordination meetings driven by rejections).
2. When a supplier charges an expediting fee because a reorder was rushed after a rejection, code that cost to the job under materials and note the reason.
3. When field rework happens because an approved-as-noted item was installed incorrectly, track those hours separately from the base scope labor.

At project closeout, a job cost report that includes submittal rework labor and expediting tells you what those rejection cycles actually cost. Over multiple projects, the pattern becomes clear: certain GC-architect relationships, certain specification sections, and certain products generate disproportionate revision cycles.

That pattern informs your estimates. If you’ve learned that a particular architect’s mechanical specifications require three submission cycles on average for HVAC controls equipment, your estimate for their next project should include the cost of two resubmittals in your overhead or contingency line.

MarginLock and Submittal Cost Tracking

MarginLock doesn’t include dedicated submittal management — that’s a GC-side function primarily, and tools like Procore and Autodesk Build handle the full submittal routing workflow for GCs.

What MarginLock does is job costing: tracking labor hours and material costs against your estimates per job, with configurable cost codes. If you set up cost codes for submittal-related work, those costs will flow into your job cost reports alongside base scope costs. The visibility is there — the submittal log management isn’t.

For specialty trade subs whose primary problem is “I don’t know if this job is profitable until it’s over,” the job costing piece is where to start. Submittal tracking is one category of cost within that larger problem.

MarginLock starts at $20/month (Core), $49/month (Pro), or $99/month (Enterprise), flat rate with unlimited users.