Finish schedule: what goes on it, and how to make one
Every surface in the project and what goes on it: the columns, which values come from the supplier, and how to keep the schedule right when the tile changes.
A finish schedule lists every surface in a project and what goes on it. Floors, walls, ceilings, skirtings, worktops, splashbacks, joinery fronts, one line per surface per room, with the material, the product, the colour and the format. It is the document the tiler, the decorator, the joiner and the client all read, and the one that gets copied into the most places, because the same tile turns up in four rooms and the same paint in nine.
The FF&E schedule lists the things that stand in the room. The finish schedule lists the room itself.
What a finish schedule is for
The contractor prices from it by area. The tiler and the decorator work from it and need the product, the format, the grout, the sheen and the pattern. The client sees it as the approval document: a picture of each material and the price per square metre. The supplier ships against it and needs the product code and the quantity with wastage included. The site manager checks deliveries against it and needs to know which room the pallet is for.
One document, and unlike the FF&E schedule, it has two natural shapes.
Finish schedule by room, or by material key
By room is the traditional approach. One row per room, columns for floor, wall, ceiling, skirting, and a material in each cell. The client reads it easily. The problem is that the material is described in every cell it appears in, so a tile chosen for four rooms is typed four times and changed three.
By material key is the approach that stays true. Each material gets a code (F-01 for the oak floor, W-02 for the bathroom tile, P-04 for the hallway paint) and a row with its full product data. Then a second, smaller table maps rooms to codes. The product is described once. A change is one row. The tiler reads the key, the client reads the room table, and both are right at the same time.
Use the key. Print the room table from it when the client asks for the room view.
Finish schedule columns
The material key starts with the product columns of the FF&E schedule, and that guide goes through them: code, name, supplier, brand, product code, dimensions, material, finish and colour, price, source, image. A finish schedule adds the following.
| Column | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Surface | Floor, wall, ceiling, skirting, worktop, splashback, joinery. The same tile on a floor and a wall is two rows, because the floor tile needs a slip rating the wall does not. |
| Format | Tile size, plank width and length, sheet size, roll width. Drives the laying pattern, the wastage and the cuts. |
| Thickness | For floors, because the levels have to meet at the door. A 20 mm tile beside a 14 mm floor is a step or a screed. |
| Colour and sheen | The paint code and the sheen (matt, eggshell, satin). The tile colour as the supplier names it. The wood stain. The one value the client will notice from the doorway. |
| Grout and joint | Colour, width, and the product, for tile. The joint is part of the design and the one thing the tiler will choose for you if the row is left empty. |
| Laying pattern | Straight, brick, herringbone, stack. Changes the wastage from 10 percent to 15, and the labour with it. |
| Slip and wear | The rating for floors (R10, R11, PEI class) where a wet room or a hallway requires it. |
| Quantity | Square metres or linear metres from the plan, plus the wastage, plus the product's pack size, rounded up to whole packs. Three numbers, and the order is placed from the last one. |
| Location | Which rooms use this key. The room table is the long form of this column. |
Not every project needs every column. A paint row has no grout. A residential schedule can skip slip ratings on the bedroom floor but not on the bathroom one.
Facts from the page, decisions from the plan
Surface, location, quantity, pattern and the grout colour are decisions. They come from the plan and from you. Format, thickness, colour name, sheen, slip rating, pack size and price are facts, and they are on the page: in the variant name, on the technical tab, in the downloadable data sheet.
This split matters here more than anywhere, because a finish schedule is mostly the same facts repeated. Copy the facts once into the key. Make the decisions in the room table. Never type a tile size twice.
Why a finish schedule goes stale
Finishes are chosen early and ordered late, and in between the client sees the sample in daylight. The floor changes from the 190 mm plank to the 220. The bathroom tile is discontinued and the replacement is 600 by 300 instead of 600 by 600, which changes the pattern, the wastage and the grout. The paint stays the same colour but moves to a different sheen because the decorator said so.
Each change is one product with four to nine places to update on a room-based schedule, and someone somewhere is holding last month's PDF. The schedule that was true at the sample stage is wrong at the order, and the row that is wrong is the one nobody re-read.
A finish schedule that stays true
Keep the material key in one place, with the source link on every row and a mark on every value that was read from the page. Print the room table from it. When a tile changes, update its row, and the room table, the tiler's list and the client's cards all follow.
That is the product half Intspec handles. Paste the supplier links for the tiles, the floors, the paints and the worktops, let Intspec fill the product values with a mark on each one, and print the key as a table for the contractor and as cards for the client, one category at a time or the whole set. The room side (which surface, how much, what pattern) stays yours, in your own columns. You still check every value. You just stop typing them.
How to make a finish schedule
Start with the plan and list the surfaces, room by room, before you choose a single product. Then choose, and give each material a code as it is chosen, so the key grows in the order the decisions were made. Paste the supplier links into Intspec and let it fill the product columns from the pages. Take the areas off the plan, add the wastage for the pattern, round to packs. Print the tiler's key and read it once as the tiler would. If a row does not say the format, the joint and the pattern, it is not finished. Then print the room table and read it as the client. If they cannot tell what the hallway floor is from that one page, the key is right but the room table is missing.