What makes a tear sheet worth sending
We've been on the receiving end of a few thousand of these. The useful ones and the useless ones differ in about six fields. A tear sheet that lands well tells the client what the piece is, what it looks like, and what it costs — and tells the supplier enough to put a real number against it the same day.
From our side of the table, the price-blocking fields are always the same four. Quantity, because pricing moves at volume breaks and a chair at six is not a chair at sixty. Dimensions, because they tell us the frame class and they tell freight how many fit on a truck. Finish and COM— wood finish, metal finish, and the fabric yardage per piece if you're supplying your own, because COM changes both the cost and the clock. And a photo, because a photo settles in two seconds what a paragraph argues about for a week. Leave those four off and any quote you get back is a guess with a number attached.
Be honest about what the document is, though. A tear sheet is a communication piece — it moves an idea from your head to a client's desk and from a client's desk to a supplier's inbox. It is not a purchase order, it doesn't lock a price, and it doesn't hold a lead time. Prices move, fabrics get discontinued, and a twelve-week lead time quoted in March is a different number in September. Put a date on it — this tool does that for you — and re-confirm before anyone signs.
One page per item is deliberate. Designers try to save paper by stacking four pieces on a sheet, and then the client approves “the page” instead of the chair, and nobody can tell later what was actually signed off. One item, one page, one decision. When the room is done, the whole set binds into a spec book you can hand over in a single file.
If you're working the other direction — pricing and quantities first, presentation later — the FF&E schedule builder handles the schedule side, and these two are meant to be used together: schedule for the numbers, tear sheets for the story. When you're ready for real pricing, send the book to our quote deskand we'll work through it line by line.