A cabinet quotation should be reviewed as a project specification, not only as a total price. For overseas cabinetry projects, the quote in front of you, the drawings and the material schedule all have to refer to the same project, at the same revision, before the numbers in it mean anything. This guide shows overseas project buyers — importers, dealers, contractors and developers — how to review one imported custom cabinet quote line by line, and what to send back before approving it for production.
This guide reviews one quotation against the approved project information. It is not a comparison of competing suppliers. If you are still preparing to request pricing, start with what to prepare before requesting pricing; if two quotes differ and you want to understand why, see what affects custom cabinet prices. This page is about the document itself.
Before reading a single price line, confirm the three documents agree with each other. Check that the quotation is based on the correct room layouts, dimensions and drawing revision — and that the revision it names is the latest one you issued. A quote priced against a superseded drawing is not a bargain or an error; it is a quote for a different scope.
Only when the three documents describe the same project does a line-by-line review become meaningful.
Work down the material lines and test each one the same way: does it name a specification, or only an adjective? Review cabinet materials, door systems, surface finishes, countertops, glass, aluminium and other selected specifications on a like-for-like basis against the material schedule.
Any line you cannot match to the material schedule goes back as a question, in writing, before approval. For how material specifications are normally structured, see Materials & Specifications.
Hardware lines fail quietly: the total can look complete while the specification stays open. Confirm what hardware and accessories are included, which items are optional, and whether any brand or performance requirement has been agreed for the project.
This step is bookkeeping, not price comparison: you are checking whether the document is internally consistent, inside this one quote.
Review only what the document itself states — this step is about completeness, not about negotiating terms. A term that is not written in the quote or its attachments is a term that has not been agreed.
| Responsibility | What the Quote Should State |
|---|---|
| Packing | The packing level or standard, or that packing is priced separately |
| Delivery | A named trade term and place, or factory-gate collection |
| Installation | Included, guidance only, or excluded — stated, not implied |
| Appliances | Supplied, installed, or neither |
| Site work | Which preparation is the buyer's responsibility |
| After-sales contact | A named contact or process for questions after delivery |
See how a factory documents its capability: CACAR Manufacturing Capability — production, engineering and QC as we present them to project buyers.
Certain phrases appear in quotes precisely because they cannot be checked. Each one is a question to send back before approval:
| Quote Wording | Ask Instead |
|---|---|
| "Premium hardware" | Which brand and model series, on which units? |
| "Eco-friendly board" | What type of board is used, and what standard does it meet? |
| "Complete package" | Which items are included, and which are excluded? |
| "Delivered price" | Delivered to where, under which trade term? |
| "Standard finish" | Which finish, confirmed against which physical sample? |
| "All accessories included" | Listed where? Please itemise them. |
A review only protects the project if its outcome is written into the documents. Send every question in writing and ask for a revised quote — a new revision, dated, that supersedes the previous one — rather than accepting verbal corrections across separate messages.
Before production, the approved quotation should be coordinated with the latest drawings, material selections and commercial terms, and approved as one set: quote revision, drawing revision, material schedule and approved samples, all referring to each other. After that freeze, any change — a drawing update, a material substitution, an added unit — creates a new revision of the affected documents, priced and approved before it is produced, not reconciled afterwards.
If the review leaves you with two revised quotes to choose between, the comparison method is in what affects custom cabinet prices — this guide ends where that comparison begins. Once a quote is approved, the order moves into the import sequence itself — how to import kitchen cabinets from China, step by step — which covers supplier verification, sample approval, production checks and delivery.
For a clearer project review, CACAR recommends cross-checking quotations against the same drawings, specifications and responsibility matrix rather than approving the headline price alone — and that is how we prepare our own quotations: the drawing revision is named on the quote, materials and hardware are specified by name and model, inclusions and exclusions are stated, and revisions are re-issued in writing. Judge our documents with the same checks above; a quotation that survives them is one a project can be built on.
Have a cabinet quote you would like reviewed against your drawings? Contact us — send the quote with the current drawings and material schedule, and we will work through it in writing.
Official and industry references
CACAR first-party resources
The basis, before the numbers: confirm the quote names the current drawing revision and that the drawings, material schedule and quote all describe the same project. Lines priced against a superseded drawing cannot be reviewed meaningfully until the basis is aligned.
Not yet. A total built on vague lines cannot be verified, and the vagueness is where scope gaps hide. Send the vague lines back — "premium hardware", "complete package", "delivered price" — and ask for the specification, the inclusion list and the named delivery term in writing first.
Inside the one document: trace quantities back to the current drawings, confirm each unit is defined, multiply unit prices by quantities to test the subtotals, and add the subtotals to test the total. Then read the quote against the drawings once more for duplicates and for units that never made it into the quote at all.
Silence is not inclusion. If a responsibility is not stated in the quote or its attachments, treat it as unconfirmed and get it written in — included, excluded, or priced separately — before approval, whichever the project requires.
The approved set no longer matches. The change should produce a revised quote (and revised drawings and schedule) with its own revision, priced and approved in writing before production — not absorbed informally and argued about at delivery.
The approved set should be consistent: quote, drawings, material schedule and approved samples referring to each other. Approving a quote whose finishes are named against samples nobody has signed off leaves the most visible part of the project unverified.
