Send a China sourcing agent and sourcing partner your Bill of Quantities or drawings along with three things: destination port, project timeline, and any material or compliance standards that apply. From there, a competent agent breaks the BOQ into product categories, matches each to a shortlist of factories, and returns a structured quotation for a standard project package. FBM Sourcing runs this document-to-order work as a dedicated BOQ & drawing takeoff service within the wider procurement package.
What Should Be in the Package You Send?
A BOQ or drawing set does not need to be a finished construction document to be useful — but it does need enough detail for a factory to price accurately. At minimum, include:
- Quantities by item or room (rooms, units, or linear/square metres for materials)
- Specifications — dimensions, materials, finishes, or reference photos where a formal spec doesn’t exist yet
- Destination port and delivery address
- Timeline — when goods need to be on site, not just when you’d like a quote
- Compliance standards that apply in your market (fire rating, AS/NZS, NFRC, CE, etc.)
Photos, Pinterest boards or a competitor’s product page are useful supplements but are not a substitute for quantities — a sourcing agent cannot price “furniture for 40 rooms” without knowing what furniture and to what standard.
Does the BOQ Need to Be in a Specific Format?
No. PDF drawings, an Excel BOQ, a architect’s schedule, or even a written room-by-room list are all workable starting points. What matters is that quantities and specifications are attached to identifiable line items so a factory can price line by line rather than guessing at scope. A furniture sourcing agent or building materials agent will typically convert whatever you send into a standardised purchase schedule before it goes out to factories, so the input format matters less than the completeness of the information.
Sourcing this for a commercial project?
FBM Sourcing works with project owners, developers, main contractors and FF&E contractors on hotel, apartment, school, office and other commercial building projects. Send us your BOQ, drawings or product list — our team will review it and get back to you.
What Happens After You Submit a BOQ?
Once a BOQ or drawing package is submitted, the process generally runs as follows: the agent reviews it and flags any missing information; line items are grouped by product category and matched to factories with relevant export experience; factories return pricing and lead times, which the agent consolidates into one structured quotation; and the buyer receives a single document covering pricing, lead time, MOQ by category, and any specification questions that need answering before an order can be placed.
Common Follow-Up Questions
Expect the agent to come back with clarifying questions on ambiguous line items — a common gap is finish or grade not being specified (e.g. “oak veneer” without a grade, or “marble” without a stone type). Answering these promptly is usually what determines whether a quotation comes back in 3 days or 10.
What If the Project Doesn’t Have a Finished BOQ Yet?
Early-stage projects can still get useful budget pricing from a rough scope — approximate room counts, a general product list, and a target quality tier. This won’t be a final quotation, but it gives a defensible budget number for planning purposes, and it lets the sourcing agent flag any specification or compliance issues early, before drawings are finalised and changes become expensive.
How a China Sourcing Agent Turns a BOQ into Line-Item Factory Quotations
A BOQ is only useful to a factory once it has been split by manufacturing cluster and re-stated in factory language: dimensions, materials, finish codes, quantities per line and the standard the item must meet in the destination country. FBM Sourcing manages the entire China procurement package for overseas construction projects, and the BOQ-to-quotation workflow below is the first stage of that package.
| Stage | What happens to your BOQ | What you receive |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Line-item review | Every BOQ line is checked for the four things a factory needs to price it: dimensions, material/finish, quantity and applicable standard (fire, glazing, formaldehyde, electrical). Missing data is flagged back to you as a query list rather than guessed. | A clarification list keyed to your BOQ item codes |
| 2. Category split | Lines are grouped by manufacturing cluster: tiles and sanitary ware, aluminium windows and doors, cabinetry and joinery, loose furniture, lighting, stone. One BOQ typically maps to 5-10 factory groups. | A category matrix showing which lines go to which factory group |
| 3. Factory shortlist and RFQ | Each group is sent to a shortlist of factories in Foshan/Guangzhou as a like-for-like RFQ, with your drawings and the standards attached, so quotes come back on identical scope. | Comparable factory quotations per line, same units and same spec |
| 4. Line-item quotation | Factory prices are re-stated against your original BOQ line numbers with the FBM Sourcing service fee (5%); the quotation is issued under FBM Sourcing’s own name. | A quotation that reads row-for-row against your BOQ |
| 5. Sample and shop-drawing loop | Custom lines (joinery, doors, windows, headboards) go through shop drawings and physical samples before bulk order; catalogue lines go through control samples. | Approved samples and signed shop drawings tied to BOQ lines |
| 6. Consolidated order and container plan | Approved lines are placed as factory orders, inspected by our own team before shipment, and consolidated into a container programme sequenced to your site schedule. | One order register, one inspection record set, one shipping plan |
If the project does not yet have a formal BOQ, the FBM Sourcing commercial project RFQ template gives the same line structure, and what an RFQ package needs for an accurate factory quote explains each field. For how the fee is structured, see what a China sourcing agent fee covers.
The Full Chain: From BOQ to Factory Production Orders
The six-stage workflow above ends at a quotation you can audit — but on a real project the quotation is only the midpoint. What happens between your tender document and the first factory production order decides whether the goods that arrive match the document you started from. That chain runs through five distinct pieces of work, each with its own failure modes; this article is the hub for the series, and the BOQ & drawing takeoff service page describes how FBM Sourcing runs the whole chain as one program.
1. Splitting the BOQ into factory-level RFQs
Chinese factories are specialized by narrow product category — the factory that extrudes and assembles aluminum windows has nothing to do with the one that presses ceramic tiles. One BOQ therefore becomes separate RFQ packages for windows, doors, cabinets, tiles, sanitaryware, lighting and furniture, each restated in the language of that factory type. A BOQ emailed whole to any single supplier gets partial answers and hidden re-trading. The full breakdown is in how a sourcing agent splits your BOQ into factory-level RFQs.
2. Window and door drawing takeoff: from schedule to order sheet
Door and window schedules are the highest-risk takeoff in the package: every opening has a size, handing, glass build-up, hardware set and compliance requirement, and a single transposed dimension becomes a non-compliant or unusable unit at site. The takeoff converts the schedule, elevation by elevation, into a factory order sheet with confirmed opening sizes and glazing specifications. The step-by-step version is in window and door drawing takeoff: from schedule to order sheet.
3. What a BOQ-based quotation actually includes — and excludes
A quotation mapped to your BOQ numbering shows one firm price per line for products we source, and a 5% commission for suppliers you nominate. Just as important is the exclusion list: destination customs clearance, site storage, delivery into the building and installation are outside the package unless separately agreed — knowing that before you compare quotations prevents false savings. The full breakdown is in what a BOQ-based quotation from China actually includes and excludes.
4. Shop drawings vs design drawings: what factories actually need
Design drawings communicate intent; factories manufacture from shop drawings. For custom millwork, joinery, doors and windows, the factory produces its own shop drawings against your design set, and the approval loop on those drawings — not the original design file — is what fixes dimensions, materials and finishes for production. The full breakdown is in shop drawings vs design drawings: what Chinese factories need.
5. The mistakes to catch before your BOQ leaves your office
The costly errors are predictable: mixed metric and imperial units, quantities carried from a superseded revision, finishes named by brand code with no physical reference, missing destination standards, and no stated delivery sequence. Each one is cheap to fix during takeoff and expensive to fix after deposit. The full list is in 5 mistakes to avoid before sending your BOQ to China.
Get a China Procurement Quote for Your Project
Send your drawings or BOQ, quantities, destination port and timeline, and our team will review your requirements and get back to you. Submit your project requirements to get started.
Related reading
- Window Hardware and Hinge QC: What to Check Before Container Loading
- Reception Desk Manufacturer China: Custom Reception Desk Manufacturing in China: Materials, Millwork and Lead Times
- Project Procurement Case Study Guide for Construction Project Buyers
The fastest way to start is our dedicated intake page: send us your BOQ or drawings for a line-by-line China procurement quotation.
