Who runs the FF&E list while you run the project?

On most residential and boutique-hospitality projects, the furniture is the design. And the procurement leg — quotes, freight, customs paperwork, factory follow-ups, damage claims — is where unbilled designer hours go to die. Not because designers can't do it. Because every hour on a PO is an hour not on the drawing.

Where the hours actually go

Count them across a typical three-month install window: chasing freight quotes and comparing them line by line; decoding landed-cost math your client will ask about anyway; emailing factories about finish samples; re-confirming lead times when one slips; receiving, inspecting, and filing the damage claim on the piece that arrived wrong. None of it shows up on your invoice. All of it shows up in your margin.

What a rail changes

A workshop-direct procurement rail means you spec the room and sign one plan; everything after the signature has an owner who isn't you. One purchase order across the workshops named on that plan. Supplier price visible on every line plus a flat 20% service fee — so you can show your client the entire cost structure without hiding anything, and your markup conversation stays yours.

The pieces that break projects are logistics, not taste: the freight leg, the customs leg, the claim on the damaged crate. Those are exactly the parts that move in-house when someone else owns the rail. Your name stays on the invoice; the factory relationship stays with us.

The honest test

Send us the FF&E list from a live project. We come back inside one business day with workshop names, per-item landed cost, and a delivery window — free, no meeting attached. If the numbers don't beat what your current back office produces, keep your current process with our compliments. If they do, you just bought back a slice of your quarter.

DAF charges a flat 20% on aggregate landed cost — supplier price, freight, duty, inspection, delivery — itemized on every plan. Install labour is billed at cost and carries no fee.