Revise and Resubmit: What Should a Sub Do Next?

A submittal is returned with one of a few actions. The federal guide specification is a clear public model: "approved" lets you proceed; "approved as noted" lets you proceed "provided that the Contractor takes no exception to the corrections"; and "not approved," "disapproved," or "revise and resubmit" mean the submittal is incomplete or does not comply, so you "resubmit with appropriate changes" and do not proceed with the work "until the resubmittal is approved" (UFGS 01 33 00, §1.12.1). Your project's stamp may use other words; read its legend.

For how the first one should have been put together, see how to prepare a submittal; for the reviewer's side, how to review a submittal. Where submittals sit in a sub's whole job: the subcontractor's guide and the project lifecycle.

1. Read the whole returned package: the architect's or engineer's comments, the GC's comments and any marks on the drawings.
2. List every comment, numbered, in one place. Call the reviewer about any you do not understand before you redraw.
3. Fix each one in the shop drawings or product data. Cloud the changes on drawings and mark the changed pages of product data.
4. Write a one-page response: each comment, then what you changed and where, or why you did not.
5. Check that the fix does not break something else: dimensions, other trades' work, the schedule.
6. Send it back through the GC as the next revision of the same submittal, with the response on top.
7. Track the new review clock. The return date resets when you resubmit.

The time is usually yours. UFGS 01 33 00 makes the contractor responsible "for additional time required for Government reviews resulting from required resubmittals" and gives each resubmittal the same review period as the first (UFGS 01 33 00, §1.11). On a job with a two-week review period, every extra round adds at least two weeks, so the second round is where to be thorough.

Sometimes a reviewer's comment asks for something the contract documents did not: a heavier gauge, a different finish, an added component. Do not quietly absorb it. The federal model has the contractor give notice under the changes clause if it considers a correction on a returned submittal to be a change to the contract drawings or specifications (UFGS 01 33 00, §1.13). Put the same flag in your response letter and send the GC a change order request before you build it.

The reverse also holds: if your resubmittal deviates from the documents, say so in writing. The federal shop drawing clause has the contractor describe variations "in writing, separate from the drawings, at the time of submission", and says approval does not relieve the contractor "from responsibility for any errors or omissions in such drawings" (FAR 52.236-21).

The sub is fictional: a glazing contractor on a retail building. Its storefront shop drawings come back revise and resubmit with four comments. Its response letter is below.

Every comment has an answer, the changes are clouded so the reviewer can find them in minutes, and the one comment that adds cost is flagged with its own change order request rather than buried.

In Conflo's submittals tool, the GC returns a reviewed submittal to the sub who prepared it, with each reviewer's decision and comments. When the outcome is revise and resubmit, the sub or the GC's manager starts the next revision: a new draft under the same submittal number, its revision number one higher, linked to the one before, with the same reviewers ready for the new round.

When it is sent again, a new review clock starts, and the log shows whose court the ball is in. A subcontractor sees only its own company's submittals. Conflo is free for subcontractors and suppliers.

Revise and resubmit is a stop, not a suggestion. List every comment, fix and mark each one, answer them in a short letter, and resubmit as the next revision under the same number.

Flag any comment that changes your scope before you build it, and get the second round right so there is no third.

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1. UFGS 01 33 00 Submittal Procedures (August 2026), §1.11, §1.12.1 and §1.13 — Whole Building Design Guide, USACE / NAVFAC / AFCEC. Read October 22, 2026.
2. FAR 52.236-21, Specifications and Drawings for Construction — Acquisition.gov, U.S. General Services Administration. Read October 22, 2026.