Two of those five carry most of the risk. The width question is not pedantic: a cloth sold at 150 cm billed width that cuts at 146 cm costs more per cut metre than the quote suggests, and the gap grows with every panel. The measuring convention is dealt with in defining usable width before weaving<\/a>, and the weight conventions in shipped and conditioned weight<\/a>. Read together, they are the difference between a quote and a contract.<\/p>\n Ask for the weight, the width and the length basis as three separate numbers. The weight should be the finished weight, because finishing adds mass to a wool cloth: dyeing, milling and pressing all change what a square metre weighs, and a quote built on the greige weight quietly understates the invoice. The width should be stated as both billed and usable. The length basis should say whether the metres were measured on the beam under tension or off the loom after relaxation, because a cloth that was measured tight will deliver more length than it was billed for, and one measured slack will deliver less.<\/p>\n Three more items usually go unstated, and each one ends up in the invoice. Over-delivery: a mill that ships a few per cent above the ordered quantity and charges for it has raised your spend without raising your price. Packing: cores, bags and pallets have weight, and whether they are inside the invoiced kilograms is a line, not a rounding. Rate validity: whether the kilogram rate is fixed at order or recalculated at shipment, which matters on any cloth whose fibre price moves between the two. That last point is the subject of quote validity and wool price movement<\/a>, and it is the one that turns a percentage into an argument.<\/p>\n If the quote lists a single blended figure and none of these, it is not yet a basis for comparison. The conversion that has to happen first is set out in converting a one-line weaving and finishing quote<\/a>.<\/p>\n At arrival, the check is physical and takes an hour. Take three rolls from different parts of the shipment, not the three on top. Weigh each one without its packing, read its roll ticket, and measure its length if the ticket is not trustworthy. Divide the net weight by the measured length and you have the actual kilograms per running metre. Compare that with the nominal figure the quote assumed.<\/p>\n The scale is not a neutral instrument in this argument, which is why both sides should agree what it is measuring. Commercial weighing equipment is regulated, and the tolerances that apply to it are published in NIST Handbook 44<\/a>, so \u201cyour scale reads light\u201d is a question with a documented answer rather than an opinion.<\/p>\n This is where most buyers look at the wrong number. If the delivered length is short but the weight per metre is on nominal, your total spend falls and your cost per cut metre has not moved: you simply have fewer metres. If the delivered length is exactly right but each metre weighs more than nominal, every metre has become more expensive, and the invoice total may have moved only a little. When the invoice is weight-based, short length is not the risk. Weight per metre is.<\/p>\n Ranked by how often they are the actual cause, and by how much of the gap they usually explain:<\/p>\n Only the first of those is a genuine quality decision, and it is worth having deliberately. The other four are bookkeeping, and bookkeeping is what a clause is for.<\/p>\n When one party controls both measures, the fair default is that the buyer pays the lesser of the two: the invoiced kilograms at the agreed rate, or the delivered metres at the agreed metre price. That single sentence removes the incentive to let the cloth get heavier at the finishing stage, and it costs a mill nothing if its own numbers are right.<\/p>\n Five lines carry it:<\/p>\n Five lines, one paragraph, and the conversion stops being a surprise. It also gives the mill a reason to state its finished weight honestly at quotation, because the clause only binds if the nominal figure was written down.<\/p>\n Do the arithmetic before you do the complaining, and do it in three steps. First, recompute the actual weight per running metre from the roll tickets and the scale, and compare it with the nominal figure the quote assumed. Second, isolate the cause: if the cloth is heavier, ask whether the finished weight changed and by how much; if the weight is on nominal and only the kilograms are up, look at packing and moisture before anything else. Third, choose between three outcomes rather than two: accept the invoice and note the drift for the next order, ask for a credit on the difference between nominal and actual weight, or hold the balance pending a retest.<\/p>\n The evidence you need for the second step is the same set that decides an acceptance discussion on weight, which is covered in naming the method before you accept a roll weight<\/a>. Where the shortage comes from roll ends and joins rather than from weight, the place to look is the splice rule in joins inside a roll<\/a>.<\/p>\n One caution on timing. A claim made after the cloth is cut is a claim about a shipment nobody can re-measure, so the three rolls get weighed and the two lengths get checked in the week the goods arrive, not the week the invoice falls due.<\/p>\n Set the quoted price per metre at an index of 100 and carry the actual figures alongside. The example below uses a 320 g\/m cloth at 1.50 m, a hundred metres ordered, and an invoice showing a finished weight three per cent above nominal with a delivered length two per cent short. The numbers are an illustration of the arithmetic, not a claim about any mill\u2019s delivery.<\/p>\n The invoice total moved by one per cent. The cost per metre you can cut moved by three. That gap is the whole reason this reconciliation exists, and it is invisible if you only ever compare totals.<\/p>\n Run the five lines on every shipment, not only the first. Finishing settings drift across a production run, so the weight per metre that was true in the first hundred metres is not automatically true in the fourth. A buyer who reconciles by ratio sees the drift in the month it happens; a buyer who reconciles by total sees it at the end of the season, in the margin, with nothing left to claim.<\/p>\n The habit is small. One sheet per shipment, five lines, one number to watch. Quote, weigh, divide, and pay on the lesser of the two measures.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read the quote as an index, not a price<\/h2>\n
The three numbers to extract from the mill<\/h3>\n
What the quotation is silent about<\/h3>\n
Weigh three rolls, measure two<\/h2>\n
![\"Rolls](\"https:\/\/fursone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/tweed-fabric-roll-comparison-100m-1000m-overview-scaled.webp\")
<\/p>\nWhere the jump comes from, in order<\/h2>\n
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The lesser-of rule, and five lines for the order<\/h2>\n
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When the invoice has already jumped<\/h2>\n
Reconciling a shipment: five lines<\/h2>\n
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\n \nLine<\/th>\n Nominal basis<\/th>\n Actual<\/th>\n Index<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Price per running metre as quoted<\/td>\n 100.0<\/td>\n 100.0<\/td>\n 100.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Weight per running metre<\/td>\n 0.480 kg<\/td>\n 0.495 kg<\/td>\n 103.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Metres delivered and billed<\/td>\n 100.0 m<\/td>\n 98.0 m<\/td>\n 98.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Invoice amount at the fixed kilogram rate<\/td>\n 100.0<\/td>\n 101.1<\/td>\n 101.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Cost per delivered metre<\/td>\n 100.0<\/td>\n 101.1 over 98 metres<\/td>\n 103.2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n