What is a cut list?

A bill of materials (BOM) often tracks what to buy: SKUs, vendors, rough lengths, hardware kits, and lump quantities. It is essential for purchasing and estimating, but it may not tell the saw operator where to set the fence on Tuesday morning.

A cut list specifies buildable numbers: finished length and width (for panels), finished length only (for sticks and bar stock), quantity per size, and which material batch each part comes from. Kerf belongs in the optimizer, not scribbled in the margin of a BOM line.

Many jobs need both documents. The BOM gets plywood onto the truck; the cut list tells you how to divide each sheet into sides, shelves, and backs with minimal scrap.

At minimum each line needs a part name, finished dimensions, quantity, and material reference. Names matter when similar sizes differ by role: left side vs right side, or upper stretcher vs lower stretcher.

Sheet cut lists add a second dimension (width) because panels are nested in two axes. Linear cut lists only need length because the stock is treated as one-dimensional bars or sticks.

Optional fields improve downstream work: grain direction on visible plywood, edge banding notes, room or elevation tags, and miter angles on trim (supported in Cutlistor dashboard projects on linear parts).

Framing crews think in linear cut lists: studs, plates, headers, blocking, and jack studs cut from 8 ft, 10 ft, or 12 ft bundles. The math is 1D: total inches of parts plus kerf compared to stick length purchased.

Finish carpentry adds long trim runs, crown miters, and casing lengths. Even when pieces look flat, the planning problem is still length nesting on purchased sticks unless you are machining sheet goods for built-up assemblies.

Roof and floor sheathing can be modeled as sheet cut lists: each rectangle is a panel patch or full sheet placement on OSB or plywood. Openings become explicit part sizes rather than vague field notes.

Cabinet shops typically run two parallel lists. Panel parts (sides, decks, shelves, backs, toe skins) live on a sheet cut list with grain and edge-band rules. Cleats, face frames, or hardwood edging may move to a linear list when bought as dimensional lumber.

Repeatability is the hidden value. A base cabinet line might always use the same side height with only width changing. Capturing those as rows with quantities lets optimizers reuse patterns job to job.

Cutlistor connects the list to layout: import or type parts, nest on real stock sizes, subtract kerf, and export PDF diagrams so assemblers see the same numbers the saw room used.

Consider a 610 mm wide × 720 mm tall base box in 18 mm melamine, stock 2750×1830 mm sheets. Finished parts might be: sides 720×610 qty 2, bottom 568×610 qty 1, shelf 568×610 qty 1, back 720×568 qty 1 (thinner back material if you track it separately).

Those five lines are the cut list. Purchasing might only say two sheets of white melamine 18 mm, but optimization might prove you only need one sheet plus a small offcut if nesting is tight and kerf is honest.

If the designer widens the cabinet to 760 mm, every 610 mm width becomes 760 mm. A spreadsheet or Cutlistor table update propagates to a new nested layout without redrawing by hand.

A cut list alone does not show where each rectangle sits on sheet two. That is the job of a cut list optimizer. Cutlistor provides free browser tools for sheet nesting and linear length nesting with PDF export.

Workflow: finalize finished sizes, choose stock SKU dimensions, set kerf, pick a layout method on sheets, review yield, export PDF. Saved projects on paid plans keep stock libraries and larger jobs organized.

If you are starting from Excel, use the column templates in the cut list template guide and import CSV or XLSX rather than retyping dozens of rows.