The Commercial Lighting Procurement Checklist I Use Before Every Sign-Off

Who this checklist is for

If you're the person who gets forwarded the phrase "can you just order some lights for the new space?"—this is for you. I'm an office administrator for a 180-person company. I manage facilities and office supply ordering across three locations, roughly $310,000 annually across nine vendors. Lighting falls under my desk, along with everything else nobody else wants to own.

I've placed enough commercial lighting orders—and eaten enough rework—to have a checklist now. Below are the six things I verify before I sign off on any order. It takes about 20 minutes. It has saved me from at least three costly mistakes.

Step 1: Confirm what driver the fixture actually ships with

Most buyers focus on the fixture itself—the chandelier light, the recessed can, the product spotlight—and completely miss the driver. This is the piece that will bite you.

Here's what I had to learn the hard way: the driver is the power supply that converts AC line voltage to the low DC voltage an LED actually needs. There are two broad types—constant voltage and constant current. You don't need to be an electrical engineer, but you do need to know which one your fixture requires, because they are not interchangeable.

"How does a constant current LED driver work" is the question I now ask every rep. Constant current drivers regulate the current to a fixed value (say 350mA or 700mA) and let the voltage float. Constant voltage drivers hold the voltage steady (12V or 24V) and let the current vary. If you put the wrong driver on an LED fixture, you either underdrive it—dim, flickering, disappointing—or overdrive it and cook the diode.

On our 2023 conference room project, the spec called for a 0-10V dimmable fixture. The GE commercial lighting distributor shipped the right fixture. But the driver that arrived was a fixed-output constant current model with no dimming leads. Nobody caught it until the electrician was on site. That mistake cost us three weeks and a restocking fee.

So now, step one is simple: read the cut sheet. Find the driver line item. Confirm the driver model matches the dimming protocol you specified. If the rep says "it's compatible," ask for the datasheet page number.

Step 2: Verify the lumen output at the fixture, not the source

The question everyone asks is "how many watts?" The question they should ask is "how many delivered lumens, and what's the beam angle?"

I don't care about the LED chip's raw output on a test bench. I care about what's coming out of the fixture after the lens, the reflector, and the driver efficiency losses. A fixture rated at 3,000 lumens might deliver 2,100 in the real world. That difference matters in a warehouse aisle or a parking lot.

For our product spotlight installations in the showroom, we learned to ask for the IES file. That's the photometric data file. It tells you exactly how the light distributes. Not every vendor will hand it over cheerfully. The good ones will.

Step 3: Check the control ecosystem—before you buy fixtures

Here's the one most people skip: how are you going to control these lights?

We use a Zigbee-based control layer in two of our buildings, and I've learned that "Zigbee compatible" is a meaningless phrase without the details. Zigbee is a protocol. It has profiles, versions, and vendor-specific quirks. A fixture can be Zigbee-certified and still not play nicely with your gateway, your occupancy sensors, or your scene controller.

I now keep a short list of questions I send to any vendor selling smart or connected lighting:

• Which Zigbee profile and version does this fixture support?
• Does it require a proprietary gateway, or will it join an open coordinator?
• Is there a firmware update path, and who owns it?
• What happens if the gateway fails—do the lights default to on, off, or last state?

The last question has saved us twice. Some fixtures default to "off" on network loss, which is fine in a parking lot and catastrophic in a stairwell.

Step 4: For decorative fixtures, verify the mounting and the weight

A chandelier light is not a recessed can. It's a heavy, awkward, sometimes fragile object that needs structural support, the right ceiling height, and a lot of patience from whoever installs it.

Before you order a decorative fixture—for a lobby, a boardroom, a reception area—get three things in writing:

1. Net weight and the recommended mounting hardware. A 40-pound fixture hung from a standard 4-inch octagon box is a problem waiting to happen.
2. Minimum ceiling height and the fixture's total drop. I once ordered a fixture that would have put the bottom edge at 6'4" in a room where people stand 6'2". Close call.
3. Assembly requirements. Some chandeliers ship in 60 pieces with cryptic instructions. Ask if white-glove installation is included or available.

Step 5: Don't forget the camera and exterior layer

This is the step that surprises people. Facility lighting orders often fold in security and exterior hardware—sometimes as a bundled request from operations, sometimes because you're already dealing with the electrical contractor.

If you're pricing a wireless smart outdoor camera to pair with your exterior lighting, verify the power source and the wireless backhaul before you buy. "Wireless" usually means wireless data, not wireless power. Those cameras still need a power source, whether that's a nearby junction box, a PoE injector, or a battery that someone has to climb a ladder to change.

We made this mistake in 2021—ordered a suite of cameras assuming they'd run on battery. Half of them were hardwired-only. The project took an extra month and a change order. Now I read the power section of the datasheet first. Every time.

Step 6: Confirm lead time and the return policy in writing

Listed lead times are aspirational. Actual lead times are a negotiation. I always do two things before I approve a lighting order:

First, I get the lead time confirmed in writing, with a specific ship date—not "2-4 weeks ARO." That phrase means nothing when your electrician is standing around waiting.

Second, I confirm the return window and restocking fee. Custom-configured fixtures often aren't returnable at all. If the spec is off by 5%, you own it. Knowing that before the PO goes out changes the conversation.

What I'd tell someone doing this for the first time

Look, the checklist above is not glamorous. It's six boring questions. But boring questions are cheaper than change orders.

One last thing—and this is the part I wish someone had told me earlier. The best lighting vendor I work with is the one who told me, plainly, "We're not the right fit for your decorative lobby fixture. Let me point you to a specialist." That admission bought my trust for everything else. A vendor who claims to do everything well is usually doing several things poorly.

Use the checklist. Ask the boring questions. And when a rep volunteers a limitation before you find it yourself, remember that.