Free Construction Daily Log Template

A construction daily log template gives the foreman one page to record the day on site: who was there and for how long, what got built, what was delivered, what held the work up and who asked for what. Nobody likes filling it in. It is also the first thing you look for when a customer disputes an extra, or a sub bills for three days you never saw them. This one is free, prints across one landscape page and adds up the crew hours by itself in Excel.

When you need a daily report

Write one for every day the site is active on any job with extras, more than one trade, an owner who is not there to see the work, or a schedule that could slip. Those are the jobs where a dated daily report settles arguments months later. For a one-day repair at a homeowner's house, a few photos and a clear line on the invoice are usually enough.

What's in the template

• Header. Company, project or job, date, site address, prepared by, report number, weather for the morning and the afternoon, temperature and site conditions.
• Crew on site, 14 rows. Company or trade, foreman or worker, number of workers, hours each, total hours, area or location, and work performed today. Total hours is workers times hours each, and a "Total on site" line adds up the headcount and the hours.
• Equipment, 4 rows. Machine, unit number or rental company, hours used, whether it was working, idle or down, and notes, with a total of equipment hours.
• Deliveries, 3 rows. Supplier, packing slip number, who received it, and what arrived, what was short or damaged.
• Six written sections. Delays, problems and extra work; instructions received on site; visitors and inspections; safety (incidents, near misses, toolbox talk topic); plan and needs for tomorrow; photos taken.
• Sign-off. Foreman signature and office review, each with a date.

Crew hours, the headcount and the equipment total add up in the Excel file. The CSV is for printing a blank copy.

How to fill it in so it holds up

1. Write it before you leave the site. A log written on Friday for Tuesday is a reconstruction, and anyone reading it later can tell.
2. One row per group with the same hours. Total hours is workers times hours each. If three electricians stayed eight hours and a fourth left at noon, use two rows, or the total is wrong and you can't check the sub's invoice against it.
3. Write delays as facts with times. "Concrete booked for 7:30, truck arrived 10:40, crew of 4 waiting 3 hours" can be priced. "Concrete late" can't.
4. Put a name and a time on every instruction. "Owner asked to move the kitchen window 300 mm left, 2:15 p.m." Most fights over extras come down to who asked and when. Then write it up on a change order before the work is done.
5. Check deliveries against the packing slip. Write the slip number and the shortage the same day. A dated note gets a credit faster than a phone call a week later.
6. Count the photos and say what they show. "14 photos: footing rebar before inspection" tells the reader there is proof and where to look for it.

What to keep on file

File the signed log in the job folder with that day's photos and delivery slips. Number the reports in order so a missing day stands out. Keep them at least until the job is closed, paid and past any warranty or claim period. How long you must keep site records depends on your province and your contracts, so check your province's rules and ask your accountant.

Where paper and Excel run out

On one site with one foreman who does the paperwork, this sheet works. It breaks down as you add crews. Sheets ride in the truck until someone drives them to the office. The hours on the log never quite match the timesheet, because they were written twice. The photos sit on a phone and the log only says "14 photos".

The daily report in JobSnap does this job on the phone. Whoever ran the job answers three short questions: what got done, what caused delays or extra work, and what is needed for tomorrow. You can change those questions and add your own fields, for example deliveries or visitors. The report records the day's weather and can show the crew's labour hours and equipment hours for that job, pulled from the timesheet, so the crew table is not typed twice. Set a due time, choose who gets the daily summary by email, and photos taken with the jobsite camera are already filed under the same job and date.

Staying on paper? File this log with the free timesheet template.