A ready to use Excel daily report for recording weather, labour, plant, deliveries, delays and safety on one sheet, with a weekly summary that builds itself. Built by quantity surveyors.
A construction daily report is the single sheet a site manager fills in at the end of each shift to record what happened on site that day: weather and site conditions, labour and plant on site, subcontractor attendance, work done by location, deliveries received, delays encountered and any safety observations.
It is a narrower document than a full site diary. Where a site diary can run to photos, drawings and correspondence, the daily report is the one page summary a project manager or client can read in two minutes to know what happened.Most daily reports fail in one of two ways. Either they take so long to fill in that the site manager stops bothering by week three, or they get filled in so quickly that "clear, no issues" appears on a day it rained for six hours. This template is built to take under ten minutes a day and still hold up if a delay claim needs it eight months later.
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Weather and site conditions | The record a weather delay or ground conditions claim gets built on later |
| Labour by trade and subcontractor attendance | Shows who was actually on site, not who was supposed to be |
| Plant on site and utilisation | Flags idle plant and standing time before it becomes a dispute over standby charges |
| Work done by location | Ties progress to a specific area, not a vague "foundations ongoing" |
| Deliveries and delays | Captures the late delivery or access problem on the day it happened, not from memory |
| Safety observations and evidence references | Points at photos and other records without cluttering the daily sheet itself |
| Sign off | One name accountable for the entry, which matters if it is ever relied on in a dispute |
The Daily Report tab is where the site manager enters each day; the Dashboard tab pulls those entries into an automatic weekly summary so nobody has to re-key the same numbers into a report for the client on Friday afternoon. The How to use tab explains every column with a worked row.
The Excel file with weather, labour, plant, deliveries, delays and safety fields, plus an automatic weekly summary tab.
Download the template (.xlsx) Free download. No email needed. Yours to use and share with your team.On 14 July, heavy rain floods the excavation and groundworks stop from 9am until 1pm. The site manager logs it the same afternoon: conditions, hours lost, and which activity was affected. Two days later a rebar delivery arrives two hours late and gets logged the same way. Neither entry looks like much on its own. Together, across a week, they are the four hours of weather delay and the knock-on sequencing problem that turns into a programme conversation at the next progress meeting, backed by dated entries instead of someone's memory of "it rained a bit that week."
Compare that with a site that only records "site running as planned" for five days straight. When the programme slips and nobody can say why, there is nothing in the daily record to explain it.
A daily report is only useful if someone actually fills it in, every day, in enough detail to matter later. Most sites manage the first week and then drift back to one line summaries once the person doing it gets busy.
Gather's AI QS reads every daily record as it comes in and flags the events, delays and instructions that turn into money later, so the entitlement is captured while the evidence is still fresh.
See how the AI QS reads your site diaries A 30 minute call. No commitment. See if it fits how your team already works.FAQ
A daily report is a one page shift end summary: weather, labour, plant, deliveries, delays and safety in a fixed format. A site diary is the fuller record behind it, which can include photos, drawings, correspondence and narrative notes. Most contractors keep both, with the daily report as the quick summary and the diary as the detailed backup.
At minimum: date, weather and site conditions, labour on site by trade and subcontractor, plant on site, work done by location, deliveries received, delays encountered, safety observations, a reference to supporting evidence, and a sign off.
Under ten minutes for a straightforward day. Reports that take longer than that tend to stop being filled in properly within a few weeks, which is why this template keeps the fields short and structured rather than free text.
Yes. The template is built around one entry per day for the whole site, with a subcontractor attendance column, so one report covers everyone working that day rather than needing a separate sheet per trade.
Gather turns the daily record into a contract aligned commercial position automatically, as it comes in.
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