Site Diary Template for Subcontractors
By Cal Crane — founder, TradeControl; Operations Manager, Barzen Projects
A site diary is a daily written record of what happened on site: who was there, what work was done, the conditions, and anything that affected progress. Entries made on the day are contemporaneous evidence. In a dispute over delay or disruption, a diary kept daily carries far more weight than a record reconstructed later.
What to record every day
The template covers the fields that end up mattering when a job goes to argument. Fill in every section, every working day — a diary with gaps is a diary that gets questioned:
- Date
- Weather and site conditions
- Crew on site — names, trades and hours
- Work performed, broken down by area
- Delays and their causes
- Instructions received — who gave them, what was said, and when
- Visitors to site
- Deliveries
- Photos taken
- Issues raised
The record made on the day is the one that holds
When a delay claim or disruption argument surfaces, it is usually months after the days in question. Nobody remembers which trade held which area on a Tuesday in March — unless someone wrote it down that Tuesday. A daily diary entry records events before anyone knows they will be contested, which is exactly what gives it weight.
Pair the diary with photos. A dated entry that says an area was inaccessible, next to a photo of the blocked area taken the same day, is a far stronger record than either on its own.
How TradeControl covers this
TradeControl's Site Issues module captures the events a diary exists for — delays, instructions, access problems — from a phone on site, timestamped and photographed as they happen, stored against the job. Day Dockets handle the labour and materials side on the same phone. See the full feature set.
Related
- Day labour docket template — for work outside your contracted scope
- How we run this at Barzen Projects
TradeControl provides commercial support tools only. It does not provide legal advice.