Daily Site Report / Site Diary Template
A complete daily site diary — weather, labour, plant, work done, delays and safety — in a format that stands up as a contemporaneous record.
Download free (.docx)The daily diary is your contemporaneous record. Done consistently, it's the difference between winning and losing a delay or variation claim. This template captures everything a site manager should log each day.
What it covers
Project & Date
- Project name and number
- Date and day
- Prepared by
- Weather (AM / PM) and temperature
- Ground conditions
Labour on Site
- Company / trade
- Number of workers
- Hours worked
- Area / activity
Plant & Equipment
- Item
- Supplier
- Hours used / idle
- Breakdowns or issues
Work Completed Today
- Activity and location
- Approximate quantity / progress
- Reference to programme activity
Delays & Disruptions
- Description of delay
- Cause (weather, RFI, variation, access, other)
- Activities affected
- Estimated time lost
Safety & Environment
- Toolbox talk / prestart held (Y/N, topic)
- Incidents, near misses or hazards
- Inspections undertaken
- Environmental events
Visitors & Deliveries
- Visitors to site
- Deliveries received
- Inspections by authorities / consultants
Notes & Instructions
- Verbal instructions received (record who, what, when — confirm in writing)
- Issues to escalate
How to use it
- Fill it in the same day, every day — a diary written a week later carries little evidentiary weight.
- Always record delays and their cause, even minor ones; patterns substantiate EOT claims.
- Note verbal instructions and confirm them in writing — undocumented directions are a common dispute.
Frequently asked
What should a daily site report include?
Weather and ground conditions, labour and plant on site, work completed against programme, any delays and their cause, safety activities and incidents, visitors and deliveries, and instructions received. Consistency matters more than length.
Why does a site diary matter for claims?
It's a contemporaneous record — created at the time, day by day. In a dispute over delay or variation, a consistent daily diary is far stronger evidence than a reconstruction prepared months later.
From template to system
This template captures the data by hand. Alloovium reads it straight from your project documents, keeps it current, and checks it against your compliance gate automatically.
See how it worksRelated questions
General template for Australian construction — not legal advice. Tailor it to your project and verify jurisdiction-specific requirements with the relevant regulator.