A daily report is the story of the job, written while the day is still true. This template is a practical starting point for that page, not “the industry standard.” Copy it, cut anything your team will not keep up with, and file it the same day.

The working template is in templates/H7-08-daily-report-template.md. The longer habit is in “Daily Reports That Protect the Schedule Story,” “Heat-Season Daily Logs in Arizona,” and “How Procore Handles Daily Logs — and How to Do the Same With a Simple Daily Report.”

Procore’s daily log facilitates a dated official entry on jobs that require it. A short form in Google Drive or Dropbox does the same job, as long as it is written the same day and actually filed.

What is in the template

A header for the job, the date, who wrote it, weather and site conditions, and start or stop times when they were not the usual ones. A manpower table by trade. A place to write the work in specific sentences. A place for delays, interruptions, or extra work. Visitors, deliveries, and inspections. A pointer to the day’s photos. A short, factual line for incidents if needed.

“Progressed” is not enough. “Two electricians, second-floor corridor, pulling home runs; delayed two hours waiting on access to Room 204” is something you can use later.

How to run it

  1. Write it the same day. File it as YYYY-MM-DD_Job_Daily in 08_Dailies.
  2. On Arizona heat or monsoon days, write the start time, the stop time, and what actually slowed down.
  3. Point the daily at the photo folder, or the trail dead-ends.
  4. If you draft the daily with an AI tool from a voice memo, check counts, times, and delay sentences before it is filed. See Using AI to Search Specs, Caption Photos, and Draft Dailies — Honest Limits.

When the habit will not hold on its own, I can set up the folder and the form, or file the dailies that reach the job folder as part of a retainer. The files stay yours.

If you want help, not just a checklist

Some jobs run fine on a clean file and a superintendent who gives the log fifteen minutes twice a week. Others do not: revisions are moving fast, closeout is already behind, or the field simply has no hours left for paperwork.

That is where I come in. I set up the job file, run the logs on a retainer, or prepare closeout before the scramble starts. Your files stay yours, and there is no software contract to sign.

Email travis@builtonrecord.com Get the free Job File Kit