GeneratorFree tool
Site diary
One day’s record, filled in fast — weather, labour, plant, deliveries, instructions, delays — printed or emailed as a dated, signed sheet. Free, no account, and the draft stays on your phone.
Your draft stays on this phone — nothing is sent to us. Close the browser, take the phone call, come back — today’s entries are still here.
The day · step 1 of 2
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The sheet
Fill the day in and the sheet appears here — on screen, printable, yours to sign and file. Only the site, the date and your name are required: empty sections print their nil return, which is a record in itself.
Name the site or project — the sheet is a record of somewhere.
The day, step 1 of 2. The day
Filling one of these in every day?
This tool is one day, one sheet. The job diary in HubTrack keeps them all — every day filed against the job, the photos stored with the day they belong to, and your own name at the top of the sheet instead of ours.
Why the diary decides arguments
When a job ends up in a dispute about delay or money, the side with daily records usually wins the argument — not because the records are clever, but because they exist. The industry’s delay and disruption guidance (the SCL Protocol) puts records at the top of its principles and is blunt about timing: records about progress, delay and disruption must be generated as the works progress, not reconstructed afterwards. Most assessments that go wrong, it says, go wrong for lack of them.
The courts are blunter still. In the Gordon Forbes case, a contractor’s claim turned on contemporary records it did not have, and the court held that “where there is no contemporary record to support a claim, that claim fails” — and that a witness statement written later cannot fill the gap. The standard contract forms lean the same way: the common ones put strict time limits on notifying delay and cost events, and a dated daily record is how you show what happened and when you knew.
This sheet is the shape those records are expected to take. It will not win anything by itself — no document can promise that, and you should distrust any that does. What it does is put the right facts in the right order, dated, signed, on the day. The two entries cheap templates always miss are here on purpose: plant marked idle, with the reason — the guidance says idle equipment records should explain why, and idle time with a recorded cause is where prolongation money is found — and delays with start, finish and the work affected, which is the single most claim-loaded field on the page.
Empty sections do not vanish. A day with no delays prints “None today.” under Delays and stoppages, because a nil return recorded on the day is itself evidence — a blank is just a blank.
Sources, each checked 2026-08-07: SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol, 2nd edition (February 2017); A-G for the Falkland Islands v Gordon Forbes Construction (Falklands) Ltd (No 2) [2003] BLR 280; Fenwick Elliott, Insight issue 93 — contractor claims for prolongation costs. A record-keeping aid, not legal advice. What any record proves depends on the contract and the records around it.
The photographs stay on your phone — and that is the point
Photographs carry close to half the evidential weight of a daily record, and the best camera for the job is already in your pocket: your phone stamps every shot with the time and, usually, the place. This tool stores nothing, so it cannot hold photos — instead the sheet carries a numbered index. “P3 — 10:40, flooded drainage run, plot 4” on a signed daily sheet pairs the written record with the photo on your phone, and the two corroborate each other.
That is a genuine limitation honestly disclosed: a sheet can only point at the photos. The job diary in HubTrack stores them with the day, which is the difference between an index and an archive.
Your draft, your phone
A diary gets filled in through interruptions — the phone call at the gate, the delivery that turns up mid-sentence. So the draft stays on this phone — nothing is sent to us. Close the browser and come back at four o’clock; the morning’s entries are still there. When the sheet is printed or emailed and the day is done, “Start a new day” clears it — and it asks first, because twenty entries are worth a question.
Questions people ask
Is a site diary a legal requirement?
No statute tells you to keep one. Your contract very likely expects records, though — and claims practice runs on them: the industry's delay and disruption guidance says records about progress and delay must be generated as the works progress, not afterwards, and courts have refused claims that had no contemporary records behind them. The diary is the cheapest document that does that job, and only if it is filled in on the day.
What should a site diary record?
The daily raw data: date and site, weather and what it stopped, labour by trade and headcount, plant on site marked working or idle with the reason if idle, deliveries and shortages, visitors, instructions received and whether they were written or verbal, progress by area, delays and stoppages with times and the work affected, and any health and safety events. That list is the shape claims practice expects, not what happens to fit on a template.
Can I fill in last week's diary today?
You can type anything you like, but a sheet written a week later is not a contemporaneous record and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. The value of a diary is that it was made on the day — that is the whole reason the date leads the sheet. Fill today's in today; let last week stay as whatever was actually recorded at the time.
Who signs it — and what is the countersignature line for?
Whoever filled it in signs it. The second line is for the other side — the client's representative or contract administrator — because the guidance recommends daily records be signed by both parties where practicable. A record both sides signed on the day is very hard to argue with later. If nobody is there to countersign, leave the line empty: it says “where practicable” for a reason.
Where do the photos go?
They stay on your phone — which already stamps each one with its time and place, making it a strong contemporaneous record in its own right. The sheet carries a numbered index (P1, P2…) with the time and what each photo shows, so the written record and the photos read together. This free tool stores nothing, so it cannot hold the photos themselves; the job diary in HubTrack keeps the photos with the day.
Where is my draft saved?
On your phone, in this browser — it stays on this phone and nothing is sent to us. Close the browser and come back and today's entries are still there. “Start a new day” clears them, and it asks before it does. We only ever see the answers if you use “email me a copy”, and then we send the sheet and keep nothing.