Daily Progress Report Format

What is a daily progress report?

A daily progress report (DPR) records one working day on a site: which activities moved and by how much, the labour on site, the weather, and anything that stopped or slowed the work. The site engineer writes it at the end of the day and the project manager signs it.

Taken together, DPRs are the site’s diary. They show whether the job is on programme, back up a claim for more time when rain or a client instruction stopped work, and give the quantities the next running bill can be checked against.

What a daily progress report must show

• Project or site name, report number and date.
• Weather and working hours, because both explain the day’s output.
• Each activity with its location (floor, grid or chainage), unit, the quantity planned for the day, the quantity done and the total done to date.
• Labour on site, at least skilled and unskilled numbers, and the main machines working.
• Hindrances: what stopped work, from when to when, and who it is waiting on.
• Safety observations or incidents, and instructions received from the client or consultant.
• Signature of the site engineer and of the project manager.

Why the DPR matters at billing and claim time

A running account bill claims the quantity done since the last bill. If the DPRs carry a running total for each activity, the bill can be checked against them line by line, and a measurement dispute starts from a signed daily record rather than from memory.

A claim for more time needs proof of when work stopped and why. A DPR written the same day, naming the hindrance and its hours, is far stronger evidence than a note written weeks later.

Common mistakes

• Writing who worked (“10 masons”) instead of what got done (quantity and unit).
• No running total, so nobody can tell whether the day put the job ahead or behind.
• Rain, power cuts and client holds left out, which leaves nothing to support a claim for more time later.
• Reports filled in days later from memory, or not signed by anyone.

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