Site Records & Progress Capture
Risk mitigationOngoingFor Subcontractors & Main Contractors
I design the site's record system for the team that actually keeps it, then run it monthly, checking each month for gaps while the gaps can still be filled. A record made the day the work happened is worth ten reconstructed from memory the day the argument starts.
The problem
Everyone on a construction job agrees that records count, and almost nobody keeps them, because the system was designed for a quantity surveyor rather than the foreman holding a phone in the rain. Diary templates go blank after the first week, photographs pile up on personal phones with no names or dates, labour and plant get allocated from memory: the system asked the site for effort it could not spare. The gaps are invisible until something needs proving, a disputed variation with no photograph of the condition it changed, a cut application whose deliveries cannot be tied to a ticket.
The solution
First I design the capture around the people who will do it: a diary short enough to fill daily, a photo routine that names and dates itself, allocation sheets the ganger can complete in five minutes, and a delivery record that rides on the tickets already coming in, all agreed with the team, because a system the site will not keep only looks like cover. Then it runs: each month I check the diary is continuous, the photographs placed and dated, labour and plant allocated, deliveries tied to tickets. Any gap I raise while it can still be filled.
What you receive
The site keeps a record system it will actually keep, because it was built around the people holding the phones rather than a spreadsheet. Each month the file is checked while it can still be completed, so it grows continuous rather than gappy, and the day a variation, a delay or an application needs proving, the proof already exists and is dated.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: two working days per cycle.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You tell me how the site records things now
One call on the job, the team and where the record-keeping keeps breaking down. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
You send me the current records and the contract
The list below shows what the site already does and what the contract will one day need, so the design builds on real habits.
- A
Site access and a named contact
EssentialWithout it: The routine gets designed at a desk instead of from what the site actually does, and a routine built at a desk is one the site abandons within weeks.
Where to find it: Not a document: agree a date directly with the site manager, and confirm who will be on site and available that day.
Why I need it: The records cannot be captured remotely
- B
Daily returns
ImportantWithout it: The period before the new routine starts is treated as having no returns at all, even where some existed.
Where to find it: The site office, the team's phones and whatever folder the paperwork lands in.
Why I need it: What is happening, in the words of the people doing it
- C
Photographs
ImportantWithout it: The period before the new routine starts is reported as having no photographic record at all.
Where to find it: The site office, the team's phones and whatever folder the paperwork lands in.
Why I need it: The evidence that needs no explanation later
Quality: the original files with their metadata intact, in dated folders.
- D
Delivery tickets
ImportantWithout it: The Materials on Site Schedule starts from nil, so materials already delivered are not shown as on site until the new routine begins.
Where to find it: The site office, the team's phones and whatever folder the paperwork lands in.
Why I need it: What proves materials arrived and when
- E
Existing diaries
ImportantWithout it: The new routine gets designed from scratch instead of building on habits the site already has, and a habit already in use is easier to keep going than a new one.
Where to find it: The site office, the team's phones and whatever folder the paperwork lands in.
Why I need it: What already exists and does not need rebuilding
- F
The contract's record requirements
EssentialWithout it: The routine risks being built in a form or to a timetable the contract does not actually require, so records get kept but not to the standard needed.
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder or the order email normally holds the signed copy.
Why I need it: The contract usually specifies what must be kept and for how long
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I design the capture around the team
Designed from a walkthrough of how the site actually works, not from the sent-in records alone: a diary, a photo routine, allocation sheets and a delivery record, each short enough to keep daily and each with a named owner.
Designed From Site
The routine is designed from a day on site watching how records are really kept, not from a desk reading templates, so it survives contact with the job.
I walk the system through with the site once
Half an hour so everyone knows what they capture, when, and how little it costs; a system agreed with the team is a system the team keeps.
I check the capture for gaps every month
Diary continuous, photographs placed and dated, labour and plant allocated, deliveries tied to tickets, with any gap raised while it can still be filled.
You keep the records and fill the flagged gaps
The team captures as it goes and closes the month's flagged gaps this week; the records stay yours, held on the job, and I keep them honest. Each cycle closes with a short written position report, so the file shows the month rather than remembers it.
Reconstruction Never Hidden
A gap filled after the event is marked as reconstructed with its sources named, so nothing on the file ever pretends to be a same-day record.
I keep the file growing continuous, not gappy
Between projects the service pauses rather than cancels: nothing is re-onboarded, the file and the diary stay warm, and it resumes the day the next project starts.
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
The progress these records capture is what Interim Valuations measures and prices each period, and the allocation and delivery records feed straight into Payment Application Assembly & Issuance. When the question is no longer whether the file is complete but whether it could win an argument, the claims side's Records area audits exactly that.