What is a daily progress report?
A Daily Progress Report is the site's record of what happened on a given day — who worked, what plant ran, what was built, what arrived, what went wrong, and what is planned next. It is the primary evidence behind delay claims, extension-of-time applications and monthly progress reporting.
What is in the daily progress report workbook?
- Daily Progress Report — the full daily form: manpower, plant, work done, material, concrete, safety, hindrances and tomorrow's plan.
- Filled Sample — a worked example of one full day on an RCC building, showing the level of detail each section needs.
How does the daily progress report sheet calculate?
- Manpower: the total for each trade is skilled + semi-skilled + unskilled, and the day's total is summed across trades.
- Plant: numbers, hours run, idle hours and fuel are totalled.
- Concrete: the day's poured volume and the number of cubes cast are totalled, so every pour can be matched to a set in the cube test register.
Everything else on a DPR is a written record — work executed with its drawing reference, material received, safety, hindrances and instructions. What makes it valuable is that it is written on the day.
How do you use the daily progress report template?
- Print one copy of the Daily Progress Report sheet per day, or copy the sheet and rename it with the date if you are keeping it electronically.
- Fill in the header — work, contractor, report number, date, weather and working hours.
- Complete sections A to E from site records as the day proceeds, not at the end.
- Record every hindrance in section G with the time lost and who was informed. This is the section that matters in a dispute.
- Get it signed by the site engineer and the contractor's representative the same day.
What should you check before relying on the daily progress report?
- Weather matters. Rain days recorded contemporaneously support an extension of time; rain days recalled later usually do not.
- Manpower figures should be the count actually present, taken from the attendance record, not the count planned.
- Concrete pours recorded here should agree with your cube test register and with the batching records. Inconsistency between them is the first thing an auditor finds.
- Keep the reports in an unbroken numbered series. A gap in the sequence undermines the whole set as evidence.
- Rates are not supplied with this template. Enter rates from your own schedule of rates or market quotations; any figures on the sample sheet are illustrative only and must not be used for real estimating or billing.
What does each column mean?
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Header | Work, contractor, report number, date, weather and working hours. Keep the reports in an unbroken numbered series — a gap undermines the whole set as evidence. |
| A. Manpower deployed | Trade-wise count of workers present — skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled — taken from the attendance record, not the plan. |
| B. Plant & machinery | Each item of plant with hours run, idle hours, fuel and any breakdown. |
| C. Work executed today | Location-wise activity, quantity done today and cumulative, against a drawing reference. |
| D. Material received today | Material, quantity, challan number, supplier, and whether a test certificate came with it. |
| E. Concrete poured today | Member, grade, volume, slump and cubes cast. Should agree with the cube test register and the batching records. |
| F. Safety observations, incidents and toolbox talk | Safety observations, any incident, and the toolbox talk given. |
| G. Hindrances | Every hindrance with the time lost and who was informed. This is the section that decides a delay claim. |
The daily record and the quality record are read together. Every concrete pour you log here should match a sample in the cube test register. The manpower count should agree with the labour muster roll, and the work executed is what updates the construction schedule.
Get the quantities from your drawings
A progress record is measured against the estimate it reports against. Upload your drawings and InstaBOQ builds the measured BOQ — so "work executed today" can be tracked line by line against a real quantity.