Construction daily log template: the columns a billing office needs

A construction daily log that bills cleanly has one row per person per job per day, with the job number, hours, cost code, materials with a quantity and unit, and equipment. Anything less and the office has to call the crew lead before it can write an invoice line. The template below is the column list we would hand a crew lead, and the free check above reads a week of logs laid out this way and shows what is missing.

Most daily log templates online are written for the superintendent: weather, visitors, safety notes, a narrative of the day. That log matters, but it is not the one the billing office uses. This page is about the crew log that feeds the invoice.

What columns should a construction daily log have?

For billing, use these columns, one row per worker per job per day:

• Crew. The crew name or lead, so a question goes to the right person.
• Date. The day the work was done, not the day the sheet was filled in.
• Job. The job number exactly as it appears on your job list. A job name written differently each day is the most common reason a log cannot be matched to a customer.
• Worker. Full name or a consistent short name.
• Hours. Hours worked on that job that day, in decimals.
• Cost code. Only if you bill or cost by phase. If your company does not code its time, leave this out rather than have it filled with guesses.
• Materials. What was used, with quantity and unit in separate columns. "Conduit" is not billable. "Conduit, 200, ft" is.
• Equipment. The piece of equipment on site, if you bill it by the day.
• Notes. Anything the office needs to know, such as "waiting on inspector, half day."

Why does the billing office need the log laid out this way?

The invoice run turns each row into a line: labor by class at the bill rate, materials at cost plus markup, equipment at a day rate. A row with no job cannot be assigned to a customer. A row with no hours cannot be priced. A material with no quantity cannot be billed at all. The log is a source document for the invoice, so each blank is a phone call.

Weekly Field Log checks exactly these things on the week's entries: a missing job number or one that is not on your job list, missing hours, worker, date, or material quantity or unit, a missing cost code when the week's crews use cost codes, an entry dated outside the week, and duplicates (the same worker, date, job, hours and cost code twice).

What does a good log row look like?

Here is one day for one crew, as a CSV you can paste into a spreadsheet:

crew,date,job,worker,hours,cost code,material,qty,unit,equipment,notes
North,2026-10-12,4410,D. Alvarez,8,ROUGH-IN,1/2 in EMT,200,ft,,
North,2026-10-12,4410,M. Okafor,8,ROUGH-IN,,,,,
North,2026-10-12,4415,J. Reyes,4,SERVICE,,,,Lift,Panel swap at site B

Every row has a job, a person, hours and a date. The material has a quantity and a unit. The equipment line is on the row where it was used.

What goes wrong with logs that are not laid out this way?

Four things come up every week:

1. Entries with no job number. The hours exist but cannot be billed to anyone.
2. A long or impossible day. The check flags a worker over 14 hours in a day, and over 24 hours across entries on one day, since that cannot be one person's day. Often it is a typo (an 8 written as 18) or the same day logged twice.
3. A crew with a day missing. If a crew has entries on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, the office needs to ask whether anyone worked Wednesday before billing the week. The product marks this as a question, not an error.
4. Material with no quantity or unit. The line exists but has nothing to multiply.

Each is cheap to fix on the day and expensive on Monday morning with a crew lead who is already on another site.

Can I use a paper or PDF log instead of a spreadsheet?

Yes, but the same columns still apply. Weekly Field Log reads timesheet and log exports in CSV or Excel by column, and reads text PDFs and phone photos with an AI model. Every PDF or photo is shown beside what it read and has to be approved before it counts, and handwritten logs are read less reliably, so expect more corrections. A typed, consistent layout always reads better than a handwritten one, which is a reason to keep the template above even if the crew lead fills it on a phone.

How do I check a week of logs against this template?

Run the free check at the top of this page on a sample week for a made-up electrical contractor, or upload one week of your own logs as a CSV or Excel file (up to 4 MB). It maps your columns, shows every entry, flags the missing and implausible ones, and compiles the week by job. Nothing is stored and no email is asked. Invoice amounts and the QuickBooks file need your rate card, so they come after you sign up.

For what happens after the log is clean, see how to build a time and materials invoice from it, and for the record that sits next to it, the T&M ticket.

FAQ

Does Weekly Field Log replace the superintendent's daily report?

No. It works on the crew's hours, materials and equipment for billing. It does not handle weather, safety notes or visitor logs.

What file types can it read?

CSV and Excel exports are read by column. Text PDFs and phone photos are read by an AI model and reviewed by you before they count.

Do I need to change how my crews log their time?

Not necessarily. The column mapping is guessed from your headers and you correct it once on the same page. A consistent layout helps, but the free check shows what your current logs produce.