Expert article

Daily site report and time recording: what belongs where

On many sites, hours are written down three times — for the invoice, for the records, for the claim. Two of those are avoidable.

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Expert article by Open Experience GmbH. As of: September 2026

Is the daily site report a record of working time?

No. The daily site report documents the construction sequence: which firms were present with what headcount, which work was carried out, which obstructions occurred. Working-time records, by contrast, document the individual working hours of employees and serve purposes of occupational safety, pay and minimum-wage law. Both draw on similar raw data, but they have different addressees, different retention duties and different consequences when they are wrong — which is why neither replaces the other.

Legal framework: Germany (Civil Code BGB, construction contract rules VOB/B, fee schedule HOAI). Other countries have different rules, and contractual agreements take precedence over the standard periods named here.

The same hour, three purposes

The reason for capturing the same thing several times is not poor organisation but that three different records are needed.

Detail	Daily site report	Working-time records	Daywork sheet
Firms present	Yes — per trade, with headcount	No	Only your own
Working time by name for each person	No	Yes — start, end, duration	Yes, for the work invoiced
Work carried out	Yes	No	Yes, described and allocated
Plant and machinery	Yes, where relevant	No	Yes, where invoiced
Obstructions, weather, occurrences	Yes	No	Only as justification
Addressee	Client, site supervision, the project file	Occupational safety, customs authorities, payroll	The client, for payment
What errors can cost	Being short of evidence in a dispute	Fines, back payments	Loss of the claim to payment

What the law requires

Documentation of the works and the recording of working time are governed by different sets of rules. Keeping the two cleanly apart makes both easier to satisfy than using one form for everything.

Working time in generalUnder § 16 ArbZG (the German Working Hours Act), hours worked beyond the standard working day must be recorded and retained. The decision of the Federal Labour Court of 13 September 2022 (1 ABR 22/21) additionally derives from § 3 ArbSchG (the German Occupational Safety and Health Act) a duty to introduce a system for recording working time.
Minimum wage and the construction industryIn the construction industry the recording duties of § 17 MiLoG (the German Minimum Wage Act) apply: the start, end and duration of daily working time must be recorded within seven days at the latest and kept for at least two years; the MiLoDokV governs the relaxations and exemptions.
The site diary in site supervisionFor site supervision, keeping a site diary is a basic service of service phase 8 under the HOAI. The headcount per firm is one of its typical contents — as a detail of the construction sequence, not as a record of working time.
Work at hourly rates under VOB/BWhere work is carried out at hourly rates, the daywork sheets must be submitted under § 15 VOB/B; deadlines and form are a matter for the contract. A daily site report does not replace the daywork sheet.

This article describes documentation practice; it is no substitute for employment-law advice in an individual case.

Where the duplicate work really arises

Three patterns repeat themselves on almost every site. None of them can be solved with more forms.

The note in the eveningAttendance is kept in somebody's head during the day and written down in the evening — once for the foreman, once for the report. The two versions differ, and nobody knows which one is right.
Headcount at second handSite management asks subcontractors for headcounts they already hold in their own time recording. The transfer is done by hand, usually by message or by calling across the site.
The claim in hindsightWeeks later, someone has to show who worked how long on which building element. What exists are two incomplete sources — and the reconstruction costs more time than the capture would have.

A test question for your own firm: how often is the same hour written down in a single day — and by whom?

How this can be untangled

The approach is not to look for one system for both, but to capture every detail exactly once at its source and to produce the evaluations from that.

Settle responsibility for each detailIndividual working time is recorded by the employer for each employee. Attendance and work per trade are recorded by site management in the daily report. Writing that separation down once saves more than any software rollout.
Capture where it arisesWhatever is established on site is captured on site — not from memory in the evening. That applies to headcount just as it does to obstructions.
Let the parties enter their own detailsSubcontractors with an account of their own enter their details themselves. That removes the single most common transfer of all.
Keep data protection in mindPersonal working hours do not belong unfiltered in a report that goes to the client. For the construction sequence, the headcount per firm is usually enough.

Discover Construction Time

How Open Experience solves this

Open Experience documents the construction sequence: Construction Diary holds the daily reports with weather, firms, work carried out and occurrences; Construction Time tracks dates and deadlines. Time recording for payroll and invoicing remains the job of the systems built for it.

A report that is finished by the eveningThe details arise on a mobile device as the day goes on; the report is not reconstructed at the desk.
A clear line to our partnerWith OptiControl, OptiTime offers planning of staff, plant and vehicles as well as working-time recording — a complementary focus alongside construction documentation. What is held where on a particular project is something we work out together.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the daily site report enough as a record of working time?

No. It evidences the construction sequence, usually with the headcount per firm, not the individual working hours of particular employees. The recording duties under employment and minimum-wage law are not satisfied by it.

Do employees' names belong in the daily site report?

As a rule, no. For the construction sequence the headcount per trade or firm is enough. Names are personal data and have a place in a report that goes to third parties only where there is a specific reason and a legal basis for it.

How long do the records have to be kept?

Working time under the ArbZG and the MiLoG has periods of its own — at least two years under § 17 MiLoG. Daily site reports, by contrast, are sensibly kept for as long as the rest of the project records, at least until the warranty periods have expired.

Can subcontractors enter their own hours?

Yes, and it is the most effective lever against duplicate capture: with Open Experience, the firms carrying out the work receive free accounts and enter their details themselves instead of calling them across to site management.

Do we need two systems?

Usually yes — but with a clear division of work: documentation of the works on one side, planning of staff and resources with time recording on the other. What matters is not the number of systems but that every detail has exactly one source.

Sources and legal basis

The legal statements in this article are based on the primary sources listed below. The article is not a substitute for legal advice in an individual case.

Write every hour down once.

In the demo we look at your own daily report and show which details are being produced twice today.