Daywork sheet
A daywork sheet is the site record of the labor hours, materials and plant used on work instructed and paid at daywork rates. Signed on site by the client's representative, it is the evidence behind a time-and-materials variation claim.
A daywork sheet is the site record of the resources used on work that is instructed and paid at daywork rates. When a contractor is told to do something that cannot be priced from the rates already in the contract, daywork pays for it on the basis of what it actually consumed - labor time, materials and plant - and the daywork sheet is where those resources are written down, day by day, and signed. It is the raw evidence behind a time and materials claim.
What a daywork sheet contains
The header carries the contract or project name, the date, the instruction reference and a description of the work. The body splits into three sections.
- Labor: each operative by trade, hours worked, and the rate applied.
- Materials: each item with quantity and unit cost.
- Plant: equipment type, hours in use, and the hire rate.
Rates come from one of two routes and the contract documents say which. Under a prime cost approach, the sheet records the base cost of labor, materials and plant, and a percentage addition covers overheads and profit. Under all-inclusive rates set at tender - the same logic as a schedule of rates - the sheet records quantities and hours against rates already agreed, with no separate uplift.
Who signs it, and when
The sheet is signed on site, on the day, by the client's representative - typically the site manager, the clerk of works or the contract administrator's site staff, depending on the contract. Whoever signs is confirming the resources shown were on site and did the work, not that the sum is agreed. That distinction is worth saying out loud when you hand the sheet over, because a supervisor who thinks a signature commits the client to a value will not sign one.
Most contractors still use carbonless duplicate or triplicate pads so the client keeps a signed copy and the office keeps a matching one. That is the whole point of the format: two copies created at the same moment, with the same content, before anyone has had time to remember it differently.
Why an unsigned daywork sheet does not get paid
A daywork sheet has no independent authority. It is your own record of your own costs, and it becomes evidence only because someone on the client's side confirmed it at the time. Without a signature it is an assertion, and at valuation the quantity surveyor is entitled to price it on what the contract allows rather than on what you say the hours were.
Sheets that go in days later are the ones that get argued over. The supervisor who watched the work has moved to another site, and the person being asked to sign is being asked to accept a stranger's account of a day they were not on. The sequence that survives a dispute is: written instruction before the work starts, sheet signed on site before the operatives leave, sheet attached to the valuation.
If the instruction was verbal, confirm it in writing the same day. Contracts set time limits for notifying additional cost, and starting daywork on a verbal instruction with nothing recorded is the version of this that ends as a write-off rather than a variation order.
A signature confirms the record, not the value
Print that on the sheet if you have to. Site representatives refuse to sign daywork sheets because they believe signing commits the client to the sum shown. Wording that says the signature confirms only that the labor, plant and materials listed were present and employed on the instructed work removes the objection and still gives you the contemporaneous record you need.
The paper version has one structural problem: the sheet finishes the day in a van. Capturing the same three sections on a phone at the end of the shift, with the client's signature taken on screen and the sheet attached to the job the moment it is signed, means the valuation is assembled from records that already exist. That is what digital site forms are for on a job like this.