10 Reports That Every Construction Manager Should Know Of

Construction project managers have to juggle multiple tasks while keeping relevant stakeholders in the loop at all times.

So, how do they do it?

The key to project management success is having access to fresh, actionable data.

And construction reports deliver exactly that.

Using different reports means all parties are working with the latest and most relevant information.

This, in turn, makes it easier to keep projects within scope and budget.

In this article, we’ll delve deeper into construction reporting, exploring 10 types of reports every project manager and construction business owner should know and make use of.

Let’s jump right in!

1. Daily Progress Report

Daily progress reports provide an up-to-date view of the project’s progress and help you flag issues early on.

As the name suggests, this kind of report gives quick insight into on-site activities, namely:

• Work completed
• Work in progress
• Labor engaged
• Equipment used
• Challenges faced

The main objective of these reports is to compare actual progress with the project schedule to check if you’re on the right track and adjust if necessary.

As such, they are more like frequent, brief updates, as shown with this template.

The idea is to capture critical milestones, but also enable project teams to pivot if any delays or disruptions arise.

One such disruptive factor is the weather.

Weather conditions can easily impact timelines, which is why monitoring them helps you set realistic deadlines for construction sites while increasing safety.

Nevertheless, daily progress reports should be concise, standardized, and written in easy-to-understand language.

This will make it easier to navigate through the report and quickly get key information.

2. Cost Report

Cost reports are there to help you stay within budget and ensure financial health throughout the project’s lifecycle.

Construction project managers rely on cost reports for three key reasons:

• comparing spending with the budget,
• tracking ongoing costs, and
• projecting future expenses.

In other words, cost reports are a big part of overall cost reporting efforts, offering a comprehensive view of the project’s financial status, as well as any deviations from the budget.

This is very important, because even the smallest discrepancies can hint at huge cost overruns in the making, or issues such as limited cash flow.

As a matter of fact, Levelset’s 2021 survey, which included over 760 construction professionals, showed that cash flow problems alone can greatly erode profits, force loans, and create project delays.

However, construction managers who use cost reports effectively can tackle this and similar issues.

Why?

Because they can spot overspending more easily and reallocate resources on time.

Plus, reporting makes it easier to get to the root cause of cost overruns.

In effect, cost reports are the cornerstone of financial planning.

So, if you want to retain control over your project and keep it profitable, be sure to make full use of them.

3. Project Schedule Report

The project schedule report ensures you have a bird’s-eye view of project milestones, task dependencies, and deadline tracking.

Construction scheduling is a major consideration for project managers, which is why a lot of time and effort goes into creating a comprehensive project schedule.

However, even when you manage to avoid common scheduling mistakes, the situation on the jobsite is constantly changing.

What can you do when disruptions are inevitable?

One surefire way of countering them is reporting.

Typically a part of a larger communication plan, regular reports enhance coordination with subcontractors and ensure you’re sticking to the timelines.

They also help you spot issues that could lead to delays.

Dejan Sekulic, Project Manager for specialist contractor Attic Plus, agrees.

He explains that continuous monitoring and adaptability help you stay on track no matter the project at hand.

One major benefit of scheduling and subsequent reporting is precisely the ability to manage project changes.

To sum up, managers need project schedule reports to manage timelines and ensure that tasks are completed on schedule, especially in the face of any disruptions.

4. Safety Report

Safety reports are a major preventive tool.

They document safety inspections, helping you track incidents and avoid common OSHA violations.

They also help construction businesses identify potential hazards and safety mistakes before they lead to accidents, injuries, or even fatalities.

And, given that recent findings of the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) suggest a substantial increase in the number of reported worker injuries, this is more important than ever.

The report confirms the value of creating a safe working environment, but also shows that safety incidents can easily impact construction projects by way of delays and fines.

 For example, DOB’s investigation into a worker’s fall in Belmont Heights revealed:

• a lack of safety harnesses,
• missing guardrails at required spots,
• no site safety plan on the premises, and
• undocumented and unsatisfactory pre-shift safety meeting.

Due to these cases of non-compliance, the unnamed contractor was issued a Stop Work Order at the site. They also received fines for multiple violations.

It’s important to remember that cases like these are largely preventable.

Writing safety reports plays a big role here because they can help you ensure compliance with safety measures, prevent costly accidents, and ensure jobsite safety.

Utilize them effectively, and you’ll soon be reaping plenty of benefits!

5. Quality Assurance (QA) Report

Put simply, quality assurance, or QA reports ensure that your project meets set standards and client expectations.

Maintaining consistent quality of work is one of the biggest construction project management challenges.

Quality defects can pop up at any time and for any number of reasons, which is why it’s important to track and record quality checks and inspections.

Quality assurance reports cover more than that, however, enabling you to zoom in on:

• initial quality control measures,
• inspection results,
• non-conformance reports, and
• corrective actions taken.

Noting any discrepancies with project specifications and quality standards is particularly important because ISO non-conformances can have costly consequences.

There are a couple of best practices you can rely on to write and review quality reports, such as adopting construction quality control software to streamline the process and enhance accuracy.

Want to avoid rework, reduce costs, and ensure the quality of your final product?

If your answer is yes, your reporting arsenal needs to include QA reports.

6. Punch List Report

Punch list reports are another type of report you need to meet all your quality requirements.

This report is used in the final project stages to outline remaining tasks, touch-ups, or corrections.

It allows construction project managers to systematically close out the remaining issues and ensure successful client handover.

A well-prepared punch list report is made up of several elements, from the right formatting and basic project information to the signatures of all relevant parties.

However, the observations on what needs fixing are crucial, and should include:

Name	Descriptive name explaining the issue
Number	Simple identifier to differentiate between similar issues and avoid confusion
Deadline	When the issue needs to be fixed
Location	Where the issue is
Visual Record	Photo that can include additional comments or sketches
Assignee	Crew or specific worker tasked with fixing
Description	Other relevant details about the issue and how to fix it

Remember that including the right amount of detail for each item on the list will help you avoid misunderstandings and additional delays.

And if you’re worried about the time it will take, you can always create digital punch lists.

But what if you do that, and still find creating this report time-consuming because there are so many observations on it?

This means you need to go back to square one, says Ren Ramsey, Senior Construction Administrator for Stewart Cooper Newell Architects.

When deployed at the right time, punch list reports help you address any lingering issues and deliver quality that is sure to result in a satisfied client.

7. Team Availability Report

These reports give you insight into workforce availability and schedules, helping you manage your labor resources.

Construction projects often involve multiple shifts and locations, so it’s essential for project managers to know which workers are available.

This allows them to optimize workforce deployment, thereby avoiding scheduling clashes and project slowdowns.

Using team availability reports ensures that each worker’s availability for a designated period is listed clearly, and often visually.

Effective, color-coded availability reports simplify workforce planning by accounting for project demands, but also labor rules and any time-off requests.  

This gives construction businesses a huge efficiency boost when it comes to project execution while also benefiting workers’ well-being.

How so?

Well, by knowing each crew member’s workload, you can distribute tasks more evenly, which can ultimately help prevent burnout.

And if you think this topic doesn’t apply to construction, think again.

A 2024 study collected and analyzed Glassdoor reviews from over 500 US-based companies, with construction emerging as one of the most burnout-prone industries.

Although stressful work and long hours have always been a part of construction, effective team availability reporting can help lessen this burden and build a more positive work environment.

In the end, team availability reports will help you meet deadlines while ensuring your workers avoid fatigue.

8. Risk Report

Risk reports help construction managers identify both current and anticipated project roadblocks.

In other words, they help you identify, assess, and track any issues that could impact your project, enabling you to plan on time and minimize any disruptions.

For example, QBE’s 2024 research puts cyber, labor, and financial risks at the top of the list of construction concerns.

The top concerns reported by 500 surveyed contractors and construction managers are also the risks they feel the least prepared to manage.

This emphasizes the need for a robust reporting system.

After all, facing unforeseen challenges is never easy, but early risk identification and a proactive approach can prevent these issues from escalating.

Project managers typically rely on monthly risk reports to identify risks and zoom in on priorities.

However, they can also add risk logs any time an incident needs to be tracked and recorded, and streamline these efforts using specialized risk management software.

Ultimately, these observations contribute to creating and/or updating your construction risk management plan.

The bottom line is that construction companies are facing a growing list of risks, and keeping them in check is no longer possible without proactive risk management and reliable risk reporting.

9. Closeout Report

Closeout reports signify the project’s completion, acting as a final project record and a valuable source of insights for the future.

This comprehensive document records the entire course of the project, offering details on key project aspects and any discrepancies surrounding the project’s budget, timeline, and scope.

Additionally, many closeout reports feature a resource review, a full list of deliverables, different images, and a substantial stack of additional documents.

Compiling all this data ensures that the closeout report serves as a valuable learning tool and a future point of reference.

It also promotes transparent communication with all project stakeholders and clients, enhancing their overall satisfaction with how the project was handled.

Given the time constraints and the amount of data you need to present, creating this report may seem demanding at first glance.

However, more and more project managers are finding a way around this, and using software tools with robust reporting capabilities.

Tools like that can effortlessly extract data captured during different project phases, allowing you to streamline the closeout process.

With or without software, remember that a good closeout report is the construction project’s legacy, building a strong foundation for future excellence.

10. Materials Report

Finally, the materials report helps you track the use of materials on-site, ensuring their availability and optimizing resource allocation.

It summarizes the quantity and quality of the materials throughout the project, listing the types of materials used, their prices, and their sources.

By keeping track of the actual materials used, and comparing these numbers to takeoff and estimation, construction project managers can minimize waste and overspending.

Moreover, these reports also ensure that the project teams aren’t risking any delays or cost overruns by missing required materials.

Overall, effective material management helps construction businesses know the exact quantities of each material on time while accounting for material shortages and inflated prices.

If you’re ready to optimize your resource management and prevent costly delays, you should know that our asset tracking solution, GoCodes, comes with powerful inventory management capabilities.

It provides real-time tracking of assets and their quantities, as pictured below.

To track the quantity of a specific kind of inventory, all you need to do is scan the QR code label attached to it, and the mobile app immediately recognizes this item as an inventory or consumable item.

It will show you what the item is, as well as the quantity you have of it.

And when it comes to reporting,GoCodes offers several options:

Usage Reports	Ensure optimal utilization by tracking materials and equipment use.
Availability Reports	Identify which items are available, in use, or overdue for return, helping to prevent shortages.
Location Tracking Reports	Monitor the current location of assets and materials across job sites.
Check-In/Check-Out Logs	Keep detailed records of who has accessed inventory and when.
Customizable Reports	Create tailored reports for specific projects or organizational needs.

In summary, project managers who want to optimize resource management, boost efficiency, and eliminate waste should leverage the insights provided by this report type.

Conclusion

The ability to monitor progress, anticipate issues, and maintain control over budgets and schedules is invaluable to construction managers.

In this context, using different reports enables data-driven decisions, helping you deliver quality results on time and within budget.

And smoother project completion is just one short-term benefit.

In the long run, effective reporting fosters transparency and accountability, enhancing client satisfaction and overall outcomes.

In other words, comprehensive reporting means you’re investing in your ongoing project, but also in the efficiency of future endeavors.

So, be sure to make full use of every report we explored today, and you’ll see how quickly it pays off!