For site managers

Site management software that stands up later.

A site manager's real exposure is the argument a year later about what happened on a Tuesday. Unibuild builds the contemporaneous record as a by-product of running the site.

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Site manager recording diaries, progress photographs and permits on site in Unibuild

Site management software

What site management software
has to do on a live site.

Site management software is the system a site manager, general foreman or contracts manager runs a job from: the daily record, the photographs, the permits and RAMS, who is actually on site, what plant is on hire, and what changed today. Unibuild holds all of it against one project number, so the diary, the hours, the near miss and the variation are the same record rather than six. It replaces the hardback diary in the cabin, the camera roll, the triplicate permit pad and the WhatsApp group nobody can search eighteen months later. Five things it has to carry.

A dated record of the working day: One diary entry per project per day, written on the phone by the person who was standing there. Trade attendance is a table rather than a sentence: the trade, the number of men, the hours worked and what each trade actually did. Delays, materials ordered, deliveries received, variations instructed, requests for information and the weather each have their own labelled field. Every entry takes the next number in a continuous series, so a missing day is visible, and the date the diary covers is stored separately from the moment it was saved. One click prints a branded A4 PDF. In the construction deployment at 25 July 2026 that was 294 entries carrying 949 trade attendance rows across six live projects, every one written in the mobile app.
Photographs you decide when to publish: Progress photographs are captured against a validated project and land as pending. Approval is per file and records who released it and when, so only what you approved reaches the client portal. The file name and the timestamp are written by our server rather than the handset, which is why two people photographing the same wall on the same afternoon cannot overwrite each other. At 25 July 2026 the construction deployment had released 230 of 438 uploads and held 208 back, which is what that control looks like when it is genuinely used.
Who is on site, and for how long: Operatives scan the project QR code on the site poster to clock in. The project comes from the code, the time is written by our server rather than read from the phone, and a photograph and the coordinates go on the record. What reaches you on a Friday is a week already attributed to jobs and already priced at each person's dated rate, to approve or query. The detail sits on construction timesheet and QR clock-in software.
The paperwork that lets work start: Five permit types are raised and closed out on the phone: hot work, work at height, task specific ladder, task specific steps and lone working, each with its own hazard checklist and a table of who in the working party holds which certificate. The general permit to work covers electrical and mechanical isolation, with the points of isolation and earthing identified and a switching schedule where the isolation is sequenced. RAMS, toolbox talks and dynamic risk assessments are signed by the operatives doing the work, and all of it sits under health and safety on the same job record.
The kit that quietly costs you margin: Store collections are picked from a live catalogue and signed for on the operative's own phone against a named project, and returns write back against the original line, so an item stays visible as held until somebody brings it back. Inventory Status answers what is out and who has it, by site and by person. Plant hire is requested from site with the item, the required from and required till dates and photographs, then approved in the office with the hire price, the hire company and the payment terms recorded, so what was asked for, what was agreed and what it costs sit on one row rather than in a text message and an invoice.

The week you actually have

Nobody writes the diary for the diary. They write it for the claim.

Site records get skipped because the benefit arrives
months after the effort. The only fix is to make
recording take less time than not recording.

01The diary is dated when it happens: Written on the day, against the job, with the trades on site and the weather attached. A diary reconstructed at the end of the month is worth very little in a dispute; one written contemporaneously is worth a great deal, and the difference is entirely about when it was created.
02Photographs are approved before they publish: Progress photographs go through an approval step rather than straight onto the client's screen, so what your client sees is what you intended them to see. The record is complete internally; the publication is deliberate.
03Variations carry their evidence: The instruction, the photographs, the day works and the hours attach to the variation itself rather than living in an email thread that nobody can find when it matters. That is the difference between a claim and an argument.
04Permits and RAMS where the work is: Permits to work, RAMS signed by the operatives who are doing the job, toolbox talks signed on a phone at the point of delivery. The paperwork exists because the work was done, rather than being assembled afterwards for an audit.
05Hours you approve rather than decipher: Operatives clock in against the job by scanning a poster at the gate. What reaches you is a set of hours already attributed, with a photograph and a server-written timestamp, to approve or query, not a pile of handwriting to interpret on a Friday. Where the posters go and what a scan records is set out in QR codes on construction sites.

What you would use on site

Six parts of the site management software
you would actually touch, and when.

Site diaries
and photos

Dated as they happen, with trades on site and the weather captured. The contemporaneous evidence the whole claim later rests on.

Written on the dayLive

Permits
to work

Hot work, work at height, ladder and steps, and lone working, plus the general permit to work for electrical and mechanical isolation with the points of isolation and earthing identified. Signed at the point of issue.

Signed where it happensLive

RAMS and
toolbox talks

Risk assessments and method statements per activity, signed by the operatives doing the work, on the phone in front of them.

Signed, not filedLive

Day works and
variations

Raised on site with the evidence attached, so the instruction and what it actually cost stay joined together.

Claim, not argumentLive

Labour
planning

Who is where next week, against the jobs that need them, so the resource conversation happens before Monday rather than on it.

Before MondayLive

The client
portal

Read-mostly, project-scoped, showing your client what you have approved for them to see. Fewer status calls, on purpose.

Read-mostlyLive

The point Evidence created as a by-product Not assembled when it is needed

Everyone on your site

Most of the labour on the job is somebody else's.

A site manager answers for people he does not
employ, on a site he does not own, to a principal
contractor who will ask him to prove it.

01Who is on site, right now: Everybody who has clocked in and not yet clocked out is plotted on a live map, with a pending list beside it. That is the answer at a fire drill, on the phone to a client, and when a principal contractor asks who you had on the deck on Tuesday morning. Your induction and access control regime stays yours; what this adds is a current, named list of who scanned in this morning and has not scanned out.
02A near miss reported by somebody with no login: The public near miss form needs no account at all. It opens from a QR code printed on the A4 project site poster, so a subcontractor's labourer or a visiting engineer can report the loose handrail from his own phone, with photographs, before he walks away from it. A reference number is allocated on save and shown to him, the photographs are appended to the PDF, and a WhatsApp goes immediately to your named health and safety list carrying the whole report. It raises the red alerts counter and it does not clear until somebody enters remarks and confirms it sorted. The wider picture sits on construction health and safety software.
03An accident report written the way it will be read: Seven numbered sections, in the order an inspector, an insurer or a claimant's solicitor will ask them: who was hurt and for which company, what task was being done, the condition of the equipment and the PPE, whether a method statement existed and whether it was being followed, the injury, the treatment and the witness. Three signatures are captured with their own dates, and the RIDDOR position is explicit, reported yes or no and on what date. The PDF renders the answers as ticked boxes with the signatures embedded.
04Competence, before he starts rather than at the gate: Sixteen tracked cards and qualifications sit against each person, CSCS, SMSTS, IPAF and PASMA among them, each with its expiry date and the scanned certificate, alongside a thirty-nine course e-learning matrix. Cells turn amber inside ninety days and red once the date has passed, and one A3 page exports the whole grid for a main contractor or an auditor. Agency workers photograph the front and back of the card when they register on the app, and an approver releases the account before it can log in. CSCS cards are verified, and you see the expiry weeks before a gateman turns somebody away. The registers and the expiry engine behind this are set out on compliance and certification.

One job, one week

Nothing in this week
was typed up afterwards.

A working week on a live fit-out. Every entry below exists because somebody was doing his job, not because somebody was feeding a system.

Mon07:10

The gate keeps the register.

Eleven operatives scan the poster on the hoarding. The project comes from the code, so nobody types a job number and nobody picks the wrong one. By eight you know who is on and who is not, and by Friday the week is already attributed to jobs for you to approve or query rather than assemble. The hours themselves are construction timesheet software's subject, not yours.

Timesheets and QR clock-in

Tue16:40

The delay is written down on the day it happens.

Four trades, the headcount and hours against each, and what each of them did. Then the delay, the request for information raised that morning, the delivery that did not arrive and the weather, each in its own field. The entry takes the next diary number and the moment it was saved is stamped alongside the date it covers.

Site diaries

Wed11:05

Hot work does not start until it is signed twice.

The permit is raised on the phone before the grinder comes out, with the equipment, the services isolated, the fire watch and the two metre zone. The operative signs to accept it. The authoriser signs and grants until two o'clock rather than the five o'clock that was asked for, and the document shows both.

Permits to work

Thu13:25

A labourer who has never logged in reports a handrail.

He is a subcontractor's man. He scans the near miss code on the same poster, photographs the handrail and submits. He has a reference number on his screen before he moves, the safety manager has the PDF on WhatsApp, and it sits on the alerts counter until somebody says what was done about it.

Near miss reporting

Later18 months

The bundle is printed rather than reconstructed.

The diary for that Tuesday, the permit with both signatures on it, the photographs with the name of whoever released them and the time, and the clock-in record with the server time and the street address. Behind each one, 275 of the 295 live tables carry the creator, the last editor, the time, the IP address and the route that wrote the row, and the construction deployment holds 10,540 recorded actions against 1,410 timesheets.

Audit trail

Asked on site

What a site manager asks
before he agrees to run
site management software.

Will my lads actually use it?

The clock-in is a PIN rather than a password, in an app they recognise. It is your firm's own, published on the App Store and Google Play under your company's name and icon. They open it and scan the laminated poster on the site board. The project comes from the code itself, so there is no job number to type and no dropdown to get wrong. It is three taps inside the app they are already opening to record their hours. The near miss, client feedback and health and safety policy codes on that same poster need no app and no account at all, and open in the plain phone camera, which is deliberate: the people who most need to report a near miss are the ones without a login.

Can somebody clock in without being on site?

Not from outside the site’s geofence. Each site carries a radius of 100 metres or less, set per site, and a scan from outside it is refused. Inside it, the photograph is required, the location is recorded on the clock-in, the IP is logged, and the time is written by our server rather than read from the phone, so it cannot be back-dated. The office sees the clock-in at the same instant the operative sees the confirm screen, and you see the location on the record before you approve.

How long does the diary take to write?

Less than the version you are not writing at the moment, which is the honest comparison. Trades go in as rows rather than sentences, the weather is one short field, photographs attach from the phone, and the entry is dated when it is made. What you add is the narrative, which is the part only you can write, and the part a claim actually turns on.

Does the client see everything?

No. The client portal is read-mostly and scoped to their project, and progress photographs go through an approval step before they publish. What your client sees is what you approved for them to see.

Will it fit the way we already run our sites?

Yes, because it is set up to. Unibuild is bespoke construction management software for UK contractors: a platform in daily production since 2016, shaped to the way each firm already works. When your sites need a new form or check, Unibuild builds it. Changes asked for after go-live are included in the monthly fee rather than charged at a day rate.

What if I am running four jobs at once?

Every record hangs off a job, so the diary, the photographs, the permits, the hours and the variations are already separated by job rather than merged into one site inbox. Labour planning shows who is where across all of them, which is usually the question behind the question.

What is site management software?

It is the system a site manager runs the job from, as distinct from an estimating package or an accounts package. It has to carry the site diary, progress photographs, permits to work, RAMS and toolbox talks, near miss and accident reporting, who is on site and for how long, the plant that is out, and the day works and variations that come off the back of all of it. Unibuild holds every one of those against the same project number, which is the point: the diary entry, the clock-in record, the permit and the variation are one job record rather than six systems somebody has to reconcile before anyone can answer a question.

Can a subcontractor's operatives use it if they are not on our system?

Yes, and this is usually the deciding question on a fit-out site where most of the labour is somebody else's. They can report a near miss through the public form with no account and no login at all, straight from the code on your site poster. They sign RAMS and toolbox talks like anybody else, because the attendance register records each signatory's own company as free text rather than requiring a staff record, so agency labour, a subcontractor's operatives and visitors all sign the same register. Where you want their hours on your job as well, you set those operatives up as app users, which costs nothing because the fee is per firm rather than per person.

Where does the data live, and who can see what?

AWS eu-west-2, London. Data does not leave the UK. AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit. ICO registered, and Cyber Essentials Plus. ISO 27001 certification is in progress. Inside the system, access is set per person rather than by role: the web menu is an explicit tree, the app menu is a separate list, and whether somebody can see hourly rates at all is its own setting. A supervisor can have the full field app and almost no back office.

Getting it onto site

Start on one job,
not on the whole business.

01One live project first: Diaries, photographs, clock-in and permits on a single job. How going live actually works.
02The poster is the setup: One A4 PDF per project, up to four QR codes: timesheet, policies, feedback, near miss.
03A PIN, not a password: The app takes a PIN, and the near miss code needs no account at all. What an operative actually sees.
04Access set person by person: Web and app set separately, down to who may see hourly rates. Access and permissions.
05Priced per firm, never per head: Unlimited users, supply chain logins included. What site management software costs.
0614-day trial, no card: Your site, your trades, your paperwork, on your own poster.

The rest of the firm

Not the person who will use it most?

The same platform, described for the job each person actually does. Every one of them is a different set of pages switched on, granted per person, not a different product.