Punch list template

A punch list closes items or it collects them. The difference is almost entirely in how each row is written, and the fix is a handful of extra words per item.

The list below is the structure that survives a walk with twelve open units, three trades and one general contractor who wants the whole thing back by Friday.

The header names the walk, not the project

Four lines at the top, then get to the items.

The back-check date is the field most templates skip and the one that changes behavior. A list with a return date on it is a deadline. A list without one is a suggestion, and it sits in an inbox until someone asks about final payment.

Six columns, because the seventh never gets filled in

Templates that add cost codes, severity ratings, percent-complete columns and a free-text notes field end up mostly blank. Six columns is what a person can maintain standing in a stairwell with a phone in one hand.

Numbers are permanent, same as on any field report. When you split the master into per-trade lists, the drywall sub gets items #14, #22 and #31, keeping those numbers. Renumbering per trade means item #3 exists four times and nobody knows which one the email is about.

Write the fix, not the flaw

"Paint touch-up needed" is a note to yourself. "Touch up paint at the drywall patch, unit 306 living room, east wall behind the door swing" is an instruction someone can complete without calling you.

The test: could the sub's crew lead walk to the spot and finish the work from this row alone? If not, the row needs the missing piece, and it is almost always the location.

Say what "done" means when it is not obvious. "Adjust the closet door" leaves room for argument. "Adjust the closet bifold in unit 309 so both leaves close flush with the jamb, no gap at the top rail" does not.

A filled example, from an apartment building that does not exist

Scope: Riverbend Apartments, Bldg 3, Units 301 to 312. Walked September 3 by the owner's representative, back-check September 17.

Item 6 is the one that will not close in two weeks, because slope is not a touch-up. Flag those on the walk rather than letting them sit in the same pool as the nail pops. A list where one item needs a design decision and twenty-five need a caulk gun should say so.

Three statuses is enough

Open, ready for back-check, closed. A sub marks their own rows ready. Only the person who walked the building marks a row closed, and only from the site.

Percent-complete invites a number nobody can check. An item is finished or it is not, and "80%" on a punch row has never once meant eighty percent.

Design questions buried at row 34 get missed

Items that belong to design rather than execution. Standing water at a threshold, a door that swings into a light switch, a duct that does not fit the chase: those are RFIs, and burying them at row 34 of a punch list guarantees they get missed. Pull them out and send them separately.

Anything you cannot photograph. If the defect is not visible in a frame, the description has to be good enough to stand alone, and most are not.

Duplicate rows for the same defect in twelve identical units. One row per unit, always. The moment you write "typical of all units" the back-check becomes impossible to score.

Praise. Nobody needs "workmanship generally good" at the top of a punch list.

Re-photograph everything you mark closed

Issue per-trade lists from the numbered master the same day as the walk. Set the back-check date before you leave the building. Walk it with the list open, mark rows closed on the spot, and re-photograph anything you closed, because "we fixed it" and "we fixed it correctly" are separate claims.

Sitewise handles the walk half of that on iPhone and iPad: photograph each defect, dictate the item instead of typing it (the voice note transcribes on the phone), sketch an arrow on the photo when the defect is hard to see, and every capture carries a timestamp and, when location is on, a GPS pin. Basements and stairwells have no signal, so capture works offline and syncs later. The finished walk exports as a PDF or DOCX you can send from the parking lot. It does not assign work, track schedules or collect signatures.

If the term itself is new to someone on your team, the what is a punch list page covers where the list sits in project closeout and who owns it.

The number that tells you whether your list is written well is the back-check pass rate. When rows keep coming back still open, the problem is rarely the trades. It is that those rows never said, in words a crew lead could act on, what finished was supposed to look like.