Keep the libro de ordenes the direccion facultativa writes in

Record the visit itself: the date, who attended and in which discipline they attended. Every order written that day hangs off it, so the visit is the container rather than the paperwork.

Why: An instruction with no visit behind it is an instruction nobody can place. Which arquitecto tecnico was there, and whether the structural engineer was, decides later whether an order about reinforcement was given by somebody entitled to give it.

Enter each observation under its own number and say which kind it is: work confirmed as conforming, a deviation from the project, an acceptance of work about to be covered up, an instruction to do something, or a reasoned refusal. Name the element, the location and the action required.

Why: The type is what decides who has to do what next, and it is the thing free prose loses. A hidden-works acceptance that reads like a general comment is an acceptance nobody can find once the slab is poured, and that is exactly the record everybody wants when the slab is opened again.

On the same day, record in the diary what was on site: which trades, how many, what plant, the weather and what was actually built. Note the order reference in it so the two records point at each other.

Why: An order to stop and rework is worth whatever the stop cost, and that cost is in the diary rather than in the order. Six months later the two together are evidence; the order on its own is a sentence, and the diary on its own is a page of crew numbers nobody can attribute to anything.

An instruction or a deviation that alters the scope becomes a variation, priced from the contract rates where they reach and from a new descompuesto where they do not, with the order reference carried on it.

Why: Orders that change the work and never get priced are the single largest source of unpaid work on a Spanish job, and they are never denied at the time. They are denied at the end, when the only argument left is what somebody meant, and the reference from the order to the priced change is what stops that argument existing.

Report the orders still open, how long each has been open and who owes the next move, and take that list into the site meeting instead of reading the whole register out.

Why: An order nobody chases is closed by the passage of time, and both sides read that silence in their own favour. A short list of what is still open, tabled once a month, closes most of them without any escalation at all, and the ones that do not close are the real disputes rather than the forgotten ones.