Daily activity report template

Daily Activity Report Template for Security Guards (Free DAR)

A free daily activity report (DAR) template for security officers: shift details, a timed activity log, equipment and handover notes. Print it or use Excel.

By the PatrolBadges team · Updated October 20, 2026· 6 min read

Print it, save it as a PDF from the print dialog, or open it in a spreadsheet.

Excel / Sheets (CSV)

Daily Activity Report

Page ____ of ____

Site:
Client:
Date:
Post:
Officer:
Badge no.:
Shift start:
Shift end:

Time	Activity or observation	Location	Report no.	Initials

Keys, radio and equipment received:

Shift summary and handover for the next officer:

Officer signature:

Relieved by:

Supervisor signature:

Date reviewed:

Free template from PatrolBadges · patrolbadges.com/templates/daily-activity-report

The short answer

A daily activity report (DAR) is a security officer's record of a whole shift: who was on duty, where, and a timed log of what they did and saw, from rounds and locked doors to visitors, deliveries, alarms and incidents. It's also called a shift report, daily log or guard log book. Each entry gives the time, the activity and the location, written as plain fact in ink, and anything serious gets its own incident report. This template has the shift details at the top, a timed log, lines for equipment and handover notes, and signatures for the officer, their relief and a supervisor.

What a daily activity report is for

A daily activity report, or DAR, is the officer's account of the whole shift. It tells the client, the supervisor and the next officer what happened on the post: rounds walked, doors checked, visitors and deliveries, alarms, phone calls, and anything out of place. Other names for it include shift report, daily log, daily officer report and guard log book.

Write one for every shift, even a quiet one. A quiet DAR is still a record: it shows the post was covered and what was checked, which matters if a loss or an injury is reported days later. Where a patrol log records each stop on a round, the DAR covers everything, in time order.

What to write in each section

Section	What to write
Site, client and post	Where you worked and for whom, named as they are in your post orders.
Date and shift times	The date and your start and end times. If the shift crosses midnight, write both dates.
Officer and badge no.	Your full name, printed, and your badge or ID number.
Time	When the activity happened, not when you wrote it down. Use one format all shift: 24-hour or AM/PM.
Activity or observation	What you did or saw, in plain facts: who, what and where. One activity per line.
Location	Where it happened, using the site's own names: Lobby, Gate 2, Garage P1.
Report no.	The number of any incident report you wrote about this entry, so a reader can find it.
Initials	Yours, on every line.
Keys, radio and equipment	What you were handed at the start of the shift, and anything missing or broken.
Shift summary and handover	A few lines on what the next officer or the client needs to know: open problems, broken equipment, expected visitors.
Signatures	Yours, the officer who relieved you, and the supervisor who reviewed it, with the date.

How to write a DAR entry

Each entry answers who, what, when and where. Start with the time, say what happened in one or two plain sentences, and name the place. Write what you saw and heard, not what you think it meant.

Vague or opinion, and the factual version
Instead of	Write
Suspicious guy hanging around	Man, about 30, gray hoodie, walked the length of the parking lot twice and left on foot toward Elm St.
Checked the building, all good	Round 2: all exterior doors locked, lights working, no damage seen.
Delivery came	FedEx delivery, 4 boxes for suite 210, signed for by front desk (M. Ortiz).
Alarm went off again	Fire panel showed a trouble light, zone 4. Called the monitoring company and the on-call manager (J. Patel).

Write in ink. If you make a mistake, draw one line through it and initial it. Don't leave blank lines or space to fill in later, and if you have to add an entry afterward, mark it as late and write the time you added it.

A filled-in example

Here's part of an overnight shift at a made-up office park, in 24-hour time.

Westgate Office Park, overnight shift, officer K. Brooks (example)
Time	Activity or observation	Location	Report no.	Initials
22:00	On duty. Received key ring A (14 keys), radio 3 and patrol phone from T. Reyes. Radio tested OK.	Security desk		KB
22:20	Round 1. All exterior doors locked, lobby lights on timer.	Building A		KB
23:05	Cleaning crew signed in: 3 people from Brightway Cleaning.	Lobby		KB
00:48	Side door propped open with a trash can, nobody in sight. Closed it and checked it latched. Told on-call manager J. Patel by phone.	Building A, east side door	IR-0412	KB
02:15	Round 3. Water on floor under drinking fountain, about 2 ft across. Put out a wet floor sign, emailed maintenance.	Building B, 2nd floor		KB
06:00	Relieved by S. Nguyen. Handed over key ring A (14 keys), radio 3 and patrol phone.	Security desk		KB

Each line can be read on its own, a month later, by someone who wasn't there. The propped door has an incident report number, so a reader can find the full account.

How to fill it in well

01
Start the report when you start the shift
Fill in the header and the equipment you were handed before your first round, while the outgoing officer is still there to confirm it.
02
Log things as they happen
Write each entry at the time, or as soon as you're back at the desk. Memory at the end of a 12-hour shift isn't good enough for a record someone may rely on.
03
Keep one activity per line
Put entries in time order, one thing each. A long entry is fine, but don't fold a round and a delivery into one line.
04
Deal with it, report it, then log it
If something needs an incident report, handle it, tell whoever your post orders say to tell, write the report, and put its number in the DAR.
05
Write the handover last
Before you leave, write what the next officer needs to know. Then sign, and have your relief sign.

Common mistakes

Writing the whole DAR at the end of the shift from memory.
Vague entries: "all quiet", "checked building" or "nothing to report" for eight hours straight.
Opinions, labels or slang about people. A DAR can be read by a client, an insurer or a court.
Gaps of several hours with no entries, which reads as nobody on post.
Noting a problem without saying what was done about it or who was told.
No incident report number, so nobody can match the DAR entry to the report.

How long to keep daily activity reports

Keep DARs in date order, by site. A sensible default is at least a year, and longer for any shift that mentions an incident, an injury, a claim or a complaint, at least until it's settled. Your contract, your insurer or local rules may require longer, so check them and follow whichever asks for the most.

A daily report from scans, plus your notes

If your officers walk rounds, the patrol part of the day can be recorded without writing. With PatrolBadges, each checkpoint has a QR sticker or NFC tag, and officers scan them with their phone's camera, with no app or account. Every scan is stamped with the officer's name, the time and the location, along with the answers to any OK/Problem checks at that stop and any photos.

Each day then becomes a report: the rounds and what they missed, incidents with photos, who was on duty and every checkpoint visit. It prints, exports to CSV, and can be emailed to your client each morning with a private link. It doesn't write the narrative, though. Visitors, deliveries, phone calls and handover notes still belong on a DAR like this one, so use both: scans as proof of the rounds, and the DAR for everything else. See how a QR guard tour works with no app.

Frequently asked questions

What is a daily activity report in security?

A daily activity report (DAR) is a security officer's timed record of a shift: when they came on duty, each round, visitor, delivery, call, alarm and incident, and the handover at the end. Each entry has a time, what happened and where. It's how the client and supervisor know what happened on the post.

What is another name for a daily activity report?

It's also called a shift report, daily log, daily officer report, guard log or log book entry, and often just a DAR. They all mean the officer's timed record of a shift. A patrol log is narrower: it covers only the stops on each round.

How do you write a daily activity report?

Fill in the site, date, your name and shift times at the top. Then log each activity as it happens with the time, what happened and where, in plain facts, one per line and in ink. Finish with a short handover note, and sign it.

What should a security log book entry include?

The time, what happened, where it happened and who was involved, written as facts rather than opinions. Add what you did about it, who you told, and the number of any incident report. Initial every entry.

Do I still need a DAR if we use a guard tour system?

Usually, yes. A guard tour system like PatrolBadges proves the rounds and records what was found at each checkpoint, but it doesn't record visitors, deliveries, calls or handover notes. Keep a DAR for those, and refer to the day's patrol report for the rounds.

Can I fill in this DAR template in Excel?

Yes. The Excel / Sheets (CSV) button above the sheet downloads it as a CSV file with the header fields, columns and notes sections, which opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. Or print it, or save it as a PDF from the print dialog.

Let the rounds write their part of the report.

Add your checkpoints and scan one from your phone, right off your screen. No card, and sign up only when you're ready to keep it.

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