The RFI log: what to track, and a template you can copy

By Adam Chandler, founder of Pangea · August 21, 2026

An RFI log is the running record of every request for information on a project — the question, who asked it, who owes the answer, when it was sent, when it is needed by, and what came back. One row per RFI, kept by the general contractor in almost every case, read by everyone. It exists because a question that is not written down and tracked has no due date, and a question with no due date is the cheapest way to lose a week.

It is also the document you will be asked for first if the job ends in a delay claim. The log is the timeline: when you asked, when they answered, how long the gap was.

What is an RFI in construction?

A request for information is a written question from the contractor to the design team asking what the contract documents actually require. A dimension that conflicts between two sheets. A detail that does not exist for a condition that does. A specified product that has been discontinued. The RFI asks; the architect or engineer answers in writing; the answer becomes part of the project record.

It is not an optional courtesy. AIA A201-2017, the general conditions most commercial projects run on, requires the contractor to study and compare the contract documents before starting each portion of the work, and to promptly report errors, inconsistencies, or omissions to the architect — explicitly, as a request for information in whatever form the architect requires (§ 3.2.2 and § 3.2.3). The same document is clear that this duty is about coordination, not about the contractor doing the design team's error-checking for them.

The consequence of skipping it is spelled out too. Under § 3.2.4, a contractor who does not perform those obligations can be liable for the costs that asking would have avoided; one who does perform them is not on the hook for errors in the documents. The RFI is the paperwork that moves that risk back where it belongs — which is why the log matters as much as the question.

What should an RFI log include?

Fourteen columns cover essentially every project. The first six describe the question, the middle five run the clock, and the last three are the ones people wish they had when the schedule gets argued about:

1. RFI number — sequential, never reused, never renumbered.
2. Subject — plain language, searchable. "Grid line C footing conflicts with storm line," not "clarification."
3. Discipline — architectural, structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, plumbing. Lets you see which set of drawings is generating the questions.
4. Drawing / spec reference — the sheet number or spec section the question is about.
5. Location — building, level, grid, or station. Two RFIs about "the canopy" are indistinguishable a year later.
6. Submitted by — the subcontractor or field engineer who raised it.
7. Date submitted — when it actually went out, not when it was drafted.
8. Needed by — the date after which the crew stops. This is the single most valuable column in the log, and the one most often left blank.
9. Response due — date submitted plus the response window your contract sets.
10. Assigned to — the specific person who owes the answer, not the firm.
11. Date answered — actual.
12. Status — open, answered, closed, void, superseded.
13. Ball in court — who is holding it right now. If you keep one status column, keep this one.
14. Cost / schedule impact — none, potential, or a pointer to the change document it became.

Two more earn their space on larger jobs: related documents (the sketch, ASI, or change order the answer produced) and days open, a simple formula that sorts your worst problems to the top without anyone deciding what "urgent" means.

RFI log template

Paste this header row into a spreadsheet and you have a working log:

RFI no. | Subject | Discipline | Drawing/spec ref | Location | Submitted by | Date submitted | Needed by | Response due | Assigned to | Date answered | Status | Ball in court | Cost/schedule impact | Related docs | Days open

For days open, use =IF(K2="", TODAY()-G2, K2-G2) — days elapsed for open items, actual turnaround for closed ones. Sort descending and the log tells you what to chase before anyone opens a meeting agenda.

Numbering: straight sequential (RFI-001) is fine on a single-building job. On a multi-building or multi-phase project, prefix by area or discipline — B2-STR-014 — so a number tells you where the question lives. Whatever you choose, decide it in the first week. Renumbering an RFI log mid-project breaks every reference to it in every email, drawing, and set of minutes that came before.

One rule keeps a log trustworthy: never delete a row. Void it, supersede it, mark it a duplicate — but leave it. The RFI somebody withdrew is exactly the one that gets asked about later.

How long does the architect have to answer an RFI?

Less specifically than most contractors assume. The unmodified AIA A201-2017 says the architect will respond in writing within any agreed time limits, or otherwise with "reasonable promptness" (§ 4.2.14). That is the entire deadline in the base form — no number.

Owners routinely insert one. A modified A201 used by the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County, for example, adds that where no response time was agreed, delay is not counted against the architect until 10 days after the RFI is made. That is a materially different contract, and it is the version you are more likely to be signing than the clean form.

So the first thing to do with a new project is read your own general conditions and Division 1 for the actual number, then build the "response due" column from it. If there is no number, negotiate one before the job starts — a response window is much easier to agree on in preconstruction than on the day a crew is standing around.

The second thing: know what happens when an answer arrives and it costs money. Under § 3.2.4 of A201-2017, if the contractor believes the architect's clarification adds cost or time, that is a claim under Article 15, on Article 15's timeline. The RFI answered the question; it did not change the contract. That distinction is where the log stops being a tracking sheet and starts being evidence — the answer date is when your claim clock started.

What do RFIs actually cost?

More than the ten minutes it takes to write one. The most cited data here is the Navigant Construction Forum's report Impact & Control of RFIs on Construction Projects, which looked at over 1,300 projects worldwide, ranging from $5 million to $5 billion, and more than a million RFIs. As summarized by Construction Junkie, the study found the average response time was just under 10 days, the administrative and technical review cost was slightly more than $1,000 per RFI, and roughly 22% of all RFIs were never answered at all.

That last number is the one worth sitting with. About one in five questions asked on a construction project never gets a written answer — which means it was either answered verbally and never recorded, or the work got built on somebody's best guess. Both are invisible until they are expensive, and both are what a maintained log surfaces: the row open for 40 days with nobody's name in the ball-in-court column.

RFI, submittal, or change order — which one is it?

These three get filed interchangeably by teams under pressure, and the logs diverge from reality when they do. The plain distinction:

The chain runs left to right more often than people expect. An RFI is answered, the answer adds scope, the contractor prices it, and it becomes a change order — or, when the owner needs the work to start before the price is settled, a construction change directive. Your RFI log's impact column is where that handoff should be visible, so nobody has to reconstruct which question caused which change six months later.

Who maintains the RFI log?

The general contractor, usually delegated to a project engineer or project coordinator. They screen questions from subcontractors before they go out — a real filter, since a meaningful share of RFIs are answerable from a careful read of the documents — number them, transmit them, chase the answers, and record what comes back.

The design team and the owner's representative typically keep their own copies. That is where most RFI log problems actually come from: not a missing log, but three logs. When the architect's spreadsheet says answered and the contractor's says open, the argument is about whose file is right rather than about the building. Name one master log at the kickoff meeting, say whose it is, and make everyone else read that one instead of maintaining a parallel version.

How do you keep an RFI log current?

Every RFI log is accurate in week two. The question is month seven. Four habits do most of the work:

• Update the same day, not the day before the meeting. A log refreshed once a week is a log that is wrong six days out of seven, which teaches people to stop trusting it.
• Review it filtered, as a standing item in the weekly progress or OAC meeting — overdue and ball-in-court only. Ten rows discussed beats two hundred skimmed.
• Write down verbal answers the same day. "Just field-verify it and match the north bay" is a real answer given in a real hallway, and it is worthless unless it lands on the row, with the date and the name attached. This is where the missing 22% mostly goes.
• Log the impact when it appears, not at closeout. The two days a crew lost waiting is a fact somebody knows today and nobody can reconstruct in a year.

All four fail the same way, and it is not a discipline problem. They depend on one person remembering to transcribe what was said in a meeting, on a walk, or on a call into a spreadsheet nobody has open at the time.

Where Pangea fits

Pangea is an AI notetaker built for project-based firms — land developers, engineers, and architects — and what it does differently is file by project rather than by meeting. It records your meetings, including in-person ones with a phone on the table and no bot in the call, reads the project email and files you connect, and keeps a live file for every job: minutes, decisions, deadlines, and action items, each linked back to the moment someone said it.

For an RFI log, that closes the gap above. The verbal answer in the coordination call, the "we're still waiting on structural" in the OAC meeting, the promise to respond by Friday — those get captured and filed to the project without anyone typing, so the row you need to update is in front of you with a receipt attached. If your firm runs project management software, Pangea suggests the update and you approve it in a click. It does not replace your RFI log or your PM system; it removes the transcription step between the conversation and the record.

If keeping other people's logs current is most of your week, the project coordinator page is the closer read. Otherwise start at pangeanotes.com — the trial is 14 days, no credit card.