A good domestic Schedule of Work covers, at minimum: a written description of each trade package, references to drawings and other documents that supplement it, named products or clear performance specifications, finishes by area, exclusions and assumptions, and a brief notes section for variations and provisional items.

It is the document the contractor prices against, the client sees as the scope they are paying for, and the QS holds variations against. Without it, every part of the process is harder.

Most disputes we see on small projects come back to one of two things: an absent specification, or a vague one. Investing in the document at the start removes most of the friction at the end.