Standard Operating Procedures and flow charts systemise the business — they define the way your day-to-day activity is actually meant to function.
Your business already has processes; they are the repeatable work your people do every day. Approving an invoice. Fulfilling an order. An SOP is the documentation of that process: what the steps are, what the scope is, who is in charge.
What you get, and the benefit you accrue
- Onboarding. Nobody remembers the exact step-by-step of every process. Documentation gets a new employee up to speed on how the work is actually executed.
- Enforcing best practice. There is always one version of a process that runs better than the others. An SOP fixes that version as the standard.
- Control. Written procedure is what makes segregation of duty and approval limits enforceable rather than aspirational.
How we do it
Understand
Understand the overall business model, meet the relevant stakeholders, formulate key process objectives, and develop the structure of the SOP and flow chart.
Analyse
Analyse existing policies and procedures, the level of comprehensive coverage, the adequacy of controls in place, and segregation of duty and access rights.
Recommend
Set out future-state process requirements, improvements to business processes, and the leading practices applicable to each process.
Deliver
Hand over the consolidated SOP manual and flow charts, and run a one-day workshop with key management personnel so the document is actually adopted.
Flow charts
A flow chart is a visual representation of the sequence of steps and decisions needed to perform a process. Steps sit inside diagram shapes, linked by connecting lines and directional arrows, so anyone can follow the process logically from beginning to end. Order to cash and procure to pay are usually the first two we draw.