Five processes every small business should write down

Most small businesses run on what the owner and a few long-time employees remember. That is efficient until one of them is out for two weeks. Writing everything down is not realistic, and nobody reads a 200-page manual. A better approach is to start with the processes where a mistake costs the most or where the same question keeps coming back.

These five are the usual best starting points.

1. Getting a new customer or client started

Write down what happens from first contact to first delivery: what information you collect, who sends the agreement, how payment is set up, and who is told. Inconsistent onboarding is where customers form their first impression, and it is where details get lost.

2. Getting paid

Cover invoicing, payment methods, follow-up on late accounts, and who is allowed to write off or adjust a balance. Cash flow problems are often process problems. An invoice that goes out three weeks late is a three-week loan to your customer.

3. Hiring and the first thirty days

Include the steps for posting, interviewing, and checking references, plus the paperwork, accounts, equipment, and training a new person needs. A written first-month plan shortens the time it takes someone to become useful and reduces the number of questions the owner has to answer.

4. Handling a complaint or an error

Decide in advance who receives it, how quickly you respond, what you may offer to fix it, and where the incident is recorded. When people know the steps, they act sooner and more consistently, and you can see patterns across incidents.

5. Closing out the month

List the tasks that happen at month end: reconciling accounts, reviewing receivables, paying recurring bills, filing required reports, backing up key files. A checklist keeps these from slipping and makes it easy for a bookkeeper or new manager to take over.

How to write them

• Use numbered steps and short sentences.
• Name a role as the owner of each process, not just a person.
• Note where each step is recorded, such as which system or folder.
• Have someone who does not normally do the task follow the document. Wherever they get stuck, fix the text.
• Put a review date on each one. A process document that is a year out of date can do more harm than none.

One page per process is enough. If you want help mapping and writing them, that is the core of our operations work.