SOP

What it means

An SOP is a written procedure for repeated work: what is done, in what order, by whom, what checks it, and what happens when something deviates. The aim is the same outcome regardless of who performs it.

It is not a software manual or a policy stuffed with statutory references. A good SOP fits on a page, is written as steps and uses the language of the people who follow it.

An SOP is not an internal directive. A directive sets what must be observed and why, such as the rules for document flow or stocktaking; an SOP says how a person does it step by step. One directive can therefore have several procedures, and changing a procedure need not mean approving a new directive.

How it works in practice

In the accounting function the activities worth writing down are the ones where error costs most: processing a purchase invoice, approving a payment, the monthly close, running payroll, delivering material to clients.

An SOP grows out of the process map, is complemented by a RACI matrix, and becomes a workflow in the system. During onboarding it replaces half the training.

We give clients a short procedure too: by when and through which channel to send the month’s documents, how to label cash vouchers, whom to tell about a new employee and when. When a client follows it, the close does not begin with chasing missing paperwork and questions are left for genuine exceptions.

What to watch out for

A procedure not updated after a change in the law or the software is worse than none - people stop taking it seriously. So every SOP carries a date, an owner and a note of when it was last verified in practice, as part of internal control.

What is missing most often is the part on exceptions. The procedure describes the normal case, and with a credit note, a foreign invoice or a missing approval people improvise; that is exactly where errors arise, and kaizen-style improvement has nothing to push off from, because nowhere is it written down what the right result should have been.