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Undocumented processesThe process lives in people’s heads. Until it doesn’t.
When the person who knows how a job is supposed to run goes on leave, everything that depended on their memory surfaces at once. FigsFlow puts the process on the job record — as a template checklist that runs every time the work runs, whoever is doing it.
Illustrative template. Step 04 is gated — submission cannot proceed until manager sign-off is recorded.
A process is only as reliable as its least-experienced person
Workflow templates do not assume everyone knows what the senior partner knows. They put the steps, the gates and the exceptions on the job itself — so the answer to “how do we do this?” is the checklist, not a conversation.
Workflow templates on the job
A template is a sequence of steps attached to a job type. When the job opens, the checklist opens with it — so the person doing the work sees what is expected at each stage without asking someone else.
Gated steps and review points
A gate in a template is a step that must be completed before the next one is available. Manager review before submission, AML before a letter, client sign-off before billing — each enforced by the template rather than relied on from memory.
Role coverage visibility
Which processes can only one person run? Coverage gaps that were invisible until someone left become a count before anyone leaves.
Template versioning
When a step changes, the template is updated and the change is dated. Improvements reach the whole team, not just the person who found the better way.
Exception notes in the step
Known edge cases — clients who always send amended figures, service types with different sign-off rules — sit in the step where they matter rather than in someone’s head.
Counts and labels are illustrative framings, not performance benchmarks.
The same template, seen differently depending on where you sit
A partner worrying about cover during leave needs something different from a preparer starting a job for the first time. Both are reading from the same template.
The practice risk that only becomes visible when someone is about to leave: which processes have a single point of failure, and which have documented cover.
Cover risk is an action that can be planned, not a fire to fight when someone calls in sick.
Which jobs are at a gate and who needs to act to move them forward, without having to open every job individually to find out.
A gate is not a blocker — it is a decision point you can clear from the same view that surfaced it.
What to do, in what order, for a job you may not have done before — on the job record itself rather than in an email or a handbook nobody can find.
Work the checklist. The job does not close until the steps are done.
The senior preparer goes on leave. What happens next.
Two scenarios, same firm, same week. The only difference is whether the process was written down before she left.
Monday morning, no cover
The partner realises three VAT returns are due Friday. The only person who knows the reconciliation sequence is away. Everyone else knows the software but not the order, not the exceptions, not the client whose figures always arrive amended.
The phone calls start
Two hours of messages to reach her. She talks a colleague through it. The client with the amended-figures issue is handled incorrectly because the note — which lives in her head — did not travel with the job.
Monday morning, template open
The same three VAT returns are due Friday. The person covering opens the job and the template is there: six steps, in order, with the manager review gate on step four and a note on the amended-figures client on step two.
The job runs on the template
Steps one through three are completed. Step four flags: manager review required before submission. The manager clears it. Steps five and six close the job. The client with the amended figures is handled correctly because the note was in the step.
What the template changed
Not the complexity of the job. Not the expertise needed. What changed is where the process lived: in the job record, rather than in one person who happened to be unavailable.
What workflow templates do not fix
A template documents what good looks like. It does not make bad judgement good, and it does not run itself without a team willing to use it.
It does not fix a culture where nobody updates the template
A template that nobody keeps current is a process nobody trusts. The discipline of updating it when a better way is found is yours — not something the software enforces.
Your disciplineIt does not replace expertise — it makes it portable
A template documents what a senior person knows, but it does not give the person following it the same judgement. Gates and notes reduce the gap; they do not close it entirely.
Design with that in mindIt does not replace your staff handbook or training
Workflow templates cover how client work gets done. Policies, firm values, HR processes and the reasoning behind decisions stay in your handbook and your training programme.
Different tools for different jobsBring your riskiest single-person process
Thirty minutes. Come with the process that only one person currently knows how to run, and we will show you what it looks like as a template — or tell you plainly where the fit is not right.
Illustrative scenarios on this page. Actual workflow depends on your process design.