Emilia Gette serves as a marketing associate at Workast, specializing in crafting innovative strategies to engage with the audience. With a focus on creativity and attention to detail, she contributes to driving impactful results across various marketing channels.
Standard operating procedures explain how recurring work should be completed. Checklists make sure those steps are followed each time. A document may be enough for reference, but processes such as client onboarding, monthly reporting, hiring, and quality checks also need owners, deadlines, and progress tracking.
The best tool depends on whether your team needs to document a process, execute it repeatedly, capture it from the screen, or meet formal compliance requirements.
Workast is a strong option when an SOP should become actionable work rather than remain a document someone has to remember to open. Teams can build repeatable processes with:
Lists, tasks, and subtasks.
Descriptions, attachments, and instructions.
Assignees and followers.
Due dates and reminders.
Tags and custom fields.
Recurring tasks and custom templates.
For example, a client onboarding SOP could include tasks for reviewing the intake form, scheduling a kickoff call, collecting access credentials, preparing the project plan, and sending welcome materials.
Instead of rebuilding the process for every client, the team can create a custom Workast template and import it into the appropriate Space. Templates can include multiple lists and tasks, with dynamic due dates that adjust when the template is imported. Templates and some of their available features require a paid Workast plan.
Workast also supports repeating tasks that can run daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or on selected weekdays. The next recurring task is created after the current one is completed, ensuring only one active version appears at a time.
For more complex processes, AI Workflows can create tasks and subtasks on a schedule, assign work, set deadlines, and send notifications.
On the first business day of every month, create a task called “Prepare monthly client report.” Assign it to @Maya (Account Manager), set the due date for five business days later, and create subtasks for Review campaign results, Update reporting dashboard, Write performance summary, and Send report for approval.
Best for: Operational SOPs that require responsibilities, deadlines, automation, and progress tracking.
Process Street is designed specifically for building and running operational workflows. It is particularly useful for detailed procedures that require:
Tasks and form fields.
Approval steps.
Conditional logic.
Status tracking and accountability.
Records of individual workflow runs.
Conditional logic can show or hide steps based on form responses, completed tasks, or approvals. Its template library also includes SOP structures and checklists for quality assurance, audits, compliance, onboarding, and other operational processes.
Because it focuses heavily on process control, Process Street may be more than a small team needs for a straightforward checklist.
Best for: Compliance-focused or multi-stage procedures that require structured execution records.
Scribe records a person completing a digital process and automatically generates a step-by-step guide containing text, screenshots, links, keystrokes, and cursor clicks.
The Chrome and Edge extensions can capture browser-based processes across all Scribe plans. Capturing applications outside the browser through its Mac or Windows desktop app requires a Pro or Enterprise plan.
A team could use Scribe to document how to update a CRM, publish a blog article, prepare a report, or configure a customer account. The resulting guide can be edited, shared through a link, or embedded into another tool. Some exporting, screenshot editing, annotation, and redaction options depend on the selected plan.
Scribe documents how the process works but does not replace task tracking. A team could use Scribe for the instructions and Workast to assign and monitor each execution.
Best for: Visual SOPs that explain browser or desktop procedures step by step.
Notion works well as a central library for policies, procedures, onboarding guides, and internal knowledge. Teams can organize SOPs as pages or use a wiki to centralize and maintain important information.
A consistent SOP page might include:
The purpose and owner of the process.
Required tools or information.
Ordered instructions.
Images, videos, files, and links.
A review date and related resources.
Notion databases can organize these pages by department, owner, status, or review schedule. However, checking boxes on a master SOP page does not necessarily create a fresh, assigned instance of the process. Notion is therefore more suitable for storing instructions than tracking every execution.
Best for: Teams that need a searchable and customizable library of internal procedures.
Google Docs is a practical starting point for teams creating their first SOPs. Multiple people can edit the same document, make suggestions, leave comments, manage access permissions, and restore previous versions.
A Google Docs SOP can include the process objective, responsible role, requirements, ordered instructions, and completion checklist. However, it provides limited visibility into recurring execution. Managers cannot easily see the status of every active instance of a process from one document.
Best for: Teams that need a familiar place to collaboratively write and review procedures.
Choose Workast to turn repeatable procedures into assigned and trackable work.
Choose Process Street for structured and compliance-focused workflows.
Choose Scribe to capture visual step-by-step instructions.
Choose Notion to build a searchable SOP knowledge base.
Choose Google Docs for straightforward collaborative documentation.
For many small teams, documentation and execution need to work together. Detailed instructions can live in Notion, Scribe, or Google Docs and be linked inside a Workast task. The employee receives the correct procedure while the business can track who owns the process, when it is due, and whether it was completed.
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