Use this template
A ready-to-use SOP template for documenting processes consistently. The full field structure is below, and you can copy it straight into Google Docs or Word.
Want to create an SOP from a recording instead of filling in the fields by hand? Start from a screen recording.
Standard Operating Procedure Template
Filled with a real example rather than placeholders. The process is handing a newly purchased vehicle over to a customer at a dealership.
Copy from here.
Title and number. Vehicle handover to customer. SOP-SLS-004.
Purpose. Complete the handover of a purchased vehicle so the customer leaves with the correct vehicle, correct documentation and a clear understanding of what happens next.
Scope. Covers handover of new and used vehicles to retail customers. Does not cover fleet deliveries, which follow SOP-SLS-009, or handover of courtesy vehicles.
Who may perform it. Sales executives who have completed handover training. A sales manager must be present for any handover involving a finance agreement over a stated value.
What you need before starting. Vehicle valeted and fuelled. Registration confirmed. Finance documentation returned and signed. Any agreed rectification work completed and signed off. Handover pack printed.
Steps and branches.
# | Step | You should see | If it is different |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Confirm the vehicle is ready and matches the order | Vehicle on the handover bay, valeted, correct specification | Not valeted: offer the customer a drink and a fifteen minute wait, or rebook. Do not hand over an unvalet ed vehicle. Manager approval not required for a rebooking. |
2 | Confirm registration is complete | Registration document or confirmation reference present | Registration not through: handover may proceed on trade plates only with manager approval. Explain to the customer what this means before they arrive, not on the day. |
3 | Confirm finance documentation is returned | Signed agreement in the pack | Not returned: do not release the vehicle. Contact the lender, and tell the customer the same day rather than at the appointment. |
4 | Confirm any agreed work is complete | Rectification sheet signed off | Part on back order: offer handover with the work booked, in writing, with a date. Sales manager may authorise a goodwill gesture up to the stated limit. |
5 | Inspect the part exchange with the customer | Condition matches the appraisal | Condition worse than declared: reappraise before completing. Any adjustment above the stated threshold is a manager decision, not a sales executive one. |
6 | Walk the customer through the vehicle | Customer has operated the key controls themselves | Customer in a hurry: offer a follow up call within forty eight hours and note it. Do not skip the safety related controls. |
7 | Hand over documentation and keys | Customer holds both, checklist signed | |
8 | Book the follow up contact | Contact scheduled in the system |
Escalation. Anything not covered above goes to the sales manager on duty. Anything involving a dispute over money goes to the general manager the same day.
Owner, version, review. Owned by the Group Sales Manager. Version 6, last reviewed 11 April, next review April next year. Reviewed immediately on any change to the finance process or the handover system.
Copy to here.
Six branches across eight steps. The original version of this procedure had eight steps and no branches, which is the point of the example below.
What This Template Contains
Fifteen fields, in the order they should appear. The header block is what turns a set of instructions into a controlled document.
SOP title
SOP ID
Department
Owner
Version
Effective date
Review date
Purpose
Scope
Required tools, access and resources
Responsibilities
Procedure steps
Exceptions and edge cases
Safety and compliance notes
Approval and sign-off
How to Fill Out This SOP Template
Scope first, before anything else:
state which situations this applies to and which it does not. Vague scope is the most common reason a procedure gets written and then never used, because a reader cannot tell whether it is meant for themOwner, not author:
the owner is whoever keeps it accurate, which is often not the person who wrote it. Unowned procedures are the ones that go stalePrerequisites before steps:
list the access and tools needed up front. Discovering at step seven that you lack a login is the most common reason a procedure gets abandoned mid-wayOne action per step:
in the order performed, naming the thing being acted on rather than its position on screen. "Open the Billing tab" survives a redesign; "click the third tab" does notGive exceptions their own section:
nobody reads a procedure for the part they already know, so the section most likely to be read is the one most procedures leave out. For each exception record the condition that triggers it, what to do, and who decides. Keep it beside the step it belongs to rather than in an appendixReview date, set now:
pick an interval based on how often the underlying process actually changes, and put it in the header rather than in someone's calendar
What is a free SOP template?
A free SOP template is a reusable structure for writing a standard operating procedure: a document setting out how a specific process is performed, by whom, in what order, so that it is done the same way every time. Once filled in, you can turn the SOP into a training video so new hires can watch it step by step.
Templates for this are everywhere and they are close to identical. Purpose, scope, roles, steps, and a version box. That structure is correct and it takes fifteen minutes to reproduce.
What separates a procedure people follow from one that sits unread is not in the template. It is a decision about what to document, and almost everybody gets it the wrong way round.
SOP and standard operating procedure mean the same thing, and search results treat them as one term, so a free standard operating procedure template and a free SOP template are the same document under two names.
Format follows use. A free SOP template Word file is where most procedures are written, reviewed and approved, and a simple standard operating procedure template Word layout is the right starting point for most teams. A free standard operating procedure template Excel version suits procedures that are essentially tabular, such as checklists and recurring schedules. PDF is useful when you need to distribute a finalised, non-editable version, while Word and Google Docs are better for creating and maintaining the working document. A free standard operating procedure template doc file is the same as a Word file under an older extension.
Example: Completed Employee Onboarding SOP
The same template, filled in, so you can see what each field looks like in practice.
SOP title: New employee onboarding
SOP ID / version: HR-004 / v2.1
Owner: HR Operations
Purpose: Ensure every new employee completes required onboarding steps before their first working day
Scope: All new full-time employees. Does not cover contractors or interns
Prerequisites: HRIS access, signed contract on file, onboarding checklist
Responsibilities: HR Operations performs, hiring manager confirms, IT provisions accounts
Procedure
Create the employee profile in the HRIS.
Send the onboarding documentation pack and confirm receipt.
Raise the IT request for accounts and hardware.
Schedule orientation and first-week check-in.
Confirm completion and mark the checklist closed.
Exceptions: if the signed contract is not on file, stop at step one and escalate to the hiring manager. If the start date is inside five working days, raise the IT request first.
Review date: annually, or whenever the HRIS changes.
SOP Template Formats
Format | Best for |
|---|---|
Word | Editable formal SOP documents, and organisations with existing document control |
Google Docs | Team collaboration, where several people comment and edit at once |
Sharing or printing a finalised, uneditable procedure | |
Excel or Sheets | Step registers, checklists and tracking completion |
Trupeer | Creating SOPs from recorded workflows rather than filling in fields |
The structure above copies into any of these. Pick the format by who has to edit it and whether it needs to be locked once approved.
When to Use This Template
This is the general-purpose structure. It suits onboarding, IT procedures, customer support, operations, HR, finance and any recurring workflow where the same job needs to produce the same result.
If your procedure is specific to a function, there is a version already shaped for it:
For examples and formats side by side rather than one template, see the wider set of SOP templates.
Create an SOP From a Screen Recording Instead
Starting from a blank template is not always the fastest route. When a process is easier to demonstrate than to describe, and especially when it happens on screen, filling in fifteen fields by hand is the slow way round.
Record the process once and Trupeer turns the recording into a structured SOP with a screenshot per step, plus a narrated video from the same capture. You still add the scope, the exceptions and the approvals, but the steps and screenshots arrive already done.
Best suited to software walkthroughs, onboarding, support procedures, internal operations and knowledge transfer before someone leaves.
Turn a screen recording into an SOP, or start with the SOP generator. For the wider category, see SOP software.
Customize This Template in Trupeer
Step 1: Open the Templates Section
Go to the Templates section from the main navigation.
Step 2: Select and Open a Template
Click on any template you want to work with to open it.
Step 3: Expand the Template View
If needed, expand the template view to see the full layout and details clearly.
Step 4: Edit the Template
Click on Edit to start modifying the selected template.
Within the editor, you can:
Add new sections
Define or update formatting rules
Add a logo and adjust its position and related settings
Step 5: Save Your Customized Template
After making all necessary changes, click Save to store the updated template as your own.
Step 6: Preview and Fine-Tune the Template
When you want to see how your customized template looks, open the Preview.
From the preview screen, you can continue to make adjustments directly if needed, ensuring the template appears exactly as you want.
How to write an SOP in six steps
Watch the process performed, several times, by different people. Not once, and not by asking. People describe the intended process and perform the actual one.
Write the ordinary path first, one action per step, with what the result should look like.
Find the branches. From your observations, from asking what went wrong the last five times, and from the complaint and error records.
Write each branch beside its step, including who decides where a decision is involved.
Have somebody who has never done it follow it. Every question they ask is a defect. Write down the answer rather than explaining it.
Put owner, version and date in the footer, and set a review date before you publish it rather than afterwards.
Step five is the cheapest quality mechanism available and the most commonly skipped. An author cannot see their own assumptions, and a stranger finds them in twenty minutes.
SOP formats: steps, hierarchical and flowchart
Three formats, and the choice should follow the process rather than preference.
Simple step format. A numbered list. Correct for short, linear processes with few decisions. Most procedures should be this, and many are made complicated for no reason.
Hierarchical format. Numbered steps with numbered substeps. Suits longer processes where some steps need detail and others do not, and where different roles perform different parts. The format most large organisations settle on.
Flowchart format. A diagram. Genuinely better where the process is decision heavy and the branches matter more than the sequence, which by the argument of this page is more processes than usually get drawn. The cost is maintenance, since a diagram is harder to edit than a list, and an out of date flowchart is harder to correct than an out of date paragraph.
A practical hybrid works well: steps as a table, with a branch column beside them, as in the example above. It keeps the editability of a list while capturing the decisions a flowchart would show.
One further consideration when adapting any template: keep whatever you customise consistent across the set. Whichever you choose, use the same one across your procedures. Readers learn a format, and a manual containing three different ones costs everybody a moment of reorientation every time.
SOP templates by department
Every function needs procedures and the emphasis shifts considerably between them.
Sales and business development. Procedures cover pipeline handling, quoting and handover, and the branches usually involve permission rather than method. The business development SOP covers that ground.
Marketing. Approval and publication steps dominate, and the critical branches are around anything irreversible once published, which the digital marketing SOP addresses.
Customer service. Procedures are read at the moment of use, mid conversation, which changes how they must be laid out. Covered in the customer service SOP.
IT. Access, change and incident procedures, with heavy escalation content. The IT SOP covers those.
HR. Consequences vary by severity and the procedure needs to distinguish them clearly, and employment law applies throughout.
Manufacturing, warehouse and construction. Procedures sit above detailed work instructions and safety documentation, and the boundary between the three should be stated explicitly or all three end up in one document.
Healthcare, pharmaceutical, food and financial services. These sectors may have regulatory requirements for controlled procedures, documentation, training, approval, distribution or retention, depending on the activity and applicable standard, which can include obligations for approval, distribution, training records and retention. Build to the applicable standard with qualified input. Nothing on this page substitutes for that.
Show the process rather than describing it
Some steps are quicker to demonstrate than to write. Where a procedure involves a screen, a screenshot per step removes most of the ambiguity that written instructions carry, and a short clip handles the steps that are genuinely hard to describe.
That is the case for recording the process rather than writing it from a blank template. See converting a screen recording to an SOP.
SOP, work instruction, policy or process map?
Four documents at four altitudes, and choosing the wrong one is the most common structural mistake.
A policy states what must be true and why. Short, rarely changed, and it does not tell anyone how to do anything.
A standard operating procedure states how a process runs: who does what, in what order. It usually spans roles and it is the level this page covers.
A work instruction states how one task inside that procedure is performed, in enough detail for somebody unfamiliar to do it. The work instructions template covers it.
A process map is a diagram of the same process, useful for seeing handoffs and delays rather than for following.
The test is who reads it and what they do next. If the reader needs to know what is permitted, that is policy. If they need to know what happens in what order, that is a procedure. If they need to know which button to press, that is a work instruction.
Writing task detail into an SOP produces a forty page document too long to read as an overview and too general to follow as instructions, which is the single most common fault in procedure sets.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a free SOP template?
Yes, the full field structure is on this page and can be copied into Google Docs, Word or any editor. A Word or PDF file is the usual starting point because most teams already have those tools and can apply their own house formatting.
What should an SOP template include?
Fifteen fields: title, SOP ID, department, owner, version, effective and review dates, purpose, scope, required tools and access, responsibilities, procedure steps, exceptions, safety and compliance notes, and approval. The header block is what makes it a controlled document rather than a set of instructions.
Is Word or Google Docs better for an SOP?
Word suits organisations with established document control and offline requirements. Google Docs suits teams who need several people editing and commenting at once. Neither handles versioning across a large library well, which is where a dedicated system starts to matter.
What is the difference between an SOP and a work instruction?
An SOP covers a whole procedure end to end, including who is responsible and what happens at the exceptions. A work instruction covers one task within it, usually at a more granular level. Stating the boundary explicitly stops both ending up in one document.
How often should an SOP be reviewed?
Set the interval by how fast the underlying process changes rather than by a fixed calendar rule. A procedure tied to software that ships monthly needs checking far more often than one covering a stable physical process. Put the review date in the header so it is visible rather than in somebody's diary.
How should exceptions be documented in an SOP?
Give them their own section rather than a footnote. List the branch, the condition that triggers it, and what to do. The unusual cases are where most errors happen, and a procedure that only documents the happy path runs out exactly when the reader needs it.
Can AI create an SOP from a process recording?
Yes. Record the process once and the AI identifies the steps, captures a screenshot for each and drafts the instruction text. You still add the scope, the exceptions and the approvals. See converting a screen recording to an SOP.
Can I customize this SOP template?
Yes. Add or remove fields to match your own document control requirements, and set up one variant per procedure type rather than a single template that half fits everything. If your procedure is function-specific, there are department versions linked above.
