Leading An Accounting Firm

Appendix C:Flowchart

In chapter 15, “Building the Future Firm Continuously,” I recommend various tools to help display a process or systems graphically. One of the most helpful is the flowchart. It provides a picture with many details and should be used to illustrate an existing process and how you might want it to be altered for the future.

Definitions

Flowchart. A picture of a process. It illustrates the following details of a process:

▴ The individual steps

▴ The sequence of steps

▴ The relationship between steps

Standard flowchart. Steps arranged one after another until the end. This is the most common flowchart. It works well with very simple processes. See the sample that follows this section.

Functional flowchart. Steps arranged by sequence and step owner. This flowchart is useful when many groups are involved in a process. It provides a good overview of what is happening, who is doing it, and the complexity of the process. See the sample that follows this section.

Flowcharting Steps

Decide on the process to be flowcharted.

Decide where the process begins and ends.

Brainstorm a list of all the steps within the process.

Arrange the steps in the proper order.

Connect the steps with arrows.

Helpful Tips

Flowcharting can be more difficult than is necessary. As you are building your skills in this area, it will help to keep the following tips in mind:

1. Always make sure that you have agreement on the beginning input and ending output of the process. Decide this first, and put ...