TLDR;
A process is what you do. A workflow is how it moves. A system is what makes it happen without you having to think about it.
Most small businesses have processes sitting in someone’s head, no workflow to speak of, and nothing that resembles a system. And that can cause major issues in the background.
Ask most business owners if they have a system for chasing late invoices or onboarding new clients, and they’ll say “yes?” with a question mark at the end.
Ask what happens when they’re away for two weeks and the answer usually falls apart and some sort of grimaced look on their faces. What they have is a process they remember to do because it’s in their head.
That’s not the same thing, and the gap between the two is where things quietly go wrong and can escalate fast.
Three terms, and they’re not equals
- A process is the sequence of steps that gets you from A to B. It exists whether or not it’s written down, because you’re already doing it, even if only in your head.
- A workflow is that process in motion. It’s who does what, in what order, using which tools, and what happens when something gets stuck or missed.
- A system is the structure that makes the workflow repeat without you personally driving every step. It includes the tools, the triggers, the checks, and enough documentation that someone other than you could run it.
Put simply, a system is built from workflows, and workflows are built from processes.
They’re not three things sitting side by side. They’re layers, and most small businesses only have the top two, which can get messy.
Below is an illustration of how each step looks, using the classic business case of invoicing and onboarding new clients as an example:
Let’s see how they would look when separated.
The journey during onboarding and invoicing
This can look different for everyone. But here is how the process, workflow and system of onboarding and invoicing new clients could look like:
The ‘process’ is straightforward
Receive the enquiry from the client and gathering their details while understanding their scenarios.
This follows by setting up their accounts, agree what’s going to happen and when it will happen, then send the proposal. Meanwhile, raise the invoice, send it, chase it if it’s late, reconcile it once paid.
It sounds simple but a manual process that is quite hands-on, apart from the odd use of tools here and there.
The ‘workflow’ adds the mechanics.
The workflow is where most small businesses actually operate. A checklist somewhere, a rough order they follow, maybe a template email. It works, as long as the same person or two does it every time and isn’t juggling three other things at once.
There is a similar process, only this time before the invoice has been paid, there is trigger which is when you are waiting for the client to sign off the proposal. This could be via an electronic signature.
Then an invoice is sent, with a reminder at seven days and a firmer one at fourteen.
The ‘system’ is when none of that needs you to remember it
A system is what happens once none of that needs you to remember it.
Building reporting systems was a big part of my career before Untangli. I took something that used to live entirely in someone’s head and turned it into a process that ran on its own, with clear ownership if a number ever didn’t land where it should.
I hated doing manual reports. But I realised part of the reason is because of how it’s set up and put together. There’s a lot information I have to try to remember and extract from my head and various email messages, go from one tool to another to get the numbers…it can get messy.
But if a system was in place, it will be a smoother process where things are in place, information are readily available within easy reach and automations are running in the background to present what I need.
And that’s the power of a system.
The mistake almost everyone makes
In my last business, I’ve been in a call with an account manager at HubSpot where they were encouraging me to upgrade because they believed it will change my business and help me scale much quicker.
I pushed back, as I disagreed with them. And also, they didn’t understand my business and what’s going on.
It’s easy to look at a shiny tool, new or otherwise, to expect to save your entire business. But it’s so important to look at the bigger picture (something the HubSpot account person failed to do).
Assuming a tool is the system (think Notion, Asana, a shared spreadsheet), these are places a process happens to live. Yes, they are useful, sometimes essential. But a tool without triggers, ownership and a fallback is just a nicer notebook (and how many of them do we have piling around the house?).
The system is the thinking behind how the tool gets used, not the tool itself.
Three questions to work out what you’re actually missing:
- Could someone else run this without asking you a question first?
- Does it survive you being unavailable for two weeks?
- If a step gets missed, does anything catch it, or does it just quietly not happen?
If the honest answer to any of those is no, what you’ve got is a process, maybe a workflow if you’re lucky. It isn’t a system yet.
That mindset helped me to save thousands of pounds from not paying for unnecessary tools or an upgrade to an existing one.
Where this leaves you
Most businesses have processes. Some have workflows. Very few have proper systems, and that gap is usually where the late invoice, the dropped client, or the two-day admin catch-up comes from.
All of which can eat up a lot of your time.
If you recognise your business somewhere in this, that gap is exactly what I help sort out.
