Valentina Akpan: Founder of Rellatech, providing administrative and operations support to executives, founders, business owners and teams. Her background combines technical support, customer success, administration and operations.
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The Starting Point
The company was hiring for accounting operations: invoices, proforma invoices, receivables, month-end filing and the follow-up that goes with them. The role covers invoice administration and receivables follow-up, and the pack does not give tax advice or cover regulated accounting work. The tasks were recurring, but there was no written manual for them.
The working instructions were spread across six weeks of Slack messages. They covered which invoices are checked against what, how a proforma becomes an invoice and where the tracker is, which of five categories a closed-month document belongs in, what happens when a customer's card declines, and where files go on the SFTP server and what they are called. Each answer was in a thread somewhere, and the person who knew it was the one who kept being asked.
The goal was a pack the new hire could work from on the first day, along with a plain list of the questions that still had no answer, so the gaps were known before anyone reached them in the middle of a task.
What I Did
I read the six weeks of Slack end to end and pulled out every task that recurred, every rule that had been stated once in passing, and every decision that had been made in a thread and never written anywhere else. That became the task inventory.
Each task went into one of three tiers. Tier one was ready to hand over now: the steps were known, the checks were known, and I had done it myself. Tier two needed a decision from the owner before it could be written as a procedure. Tier three was still being defined and was labelled as such. The new hire starts on tier one, and the rest is not presented as documented.
For tier one I wrote 15 SOPs in a single Excel workbook, one sheet per procedure. Each follows the same shape: purpose, trigger, steps, the checks that make it done, where the output goes, and who to ask. Wherever I was unsure of a step, I put the question in a separate register instead of guessing, so the procedures only include steps I could confirm.
I gave the invoice work the most attention, because mistakes there cost the most. The company has a written spec for what an invoice must carry. I turned that into a check that runs before anything goes out, corrected the invoices already in the queue, and wrote down how a proforma invoice is tracked and converted so the tracker and the invoice never disagree.
Before any of this, I had designed three skills assessments for the role, marked them, and walked the candidate through the results one to one. The assessments were based on the real work, so the pack and the hiring process described the job in the same way.
What Went Into the Build
15 SOPs in one workbook
I wrote one sheet per procedure, each with its purpose, what triggers it, the steps, the checks before it counts as done, where the output goes and who to ask. The workbook covers the invoice spec check, proforma to invoice conversion, month-closed filing, open-invoice categories, card-decline follow-up and SFTP file handling.
Task inventory tiered by readiness
I sorted every recurring task in the role into three tiers: ready to hand over today, needs a decision from the owner first, and still being defined. The new hire starts on tier one, and tier three is not presented as documented.
Open-questions register
Each gap I found while writing got its own line, with the question, who can answer it and its status. This kept the SOPs accurate, because a step I was unsure of went into the register rather than into the procedure as a guess.
Invoice check against the spec
The company has a written spec for what an invoice must carry. I turned it into a checklist that runs before an invoice goes out, and corrected the invoices already in the queue so the new hire starts with an accurate queue.
Month-closed filing rules
I wrote a rule for each of the five categories of closed-month documents, so the same file is filed in the same place whoever does the filing. The rules are written in the SOP for anyone to follow.
Skills assessments for the hire
Before the pack, I designed three skills assessments for the role, marked them, and walked the candidate through the results one to one. The assessments also gave the candidate a preview of the work.
Why It Matters
Without a manual, a new person learns the role by asking questions as they go. The questions often go to the busiest person, the answers are given verbally rather than written down, and the next hire has to start over in the same way. A pack gives the new hire something to read and work from before they need to ask, and it keeps the documented procedures separate from the decisions that are still open.
The readiness tiers and the open-questions register also show the owner where the role stands. Tier two is a list of decisions waiting on them, and tier three is work the business has not yet defined. Having both written as a list makes them easier to act on.
The invoice check is worth doing for its own sake. An invoice that goes out without everything the spec requires comes back as a query, a delay and a correction, while the check before sending takes about a minute.
I consider a procedure finished when someone who was not part of the original conversations can follow it.
Tools and Skills Used
Process documentation and SOP writing, accounts receivable operations, invoice checks against a spec, month-end filing rules, onboarding design, skills assessment design and marking, and writing the question down instead of guessing.
Who This Is For
This case study is worth reading if you are:
- ●Hiring for a role that the founder or whoever was available has been doing, with nothing written down.
- ●Running billing and receivables from a spec that is only known by a few people or kept in chat threads.
- ●Wanting a plain list of which parts of a role are ready to hand over and which still need a decision.
- ●Looking for someone to design and mark a skills assessment that uses the real work, not a generic test.
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