Rich document pages for how things are done, and reusable checklists that start a new run each time they are needed, recording who completed each item and when. Included on every plan.
Most stores keep procedures somewhere else: a shared doc, a folder, a tool somebody set up once. That arrangement works until the first time reality does not match the procedure, which is roughly every week.
When the exception arrives, the conversation about it happens in one place and the procedure sits in another, and neither updates the other. So the document slowly stops describing what the team actually does, and people stop opening it, and the fact that it is out of date becomes invisible because nobody is looking.
Keeping both in the same workspace does not magically fix that, but it removes the friction that causes it. The person who worked out the exception is one click from the page that should record it, and the page is where people already are rather than somewhere they have to remember to go.
An SOP page has a real editor: headings, formatting, images, the structure you need to write a procedure somebody can follow under pressure. It is a document rather than a long message, because a procedure without structure is one people read once and never return to.
Pages are internal only. Nothing written here is visible to customers, and nothing is published to your storefront.
The useful discipline is to keep SOPs to things that stay true. A page that mixes permanent policy with last Tuesday's decision teaches the team that documents are unreliable, and once they believe that about one page they stop trusting all of them. Time-sensitive things belong in a room; durable things belong here.
A checklist is defined once and started whenever it is needed, and each start creates a separate run. Monday's stock count is its own record, distinct from last Monday's, rather than the same list being wiped and reused.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. A checklist you tick and reset holds only the current state, so the question "did we actually do the Friday close last week" has no answer. A checklist that spawns runs keeps every one of them, and the answer is a record rather than a recollection.
Each item records who completed it and when. So a finished run is evidence: it says this was done, by this person, at this time. That is what makes a checklist useful for anything with a consequence, such as a goods-in check or a shift close.
Tasks and checklists overlap enough to be worth separating clearly, because teams that confuse them end up with a board full of things that are not tasks.
A task is one piece of work with an owner and a due date. It happens once. Chase the supplier about PO 4471, photograph the damaged pallet.
A checklist is a sequence that repeats. Opening the store, closing the till, receiving a delivery, onboarding a new starter. The sequence is the same each time and the run is what varies.
The practical test: if you would write it out again next week, it is a checklist. If it is a one-off, it is a task. Putting recurring work on a task board means recreating the same items forever, which is the most common reason a board gets abandoned.
SOPs and checklists are available on every plan, including the free tier for up to five people. They are not a reason to upgrade, because a procedure nobody can read is not much of a procedure and gating documentation behind a paid plan makes the tool worse at the job it is for.
What changes on paid plans is everything around them: message history beyond 30 days, private rooms and categories for scoping who sees what, and custom roles on Business+ for giving a seasonal hire or an agency exactly the part of the workspace their work needs.
Yes. SOPs are rich document pages with a real editor, supporting headings, formatting and images, written for procedures somebody has to follow rather than for long-form prose. They are internal only and never visible to customers.
A task is one piece of work with an owner and a due date, and it happens once. A checklist is a reusable template for a sequence that repeats, and starting one creates a fresh run. If you would write it out again next week, it is a checklist.
Yes. Each item records the person who completed it and when, and each run is kept separately, so a finished checklist is evidence of what was done rather than a list that was ticked and reset.
Yes, on every plan including Free for up to five people. Paid plans add unlimited message history, private rooms and categories, and custom roles on Business+.
Shopify resources attach to messages and tasks. An SOP describes how something is done in general rather than referring to one specific order, which is the distinction between a procedure and the conversation about a particular case.
No. Store Huddle runs inside Shopify admin. If your staff follow checklists from a till rather than a desk, a POS-native tool fits that better and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
Free for teams up to five, and about two minutes to connect your store.