What goes into a QM handbook? The contents for small businesses

A QM handbook for a small business does not need a hundred pages. Four parts are enough: your business, the responsibilities, the procedures, and the checks.

This guide shows what goes into each part and what you can leave out. How to write the individual pages is covered in the guide Your first QM handbook.

How to keep the handbook current after that is in the guide A QM handbook that stays current.

Your business on one page

The first page says who you are: what you do, for whom, and what matters to you at work. Five to ten sentences in your own words are enough.

What matters to you can be concrete. “We call every customer back within one day” says more than “Customer satisfaction is our top priority”.

Who is in charge of what

A list is enough: topic, name, deputy. You do not need an org chart that nobody updates after the next hire.

On top of that, every page in the handbook carries the name of the person who keeps it current. That way everyone knows whom to ask.

The procedures: the core of the QM handbook

This is where most of the work goes, and where your team looks things up most often. In many small businesses, the procedures fall into these areas:

• Orders Inquiry, quote, order, and the handover to the work itself.
• The work The actual job, one page per task.
• Purchasing and materials Ordering, checking deliveries, storage.
• Equipment and tools Maintenance, inspection dates, and who may operate what.
• New people Onboarding, safety briefings, and who shows whom what.

Not every area fits every business. Take the ones that occur in yours and write one page per procedure.

Checks and mistakes

A check sits with the procedure it belongs to: when it happens, who does it, and where the result is recorded. Its checklist sits right with the page, not in a separate binder.

Add one page for when something goes wrong. Who takes a complaint? Who decides what happens? And what do you change so it does not happen again?

What to leave out

• Boilerplate copied from templates. It does not describe how you work.
• Anything that changes all the time, such as rosters, phone lists, or prices. It stays where it is maintained anyway.
• The same rule twice. If it is on one page, the other page points there.

If a sentence could stand in any business, cut it.

How Regelwerk supports these contents

Regelwerk is a digital handbook for small businesses. You set up chapters and pages the way they suit you, across several levels too. Who may read or edit which chapter is set through groups (groups and permissions). And your team finds every page through search (search).

If you want to build your handbook with Regelwerk, join the waitlist. We answer questions through the contact page.