6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Use the Flowingly AI SOP Recorder
AI might be the buzzword of the year, but let’s cut through the noise.
The Flowingly AI SOP Recorder isn’t built to dazzle you in a demo (though someone did fall off their chair when we showed them!). It’s built to fix the soul-destroying task of documenting procedures – the same procedures that auditors, regulators, and managers never stop asking for.
But here’s the catch: it’s not for everyone.
If you’re the wrong type of organisation, you’ll hate it. And we’d rather you work that out now than book a demo you don’t need.
Here are five reasons you shouldn’t use the Flowingly AI SOP Recorder.
1. You’re a small team with barely any procedures
Let’s be real: if you’re an SMB with a dozen procedures that rarely change and a team that can train each other over coffee, you probably don’t need the Recorder.
Yes, your documentation will be a bit messy. Yes, your staff will still occasionally bug each other with “How do I do this again?” emails. But it’s not going to sink you.
For smaller teams, Word, PDFs, or even a laminated checklist can get you by. The AI SOP Recorder really shines in councils and mid-sized organisations, where there are hundreds of procedures that need to be captured, updated, and shared across multiple teams.
If you’re not managing that level of complexity, it’s probably overkill.
Competitor tools like Scribe are awesome for individuals or small teams documenting quick steps, while Flowingly is built for bigger organisations managing hundreds of users and dozens of departments.
On average, Flowingly customers have around 300–400 active users, compared to Scribe’s typical team size of under 10. Not a dig – just a reminder these tools were built with different use cases in mind.
2. You’re not worried about audits or compliance
If the words “audit trail,” “privacy request,” or “LGOIMA” don’t strike fear into your heart, you’re in a rare position.
Most councils and public sector organisations deal with constant audit pressure. Whether it’s finance audits, privacy requests, or health and safety compliance, there’s always someone asking for evidence that procedures are documented and consistently followed.
The SOP Recorder is built for those teams – the ones who lose sleep over whether their 2019 Word doc will satisfy the next audit. It ensures procedures are standardised, governed, and version-controlled.
If compliance isn’t a headache for you, the AI SOP Recorder may not be your painkiller.
3. You love writing procedures manually
There are people who genuinely enjoy building SOPs by hand. They’ll happily spend an afternoon taking screenshots, resizing them in Word, formatting tables, and trying to make everything look neat.
If that’s your idea of a productive day, the Recorder will only ruin your fun.
It’s designed to cut procedure creation from 60 minutes to 5. It captures screenshots and steps automatically as you work, then generates a polished SOP without the formatting battle.
For organisations that need to create hundreds of procedures, this is a lifesaver. But if you only document once in a blue moon and like the manual grind, it’s probably not gonna be worth it.
4. User training isn’t high on your priority list
We’ve all seen the “sink or swim” approach to onboarding and system rollouts.
If that’s your training philosophy, the SOP Recorder probably isn’t for you.
Flowingly’s Recorder shines in teams rolling out big changes – ERP systems, CRM upgrades, whole-of-council transformations, where user training is seen as essential, not optional. Because a new system implementation is only as good as the change management and user adoption.
5. You’re not planning to modernise anytime soon
Some councils and organisations are ready to modernise. They’re moving away from legacy systems, they’re investing in better digital experiences, and they’re serious about service delivery.
Others… aren’t.
If your organisation is comfortable with SharePoint folders, outdated PDFs, and staff quietly hoarding knowledge in their inboxes, then AI will feel like too much too soon.
The Recorder isn’t a gimmick – it’s built for teams actively trying to reduce audit stress, cut admin time, and modernise how they capture and share procedures. If that’s not on your agenda, it’s not the right fit.
6. You’re married to your current tools
Here’s the big one. If you just want a lightweight SOP recorder like Scribe to sit quietly next to your existing tool stack, Flowingly isn’t for you.
Flowingly works best when you’re all-in on process improvement: SOPs embedded into process maps, connected to automated workflows, governed from a single platform.
Sure, it’s powerful as a standalone tool. But the SOP Recorder really shines when it’s part of your bigger process story. Not just capturing steps, but turning them into living, automated workflows.
If you’re not ready to unify your SOPs, maps, and workflows, you might still have the same frustrations and disconnect. And that’s okay – stick with the point solutions until you are.
So, who should use it?
If you’ve read this far and thought, “Actually, that sounds like us,” then the Flowingly AI SOP Recorder might be worth a look.
It’s built for:
- Councils drowning in compliance, audit, and LGOIMA requests.
- Mid-sized organisations with hundreds of procedures across HR, finance, and customer service.
- Teams who don’t have the luxury of reinventing the wheel every year when staff turnover hits.
For those organisations, the Recorder can cut documentation time by 90%, bring order to compliance chaos, and make procedures actually useful again.
If that’s not you? No hard feelings – stick with Word.