A process template is worth having for one reason: every process in the business is then documented in the same shape, so a person who has read one can read them all. Trigger, steps in the order they happen, the role and the system at each, the exceptions, the outputs. The process documentation template on this site costs a set of documents in that shape and prints the payback from your figures; this page is the shape and why it is the same every time.
The same shape is the point
A business with twenty processes documented twenty different ways has twenty documents nobody can navigate. The template's value is not the headings; it is that the reader knows where the exceptions are before opening the document.
Steps carry the role and the system
Each step names who does it and where, because that is what a new person needs and what a system change later turns into a list of steps to revisit. The order is the order the work happens in, not the order of the departments.
Outputs say when the process is done
Every process produces something: a shipped order, a paid supplier, a starter on payroll, a closed ticket. Naming the output is what lets the runs be counted, and counting the runs is what turns the documentation from a cost into a payback the template can print.
Cost the set before you write it
Processes to document, average steps, hours to write and review, the rates, the runs per month and the minutes saved per run: the template turns those into the hours, the cost, the monthly saving and the payback in months.
Questions people ask about process template
Is the process template free?
The process documentation template on this site is free with no account and prints the plan and the payback. Saving the written processes with sign-offs is the paid product.
Should every process use the same template?
Yes; that is what makes the set readable. The length of each varies with the steps, the shape does not.
What about process maps?
A map helps when more than three roles are involved; the written steps with roles and systems are what people follow.