Admin Manual

[Christine Itterly]

I have taken on the very ambitious project of creating and administration manual for our company.  None has ever been done, and I am finding myself a little overwhelmed.  I would like to include things such as our property management company, phone / electric / security vendors etc. along with account numbers, phone numbers and contacts.  Getting this information is not a problem.  I am running into an outline problem.  I started by creating an outline and grouping things together.  But everytime I think I have it done, something else pops up and I end up creating a "new" category or just adding it to the end of the list and hope it will eventually fit in somewhere.

Has anyone ever created a manual from scratch before?  If so any tips you can offer would be wonderful.

Also, does anyone have a good working outline that they would be willing to share with me?  I know this project will take me months, and that it will in some way all ways be a work in progress, but any help offered would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks to all and Have a GREAT FRIDAY!

[blufire21]

This is what I did.  I got a BIG binder (currently 3) and dividers.  This way every time I came up with a new section, I just add a new divider.  Every 3 months or so I go through the sections and pull out any that don't fit w/ the work I do.  I also occasionally rearrange the sections to better fit w/ what I do.  I don't keep a Table of Contents because the contents change too often.


Ellen in TX

[countrigal]

That would be my suggestion too.  Use the dividers that you can label, and clearly label these, and then it's a simple job of deciding where in the binder to put it and adding it in.  If something fits under one of the labels already added, so much the better.  And for those that are multiple docs in one section (ie: forms or templates) then I would include a list on the first page (under the divider) so it's a quick way of verifying if the one you're looking for is already there or not.  And since it's on a separate page, it's easy to keep on the PC and re-print when things change very much.  In a snap, if you're just adding a page or 2, you can simply write it in in hand and update officially at a later time.

Other than that, I'd suggest checking out the DD homepage, where they have a link to creating a desk manual.  Some of the helpful hints and ideas there might be useful for what you're doing.

CountriGal
Peer Moderator