How to make a flowchart

A worked example, stage by stage

1. A start and a step

   The terminator names the event that begins the process — a request being submitted — and the rectangle is the first thing a person does with it. Two shapes and one arrow is already a valid flowchart; everything after this is the same move repeated.

2. The first question

   "Sufficient leave balance?" is a diamond, and the No route goes to a second question rather than to a dead stop: amend, take it unpaid, or withdraw. Three labelled exits, one of which ends the process there and then.

3. Loops are normal

   If cover cannot be found, the flow goes back to "Update the dates and resubmit" rather than failing. An arrow pointing backwards is not a mistake in a flowchart — it is how you draw the thing that really happens, which is that people try again.

4. Finish every path

   Scheduling, the payroll handoff, a cancellation route that rejoins mid-process, and an optional return-to-work meeting. Five routes reach an ending, and none of them stops in mid-air.

How it works

1. Write the steps down in order

   Plain sentences, one action each, in the order they happen. Do this before you open anything that draws. Most of the difficulty people attribute to flowcharting is really the difficulty of deciding what the steps are, and a list makes that decision visible.

2. Type them into rows

   In QueryChart each row is a box: put the sentence in the Box text column and the diagram appears as you type. There is no canvas to arrange and nothing to drag — which matters, because a chart you can edit in ten seconds is a chart that stays accurate.

3. Join them up with row numbers

   The Line to column takes the number of the row a step leads to. Row 1 pointing at 2, row 2 pointing at 3, and so on. It sounds mechanical, and that is the point: connections are data, so they survive reordering, renaming and rewriting.

4. Mark the questions

   Change the Shape column to Decision on any row that asks something, and rewrite the label as a question. Then put the answers into Line text, in the same order as the numbers in Line to, so each arrow says which case it carries.

5. Give every route an ending

   Follow each branch to its conclusion. Set Shape to End where the process finishes normally, and Reject where it stops because something was refused. A quick check: every row should either point somewhere or be a terminator.

6. Read it back and share it

   Trace each path aloud from the start. If a sentence does not make sense, the chart is wrong, not the reader. Then share the link rather than exporting an image, so the version people have is the version you keep fixing.

Frequently asked questions

What do the flowchart shapes mean?

An oval or rounded rectangle is a terminator: where the process starts, and where each route ends. A rectangle is a process step — something somebody does. A diamond is a decision: a question with a labelled route out for each answer. A document shape marks a step that produces a record. Those four cover almost every business process. The rest of a shape library — cylinders for databases, parallelograms for input — is worth reaching for only when a reader would otherwise misunderstand.

How do I start making a flowchart?

With two sentences, not a shape. Write down the event that starts the process and the state that means it has finished. Then list what happens in between, one action per line, in order. That list is the flowchart — putting it on a canvas is the mechanical part, and in QueryChart it is literally typing the list into rows and numbering which row each one leads to.

What is the difference between a flowchart and a process map?

A flowchart shows sequence and logic. A process map adds who owns each step, usually by splitting the flow into swimlanes, and often what systems and records are involved. Start with the flowchart. Add lanes the moment the process crosses a team boundary, which is where the interesting failures live.

Can I make a flowchart for free?

Yes. QueryChart's free tier covers making, editing and sharing charts, including decisions, terminators and swimlanes; if you want to skip signing up entirely, ProcessMapping.app turns a pasted list of steps into a diagram in the browser with no account at all. Both generate the layout for you rather than making you place boxes, which is the part that decides whether a chart gets maintained.