The short version

In one sentence: a task is a unit of work, a recurring task is a template that generates tasks automatically on a schedule, and a workflow is the structured set of steps you follow to complete a task.

Most accountancy work has all three working together. Take a quarterly VAT return: the work is a task (do the VAT return for Acme Ltd, Q2 2026), the schedule comes from a recurring task (every quarter, for every client on the VAT service), and the process is a workflow (request the records, prepare the return, get sign-off, file with HMRC).

The rest of this guide unpacks each one in turn, then shows how they connect.

Tasks — the unit of work

A task is a single piece of work to be done. "Prepare annual accounts for Smith & Co." "Run March payroll for ABC Trading." "Submit confirmation statement for Acme Ltd."

Every task in Sodium has the basics you'd expect: a name, a due date, an assignee, a status. Tasks are usually linked to a client and can also have a category set like Accounts, Tax, VAT, or Payroll for at-a-glance colour coding. You manage your own Task Category list — add and edit as many categories as you like.

Tasks can be as simple or as detailed as the work demands. There's a natural ladder of complexity:

Just a status. The simplest task is a name and a status — you move it through not started, in progress, done, and that's all there is to it. No checklist, no steps, just the one thing.
Add a checklist. For work with a handful of items to remember, add a checklist to the task — a short list of things to tick off as you go. Lightweight, quick to set up, and visible at a glance.
Attach a workflow. For multi-step processes — especially where different people own different steps, or where some steps should fire automatically — attach a workflow. More on workflows below.

Recurring Tasks — the template that schedules work

Most of what an accountancy practice does repeats. VAT every quarter. Payroll every month. Accounts every year. You don't want to remember to create those tasks manually for every client — you want Sodium to do it for you.

A recurring task is a template that says "for this group of clients, on this schedule, generate this task." Once configured, it produces fresh tasks automatically — the right work, for the right clients, at the right time.

A recurring task template defines:

A recurrence pattern: daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, with working-day awareness so weekends and bank holidays are handled cleanly.
A trigger date: either a fixed calendar date, or a client-specific date like year-end, VAT quarter, or any date-type custom field you've defined. So a client with a March year-end gets their accounts task at a different time from a client with a December year-end.
Which clients it applies to: all clients, a hand-picked list, or — most commonly — every client on a specific service.
Who it's assigned to: a specific person, a task team, or the client's manager or partner so work routes to whoever owns that relationship.
A naming template: tokens like {{ ClientName }} and {{ Quarter }} {{ Year }} turn generic templates into distinct, identifiable task names like "VAT Return - Acme Ltd - Q2 2026."
An attached workflow (optional): the process the task should follow once it's generated. More on this below.

Sodium generates tasks from the templates on schedule, with built-in deduplication — so you can safely re-run generation or adjust schedules without worrying about duplicates cluttering your workload.

Workflows — the process a task follows

Some tasks are simple: one person, one action, done. But most accountancy work isn't like that. Preparing annual accounts means requesting records from the client, reviewing them, drafting, internal review, partner sign-off, client approval, filing with Companies House, filing with HMRC. That's eight or more discrete activities, often handled by different people.

A workflow breaks that complexity into individual steps. A workflow template defines the steps once; you can then attach it to any task — typically this happens automatically via a recurring task, so every generated task starts with the workflow already in place.

Workflows are more than checklists. Each step has a type that determines what happens when it runs — an email sent to the client, a document request, a client approval or confirmation, or a stage update on the service. The workflow steps feature page covers each step type in detail.

Each step has its own assignment, so a junior might own data entry steps while a manager owns review steps. Dependencies determine the order steps fire in — so a confirmation email can wait for an approval which can wait for a manual prep step. The result is that a fair chunk of the routine back-and-forth in a workflow runs itself.

Sodium comes with a library of pre-built workflows for common accountancy work, and AI can draft a workflow from a name and description if you'd rather start from a suggestion. Everything is fully editable.

How they fit together

The three concepts form a chain. Services tie them all together:

You set up a service in Sodium (e.g. "Limited Company Accounts").
You attach one or more recurring task templates to that service (e.g. "Annual Accounts", scheduled to fire a set number of weeks after each client's year-end date).
You attach a workflow to each recurring task (e.g. the "Annual Accounts Preparation" workflow with its full set of steps — request records, draft, internal review, partner sign-off, client approval, filing).
A client accepts a proposal that includes the Annual Accounts service.
From that moment on, Sodium automatically generates a fresh Annual Accounts task for that client every year — timed off their own year-end — with the workflow already attached and ready to run.

Once it's set up, the cycle runs itself. The recurring task schedules the work, the workflow structures the work, and your team's job is to action what the workflow asks for — reviewing prep, approving documents, sending emails — while the automated bits happen in the background.

Onboarding Tasks?

Services don't only have recurring tasks attached to them — they can also have onboarding tasks. These are similar to recurring tasks in one important respect: when a client takes the service, Sodium creates the task for them automatically.

The difference is the timing. A recurring task fires on a schedule, over and over again, for as long as the client has the service. An onboarding task happens once — when the client first accepts the service or a specified number of days after.

For example, a "Collect VAT details" onboarding task on your VAT service. When a client signs up for VAT work, Sodium creates the task and its attached workflow sends them a form to capture their VAT registration number, scheme, and quarter dates. Once the client submits the form, the onboarding task completes — and from then on, the recurring quarterly VAT task takes over.

Think of onboarding tasks as the work that gets a client ready for the ongoing service, and recurring tasks as the work of delivering the ongoing service.

When to use which

A quick decision guide for the common cases:

One-off piece of work? Just create a task. No recurring template, no workflow needed.
One-off, but with a few things to remember? Create a task and add a checklist to it — a lightweight list of items to tick off. Checklists are available directly on tasks for exactly this kind of "I don't need a full workflow" situation.
Repeating work, simple to do? Create a recurring task with no workflow attached. It'll generate tasks on schedule; your team works through them like any other task.
Repeating work, multi-step process? This is the full setup — recurring task + workflow. Build the workflow once, attach it to the recurring task, and every generated task starts with the process already in place.
One-off, but multi-step? Create a task and attach a workflow directly, without a recurring template. Useful for things like client onboarding, where the work has structure but doesn't repeat.

Teams

Work in a practice is usually spread across teams, not done by one person. Sodium lets you set teams up so you can assign any task — or any individual workflow step — to a team instead of to a named individual.

Whoever picks the work up from the team takes ownership from there. The natural way for a team to pick up work is with a saved view filtered to their team's tasks — covered in the next section.

Viewing and managing tasks

Once tasks start landing — whether you created them manually, a recurring task generated them, or an onboarding task spun them up — Sodium gives you a few ways to find and work through them:

The main tasks list. Everything in one place. Switch between list view and calendar view with one click. The calendar supports daily, weekly, and monthly zoom levels, with drag-and-drop to reschedule tasks directly from the view.
Filtering. Query by status, assignee, due date, client, service, category, and more. Build the exact view you need: "overdue tasks assigned to me", "all VAT returns due this month", "everything blocked for Acme."
Categories as a filter. Because every task can carry a category (Accounts, Tax, VAT, Payroll, or whatever your firm uses), you can drill into "just the tax work" or "just the payroll" without maintaining separate lists.
Saved views. Built a query you'll use again? Save it as a view. Saved views remember your filters, sort order, and display preferences. Add them to the main navigation menu, use them in dashboard widgets, or power Focus Panel tabs with them.
The Focus Panel. A slide-out side panel that lets you work through tasks — and the workflow steps inside them — without leaving whatever page you're on. Powered by saved views and fully customisable. It's such a useful feature it has its own page.

Task statuses

Every task moves through statuses — not started, in progress, done. How they get set depends on what's on the task.

For a simple task, you move it through the statuses yourself.

For a task with a checklist, the status takes care of itself. Ticking the first item flips the task to "in progress" — and if no-one's assigned yet, it'll assign to you at the same time. Tick every item and the task is automatically marked complete.

For a task with a workflow, each step has its own status, separate from the task's overall status. Steps can be moved manually, but many step types also complete themselves automatically when their criteria are met — a client approves a document, replies to a confirmation, or uploads what you requested.

Wherever steps are listed, small status icons sit beside each one. Click them to quickly move a step through its statuses without opening it.

Where to go next

Each concept has its own feature page with the full detail:

Tasks — list and calendar views, queries, bulk actions, saved views, categories
Recurring Tasks — recurrence patterns, working-day awareness, client date triggers, smart naming
Workflows — templates, step groups, the workflow library, AI generation, dependencies
Workflow Steps — the five step types and how automatic vs manual execution works
Services — how all of the above ties to the billable work you sell

Understanding Tasks, Recurring Tasks and Workflows