Productivity and technology investment · Free
Time and cost savings calculator
Put numbers on that task that repeats every day: how many hours go on it each year, what they cost and how much you could get back by automating it.
Guide
How to calculate the time and money a task costs
Hours per year = people × minutes per task × times per day × working days ÷ 60. Saving = hours per year × automatable share × hourly cost.
The tricky figure is the hourly cost. It has to be the real cost to the company (gross salary plus employer social security) and not take-home pay; if you don't know it, use our employee cost calculator.
Example: keying in orders by hand
Three people copy orders from email into the management system. Each order takes 6 minutes and each person handles 20 a day. Over 220 working days: 3 × 6 × 20 × 220 ÷ 60 = 1,320 hours a year.
If 70% can be automated (the rest are orders with issues that a person reviews), 924 hours are freed up. At €24/h that is about €22,000 a year, more than half a full-time person.
Which tasks can be automated
Tasks that repeat, follow rules and move data from one place to another: copying orders into an ERP, preparing weekly reports, matching payments to invoices, sending reminders, sorting emails or reading data from delivery notes and PDF invoices.
If a task needs judgement every time, the usual approach is not to automate it completely, but to prepare the work so the person only has to review and decide.
Next: the ROI
Once you know what the task costs per year, you can compare it with the cost of automating it. Take the monthly saving to the ROI calculator to see how many months it takes to pay back.
How it works
- Enter how many people do the task and how long it takes.
- Set how many times a day it repeats and how much can be automated.
- See the hours and annual cost you could save.
Frequently asked questions
How is the saving calculated?
People × minutes per task × times per day × working days × automatable share. The cost multiplies those hours by the hourly cost of whoever does the task.
What hourly cost should I use?
The real cost to the company, not net pay: gross salary plus social security, divided by the hours worked per year. If you don't know, €20–35 is a common reference for office work in Spain.
What do I do with the result?
Compare it with what automating the task would cost. If one year of savings covers the project, it is usually a good investment. The ROI calculator tells you how many months it takes to pay back.
Why not automate 100%?
Almost every process has exceptions that a person should check. 60–80% automatable is a realistic estimate for many admin tasks.
Do you do this every day?
If you merge documents, prepare invoices or copy data between programs every day, that can be automated, and it's what we do.