Is the problem big enough to digitalise?

The hours are your own, and they are what carries the calculation. The hourly cost is the gross salary plus the employer costs, spread over the working hours of the year after annual leave, public holidays and sick leave.

On top of that sit three assumptions: how much a solution can take over, how fast it has to pay for itself, and what running it costs. You set the first two yourselves, and they move the figure more than anything else.

The estimate counts only the hours you free up. Fewer mistakes, customers who stay, and work that does not have to be redone are left out, because we cannot put a price on them without guessing. In return it does not deduct your own time for settling the solution in either.

Try running it again with low estimates. If the conclusion still holds, the decision is robust.

A solution is not finished once it has been built. It has to be watched, it has to be updated, small things need fixing, and everyday life brings changes that somebody has to make. That is the item we most often see forgotten when somebody decides to build something, and it is why the calculator counts it before it says what can be invested.

If we are to answer quickly on what it costs to run and maintain the solution over time as part of a service agreement, we use a rule of thumb of around 20% a year of what the solution cost to build. That is a starting point, not a price. We build bespoke solutions, so the right figure only appears once the solution has been shaped, and we work it out with you.

Because a project that does not pay for itself makes for a poor collaboration. The pressure grows, the patience runs out, and nobody ends up happy with the solution that comes out of it. If the numbers do not add up, we would rather say so before we start than halfway through.

A figure you can disagree with is worth more than a feeling nobody can test. It is usually while we are arguing about the figure that it becomes clear what can be done and what cannot.

Because the conversion would be guesswork, and a calculation built on invented amounts convinces nobody, least of all a sceptical CFO. Tasks times minutes are numbers you can stand behind. Frustration, mistakes and risk belong in the decision, but as words with a reason attached, not as money.

Take the average for the people who actually do the work. If three of them are on the task on different salaries, use a middle estimate; it rarely moves the conclusion, and you can always run it again with another figure.

Use the gross salary before tax, without the employer pension contribution. The calculator adds about 20% on top for pension, ATP, holiday pay and insurance, and it spreads the year over about 1,550 working hours, which is after annual leave, public holidays and sick leave. If you add the pension yourself, it counts twice.

If in doubt, leave the starting value as it is, or set it low. The hours alone usually show clearly enough whether the problem is big or small.

Then now is exactly when it is cheap to keep an eye on it. Set up a simple measurement for a couple of weeks and run the numbers again with real figures. If the figure grows with the business, you will reach the limit with your eyes open instead of discovering it once the problem has become urgent. Waiting deliberately is a decision; waiting blindly is not.

Rarely. A solution typically removes a large part of the manual work, but there will still be exceptions, checks and a settling-in period. That is why the calculator asks how much a solution can realistically take over, and works out the payback on that rather than on all the hours. Set the share cautiously, and the business case will hold when reality turns up.

The discovery call is free and without obligation. If we need to dig deeper, the next step is a digital pre-project at a fixed price, excluding VAT, and you know the amount before anything is set in motion. If you build on with us within 90 days, the pre-project is deducted from the first stage. The terms are put in writing before you say yes, so the investigation is a safe first step and not an extra cost on top of the project.