Cost of Manual Work
Re-typing orders. Checking stock by phone. Chasing approvals. It never appears as a line item — so let's price it.
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Estimate based on your inputs, assuming ~190 paid working hours per month. It excludes the cost of errors, stockouts and late decisions — which in my experience is usually larger than the labour figure above.
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Which usually means one of two things: you're testing scenarios, or the number came out bigger than you expected.
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Annual cost = people × hours of manual work per person per week × 52 weeks × hourly cost, where the hourly cost is the monthly salary divided by about 190 paid hours. It also shows the hours burned per year and the equivalent number of full-time staff (weekly hours ÷ 44).
Worked example: four people each spend six hours a week retyping orders, chasing approvals and building reports, on S$3,800 a month. The hourly cost is 3,800 ÷ 190 = S$20.00. That is 4 × 6 × 52 = 1,248 hours a year, or S$24,960 a year: about half a full-time person spent on copy-paste.
Where manual hours usually go
- typing the same order into a quote, an invoice and a delivery order
- chasing late payers by email, one by one
- keying supplier invoices from PDFs
- rebuilding the same weekly report in Excel
- checking stock by walking to the shelf or calling someone
Cutting the hours
Start with the job that repeats most often. The free document makers stop the retyping between quote, invoice and delivery order, the reminder writer handles late payers, and supplier invoices from email to a sheet removes the keying. The figure above excludes the cost of errors and late decisions, which is usually larger.
Questions
How do you calculate the cost of manual work? Multiply the people involved by their manual hours per week and by 52, then by their hourly cost (monthly salary divided by about 190 paid hours).
Does it include the cost of errors? No. It counts salary only. Errors, stockouts and slow decisions usually cost more than the labour figure.
Is it free? Yes, with no signup. It gives three calculations, then offers a free 20-minute review if you want to go further.
