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What is this actually costing you?

Pick one thing that keeps going wrong. Put your own numbers against it. The figure at the top updates as you type, and nothing is gated.

What you will need

  • One problem that keeps happening
  • How often it happens, honestly
  • What it costs you each time
  • Who deals with it, and for how long

No email, no submit button. The figure updates as you type.

Your numbers

One problem at a time. If you can only guess, guess low: a figure you can defend beats a figure that sounds impressive.

Only used to label your result.

Your honest average, not a bad week.

Money out, or money you never billed. If you can only guess, guess low.

Loaded cost, not the wage. Roughly wage plus half.

Everyone's time added together, not just yours.

The arithmetic

How the math works

No black box. Here is the whole calculation and what it assumes.

We turn how often the problem happens into a number of times a year. For each of those, we add what it costs you in money to what it costs you in time, using the hourly figure you entered. That gives the yearly cost. The monthly figure is the year divided by twelve, and the six month figure is half a year of it.

  • A year is 52 weeks, 12 months or 4 quarters, whichever you picked. No allowance for holidays or slow seasons.
  • The hourly figure is loaded cost, not the wage on the payslip.
  • Time is everyone's time added together, not only yours.
  • Money you never billed counts the same as money you paid out.
  • Nothing here compounds. A problem that is getting worse costs more than this says.
  • The 2:1 line is half the annual cost, because a fix has to be worth at least twice what it costs you.

Next

What to do with this number

Take it to whoever owns the problem. A figure settles an argument that two opinions will not, and it moves the conversation from whether this matters to what it is worth spending to end it.

Then cost the second problem the same way. Once two problems both have a figure, the order stops being about who argues hardest and starts being about which one is bigger.

Cost the delay as well as the decision. Waiting a quarter is not free, and the six month line above says what waiting costs while you think about it.

The most expensive money mistake in a small business is usually a decision nobody made, because nobody produced the number that would have forced it.

Start the conversation

Bring that number to the first conversation.

Thirty minutes. You have the figure, we will tell you what it takes to move it and whether that clears the bar.

A hand picking up a fountain pen resting on a marble desk in warm light, in black and white.