A one-minute calculator

What does this report really cost?

A report that is built by hand looks free, because nobody sends an invoice for it. Enter how it is made today and see what it takes in a year.

The report today

Use honest averages. A rough number is enough.

What counts as a year

How it is counted

Hours per report = people times hours each, plus the checking time. Times the reports in a year: one a working day, one a working week, one every two weeks, or twelve for monthly. A day is the hours you set, eight by default.

What it leaves out

The meetings where two versions of the number are argued about, the decisions that waited for the report, and the mistakes that were never caught. So the real cost is higher.

Weekly status report, in one year

Hours
0
Working days
0
Cost
0

One person's working year, a square for each day
spent on this reportthe rest of the year

If the report built itself

Set the time it would still take each time: someone to open it, read it and send it.

15 minutes
Hours given back
0
a year
Working days given back
0
a year
Value of that time
0
a year

Fifteen minutes is not a guess: on one project I worked on, a weekly report that took a full day came down to about a quarter of an hour once the dashboard wrote it. Your number will be different. Move the slider to what you believe. The value shown is the time given back at the hourly cost you entered; it is not cash, and it does not subtract what building the automation costs.

Private by design

Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The page works with no connection once it has loaded, and it keeps nothing after you close it.