WHAT IS
MANUAL WORK
costing your
FIRM?
The re-keying between systems, the chasing for updates, the report someone rebuilds by hand every week. Put in four numbers and see what that adds up to over a year, and how much of it you could get back.
Copying data between tools, following up for information, producing the same documents by hand. Most teams we see land somewhere between 8 and 15.
Pay plus payroll taxes, benefits and overhead, spread across the hours someone actually works. Rough guide: annual salary times 1.3, divided by 1,840.
Some of it always needs a person. For most firms this size, 40 to 70% is achievable once the systems are connected and the handoffs run themselves. Set it wherever feels honest.
A rough sizing for your law firm, not a quote. Based on 46 working weeks a year.
Take the two or three workflows behind most of those hours. Connect the systems they run through and get the handoffs to happen without anyone pushing them along. That is where the time comes back. The Operations Scorecard is a quick way to work out which workflow to start on.
HOW THIS IS
worked out
No black box. Here is every number the calculator uses.
- Hours a year People, times hours each per week, times 46. The 46 working weeks leave about six weeks a head for holiday, sick days and training.
- Cost a year Those hours times the fully-loaded hourly cost, which is pay plus payroll taxes, benefits, software and overhead spread across the hours someone actually works.
- Recoverable cost The yearly cost times the share you set on the slider. That share is your call, based on how much of the work better systems could take off people.
- Full-time equivalent Recovered hours divided by 1,840, so you can read the time back as headcount.
- Three-year figure The recoverable cost times three, not discounted. A rough sense of what standing still costs over time, not a financial model.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved. The numbers sit in the URL, so you can bookmark a scenario or send it to a colleague.
COMMON
questions
What counts as manual work?
The repetitive, rules-based work people do by hand because the systems do not talk to each other: retyping data from one tool into another, lifting details out of emails, following up with colleagues or clients for updates, rebuilding the same weekly reports, sending templated emails one by one, squaring off spreadsheets. The skilled work is what should be filling that time instead.
How do I work out a fully-loaded hourly cost?
Take someone's annual salary, add roughly 30% for payroll taxes, benefits, software and overhead, then divide by 1,840 working hours. A $70,000 salary comes out around $49 an hour.
Is all of that time really recoverable?
No. Some work needs a person, and changing how things run takes effort. For firms of 5 to 50 people, taking out 40 to 70% of the clearly repetitive admin is a fair target once the main tools are integrated and the handoffs are automated. Set the slider wherever you think is honest.
What should I do with the figure?
Use it to decide where to start. Rank the workflows by how many repetitive hours they burn, fix the biggest two or three by connecting their tools and automating the steps in between, then keep going down the list. The Operations Scorecard points you at the first one, and a discovery call maps it against your actual stack.