# Manual Work Cost Calculator > Estimates what your company pays each year for work done by hand, area by area: sales, marketing, support and administration, each with its own salary and its own tasks. All amounts are in Mexican pesos (MXN). The interactive tool is at https://c2suite.com/en/resources/manual-work-cost. The full formula is below, so the calculation can be reproduced without it. ## The formula The calculation is done **by area**. Each area has its own salary, so its own cost per hour, and the same task costs a different amount depending on who does it. Salaries and results are in Mexican pesos (MXN), and the benefits factor reflects Mexican payroll costs. For a team paid in another currency, convert the salaries to MXN first; for a different benefits cost, adjust the salaries until the cost per hour matches. 1. **Cost per hour of an area** = its gross monthly salary × 1.4 ÷ 173. The factor covers Mexican payroll costs: social security (IMSS), the mandatory year-end bonus (aguinaldo), paid vacation and the vacation premium. The 173 hours are a 40-hour work week spread over the month. 2. **Hours per year of a task** = people in the area × hours per week each of them spends on it × 48 weeks. Hours are entered as an average per person, so a task that only two out of six people do is entered as the average for the area. The year has 48 weeks and not 52 because vacation and public holidays are taken out. 3. **Yearly cost of the task** = hours per year × the cost per hour of its area. 4. **Recoverable hours** = hours per year × the share that can be automated (30%, 60% or 85%). 5. **Full-time people** = hours per year ÷ 2,076, which is what one person works in a year. 6. **Priority of a task** = first its weight is calculated, which is the average of its share of the total cost and its share of the total hours. Tasks are sorted from highest to lowest weight and the weights are added up in that order. The band depends on the running total **before** that task: below 0.5 it is high priority, below 0.8 it is medium, and the rest is low. Both money and hours count because an hour of support costs less than an hour of sales, and sorting by money alone pushes down tasks that take half the team's week. 7. **Share of payroll** = the cost of manual work ÷ the yearly payroll, with benefits, of those same areas, which is each area's gross monthly salary × 1.4 × 12 × its people. This gives the amount a scale: a million pesos means little until you know what it is compared with. 8. **Months to pay it back** = the one-time implementation amount entered by the user ÷ (recoverable cost per year ÷ 12). It is a single payment, not a monthly fee; with a monthly fee, enter the total for a year. The user enters this figure, not C2Suite: there is no price of ours here. ## Operation profiles The profile only decides which areas appear and how many people they start with; the user adjusts everything afterward. - **Small sales team**: Two to five people across sales and marketing, with no separate team for customers who already bought. - **Sales and marketing at volume**: Six to fifteen people, active campaigns and leads coming in through several channels, so there is already data to reconcile between systems. - **Full operation**: Sales, marketing, a team that serves existing customers, and the people who invoice and collect. Repetitive work weighs the most here, because every sale creates manual work in the other areas. - **Custom**: You choose which areas your company has. Use it if your operation doesn't look like any of the options above: for example, if you have support but no marketing. ## The 4 areas and their 16 tasks The salary is the tool's starting figure, in Mexican pesos per month, typical of Mexico; it can be changed in the form. The percentage is C2Suite's estimate of how much of each task can be automated, based on our own implementations and not on a published study. ### Sales The people who prospect, quote and close. Manual work costs the most here, because every hour of data entry is an hour not spent with a customer. Starting salary: MX$28,000 a month. - **Enter and update CRM data** (85% can be automated, 4 h/week per person to start). Typing in what already exists somewhere else: the details from an email, a business card from a trade show, the deal stage after a call. - **Follow up one by one** (60% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Writing the usual email with a different name, and remembering who is due today so that nobody is forgotten. - **Prepare quotes and proposals** (60% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Opening the last one, changing the name and the prices, and checking twice that nothing from the previous customer is left. - **Gather information before a meeting** (60% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Searching email, chat and the shared folder to piece together what was discussed with this customer and what was agreed. ### Marketing The people who create demand and measure it. They carry the work of exporting, reconciling and exporting again, which is the least visible work and the most repeated. Starting salary: MX$25,000 a month. - **Build reports by hand** (85% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Exporting from two or three platforms, pasting into a spreadsheet, fixing the numbers that don't match, and doing it all again the next month. - **Review and assign incoming leads** (85% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Reading each request, looking up the company it comes from, deciding if it is worth pursuing and telling the right person to handle it. - **Clean lists and segments before each send** (85% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Exporting, removing duplicates, filling in empty fields and rebuilding the list because the last one no longer works. - **Adapt and publish the same content on each channel** (60% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Rewriting the same message for email, social media and the website, and publishing it by hand on each one. ### Support and customer success The people who serve customers who already bought. Their workload grows with the customer base, so what is handled by hand today stops keeping up when the number of customers doubles. Starting salary: MX$20,000 a month. - **Answer the same questions again and again** (60% can be automated, 4 h/week per person to start). Prices, delivery times, what is included and what is not: the same answer, written again because it isn't stored anywhere easy to find. - **Log and sort incoming requests** (85% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Opening the case, tagging it, deciding what type it is and telling the person who should handle it. - **Check each customer account one by one** (60% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Going into each account, looking at what they use and what they stopped using, and noting by hand who might leave. - **Pass cases and context to another area** (60% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Copying the history into an email or another system so that sales or product can understand what it is about. ### Administration and collections The people who invoice, reconcile and collect. This area has the most repetitive, rule-bound tasks in the company, and a mistake here costs a canceled invoice or a payment nobody followed up on. Starting salary: MX$18,000 a month. - **Issue electronic invoices** (85% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Retyping into the e-invoicing system what was already in the quote, getting the invoice validated, saving the files and emailing each one separately. - **Match payments to the bank statement** (60% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Downloading the bank statement, matching each deposit to its invoice and chasing the one that arrived without a reference. - **Chase overdue payments** (85% can be automated, 3 h/week per person to start). Checking who owes and since when, writing the usual reminder and writing it again two weeks later. - **Put together the monthly package for accounting** (60% can be automated, 2 h/week per person to start). Collecting receipts, payment records and spreadsheets every month, and answering the emails about what is missing. ## Each area has its own cost A single average skews the result up and down at the same time, so each area has its own salary and its own cost per hour. - Each area's gross monthly salary, in Mexican pesos (MXN), is multiplied by a factor of 1.4 for Mexican payroll costs: social security (IMSS), the mandatory year-end bonus (aguinaldo), paid vacation and the vacation premium. - The result is divided by 173 hours a month, which is a 40-hour work week spread over the month. - An hour of sales and an hour of support don't cost the same, and the same task costs a different amount depending on who does it. ## How many hours it takes Within each area, each task is counted on its own: the people in the area times the hours each of them spends on it every week. - Hours are an average per person, so a task that only two out of six people do is entered as the average for the area. - A year has 48 working weeks: 52 minus vacation and public holidays. - Counting task by task avoids a round number that nobody believes, and shows which task weighs the most. ## What can be removed Not all manual work goes away. Each task comes with an estimate of how much of it can be automated, and you decide the final value. - Three levels: a little (30%), a good part (60%) and nearly all (85%). - The suggestion comes from what we have automated for real clients, not from a market figure. - Lower it for tasks where your team adds judgment and not only typing. ## The hours, counted in people This is the number that makes sense in a management meeting. People argue about a yearly cost; a full-time job spent copying data needs no explanation. - The hours for the year are divided by 2,076, which is what one person works in a year. - It doesn't mean you have too many people: these hours are spread across several people, who then go back to their real work. - The whole calculation runs in your browser. What gets saved is the scenario you had when you clicked "Calculate the cost". ## Frequently asked questions ### How is the cost of manual work calculated? Area by area. Within each area, the number of people is multiplied by the hours each of them spends on each task per week, and the result by 48 weeks a year. Those hours are valued at the area's cost per hour, which is its gross monthly salary multiplied by 1.4 and divided by 173 hours a month. ### Why does it ask for a salary per area instead of one salary? Because a sales rep, a marketer, a support agent and the person who handles invoicing don't cost the same. With a single average, the same task is overvalued in one area and undervalued in another. Separating them also shows where manual work hurts the most, which is not always where most of the hours go. ### What assumptions does the calculator use? All amounts are in Mexican pesos (MXN), and the starting salaries are typical of Mexico. The cost per hour applies a factor of 1.4 for Mexican payroll costs: social security (IMSS), the mandatory year-end bonus (aguinaldo), paid vacation and the vacation premium. A 40-hour work week equals 173 hours a month, and a year has 48 working weeks after vacation and public holidays. They are all shown in the result. If your team is paid in another currency, convert the salaries to MXN, and if your benefits cost more or less, adjust the salaries until the cost per hour matches yours. ### Where do the automation percentages come from? From automations we have built in real projects, not from a published study. That is why they are only a suggestion, and you can change them task by task until the final number is yours. ### Are the numbers I enter saved? Yes. When you click "Calculate the cost", your scenario is sent with your email: the salaries, the people and the tasks of each area. It is stored in our CRM, so we can write to you about your case instead of sending a generic message. The result can't be edited. If you want to try other numbers, you start over, and that second scenario is sent too. ### How much of this cost can I realistically recover in the first year? Less than the total the calculator shows. An automation takes time to build, the team takes time to trust it, and there are always unusual cases that are still handled by hand. Treat the recoverable hours as the most you can aim for, and focus the first year on the top two or three tasks. ### What do I do with the result? The result sorts the tasks into high, medium and low priority by how much they weigh in money and in hours. The high band holds about 50% of the problem. Start with the first task in that band that also has a high saving: that is where the same implementation effort gives back the most hours. If you want to review it with us, the "Book a meeting" button carries your figures to the contact form, so you don't have to type them again. --- Source: https://c2suite.com/en/resources/manual-work-cost You can cite and summarize this content if you credit C2Suite and link to the source URL.