A workflow rarely costs money because it is hard. It costs money because it happens often. Twelve minutes to record an order draws nobody's attention, which is why the item appears in no report. It sits spread across the year, several people and hundreds of single cases.
Anyone thinking about automation needs that figure before the tool question. Without it, a decision on a new system rests on a feeling. With it the question becomes sober, because the cost of running a workflow sits next to the cost of changing it.
How do I calculate what a manual workflow costs per year?
Multiply the number of people by the cases per week and by the minutes per case. That result times 46 working weeks, divided by 60, gives the hours per year. Times the internal hourly rate it gives the amount in euro.
Process costs are the sum of working time, material spend and error costs that a recurring workflow causes over a given period. The formula above covers the first part, working time. That is deliberate: working time is the only part a business can quantify without preparatory work.
- 1.Define the boundaries of the workflow. Without a clear start and end, two people count two different things.
- 2.Count the people who run it, not the people who know about it.
- 3.Count the cases per week, averaged over a normal month rather than a quiet one.
- 4.Measure the minutes per case, including interruptions and queries.
- 5.Do the arithmetic and record the result in working days, not only in euro. An amount can be argued away, 69 working days cannot.
An example with round numbers. Three people, twenty cases per person per week, twelve minutes per case. That is 720 minutes a week, so 552 hours over 46 working weeks, or 69 working days of eight hours. At an internal rate of 45 euro that comes to around 24,840 euro a year.
Why 46 working weeks and not 52?
Because nobody works 52 weeks a year. Statutory annual leave in Austria is 30 Werktage according to the WKO, which in a five day week means 25 working days. On top come the 13 public holidays the WKO lists from the Arbeitsruhegesetz, plus ordinary sick leave.
52 weeks less five weeks of leave and close to three weeks of holidays and absence leaves roughly 44 to 46. The calculation uses 46 so the result comes out low rather than high. A number you have to defend convinces nobody.
Which hourly rate belongs in the calculation?
Not gross pay, but what an hour of work costs the business. Employer contributions come on top, and they are the difference between a calculation that holds up and one that comes out too small.
According to the WKO the employer share of social insurance in Austria comes to 20.98 percent in 2026. The same source lists the employer contribution to the family burden equalisation fund at 3.70 percent, its surcharge at between 0.31 and 0.40 percent depending on the regional chamber, 0.36 percent in Vienna, and municipal tax at 3 percent of the assessment base.
Added together, those WKO rates come to around 28 percent on top of gross pay, before items such as the occupational pension fund. Without an internal figure at hand, use a reference point: according to Statistik Austria, labour costs per hour worked stood at 45.76 euro in 2025 in the preliminary result, 4.5 percent above 2024.
That value averages the production sector and large parts of services. It does not replace your own rate, it shows the order of magnitude. What matters more than the second decimal is that the whole business uses the same value. Otherwise two departments calculate in different currencies.
The figure from this calculation is the effort you have now, not a saving. How much of it disappears becomes clear only once the workflow has been recorded. Treating the two as the same thing is a promise made to yourself.
Where do the minutes per case come from?
From a measurement, not an estimate. Two weeks are enough. Either the person running the workflow notes start and end, or the system already holds the timestamps.
- A tally sheet over two weeks, kept by the person doing the work. It stays honest when everyone knows the workflow is being measured, not the person.
- Timestamps from the existing system, such as the arrival and closure of a ticket. Precise, but they include idle time, which is not working time.
- A joint estimate in the team, as a range from the fastest to the slowest run. The weakest route, still better than a number pulled from one person's memory.
Estimates almost always come out low, because people remember the normal case while the exception creates the work. The missing document, the query back, the case that gets picked up twice. Measure over a period that contains exceptions, and use the average, not the fastest run.
What the calculation deliberately leaves out
It captures working time and nothing else. Error costs are absent, meaning the rework that follows when a value was transferred incorrectly. Waiting time is absent too: an order that sits for two days consumes no working time, yet it may cost the order.
Licences, paper, postage and equipment are missing as well. The result is therefore a lower bound. That is usable for a decision, because a lower bound survives any discussion. A projection built on estimated error costs does not.
When is a change worth making?
When the annual effort clearly exceeds the one off change, and when the workflow is stable enough that the change will not be obsolete within six months. The second condition gets overlooked more often than the first.
As a guide, recording a single workflow takes one to three days, depending on how many people and systems are involved. What the change itself costs depends on what that recording finds and cannot be quantified honestly in advance. A number named before anyone has seen the workflow is a wish, not a quote.
Run the calculation for three to five workflows and lay the results side by side. Usually one sits well above the others. That settles the order of work without anyone having to negotiate it.
The process cost calculator on our site takes exactly these four values and shows hours, working days and euro per year. The entries stay in the browser. What can actually be removed from that figure is settled afterwards by recording the workflow, which is what our page on process design is for.