Worked example
One damage report,
costed out in full
The market advertises “up to 80 per cent less manual work” and never shows the arithmetic. Here is some, with every assumption in the open. It is smaller than any advertising claim, and it can be checked.
Important: this is a worked example, not a client case. The business below is invented, the figures are plausible assumptions and not a measurement. What comes out for you follows from your own three numbers in the free check.
The model business
What we are assuming
A property management firm with nine people in the office and around 1,400 units under management. Damage reports come in by phone, by email and through the tenant portal. There is a management application, an accounting package and a folder of tradespeople. None of them talk to each other.
- Units
- around 1,400
- Office
- 9 people
- Channels
- phone, email, portal
- Office hourly rate
- €45 fully loaded
How it runs today
Six steps, 25 minutes
This is how a single damage report runs, from first contact to filing. The minutes are assumptions, but they are not flattering ones: interruptions and follow-up questions are included, because they happen in reality too.
- 014 min
Take the report and write it down
Taking notes on the phone, or reading the email and pulling out what matters.
- 025 min
Find the property, the unit and the party
Callers rarely quote a unit number. You search by name, by address, or you call back.
- 033 min
Check responsibility and whether it is an insurance matter
Tenant, owner, common property, insurer. The answer sits in four different documents.
- 046 min
Pick a tradesperson and place the order
Who covers it, who has capacity, who was at that property last time.
- 053 min
Tell the tenant about the appointment
Call or write, often twice, because nobody picks up the first time.
- 064 min
Chase the response and file it
Did they turn up, is it done, has the invoice arrived, is it all filed against the right property.
- 25 minutes per report
The arithmetic
What this workflow costs today
Three numbers, one multiplication. Nothing is being claimed yet: this is arithmetic from the assumptions above, and you can replace any of them with your own.
- Frequency
90 reports a month
A conservative assumption at 1,400 units.
- Duration
25 minutes per report
The sum of the six steps above.
- Total time
37.5 hours a month
90 × 25 minutes, divided by 60.
- Per year
450 hours
About eleven working weeks of one full-time person.
- In euros
€1,688 a month, €20,250 a year
At an office rate of €45 fully loaded.
The standard share
How much of it runs the same way every time?
This is the third of the three numbers and the only one you have to estimate. In this model it is 60 per cent: steps 1, 2, 3 and 6 largely follow the same pattern, while steps 4 and 5 are judgement and human contact.
22.5 hours a month, €12,150 a year
60 per cent of 37.5 hours. That is the ceiling on what there is to talk about at all.
From here on it is an assumption
What actually goes away
Automation does not take the whole standard share. Checking remains, exceptions remain, and so does rework on the cases the rule set could not match with confidence. In this model we assume a quarter of the standard share stays as checking and exception time.
around 17 hours a month, around €9,100 a year
This last figure is an assumption, not a measurement. It is the only step in this calculation we cannot evidence, which is why we say so plainly instead of letting it disappear into a percentage. What is left over at your end only shows once it is running.
What stays
What a person keeps doing
- Choosing the tradesperson. Who suits which property is something your administrator knows and no rule set does.
- Every sign-off that costs money or creates a legal obligation. For a manager handling other people's money that goes double.
- The cases the rule set could not match with confidence. They land in a list of their own instead of being guessed.
- The conversation with the tenant when it escalates. What gets automated is the administrative route, not dealing with people.
This calculation is invented.
Yours would not be.
The model above shows how the calculation is built, not what comes out for you. Your frequency is different, your minutes are different, and your standard share most of all. The free check records exactly those three numbers for one of your workflows, and if the calculation comes out against automating, we say so.