What one month of waiting costs, on your numbers

Monday morning. The same lease as last week. The same six fields. Two people typing them in, each on their own. You know it costs something. Most firms have simply never put a monthly figure on it.

The figure is easy to work out. It is harder to look at. So here it is.

The arithmetic

Our calculator at /en/tools/ai-besparelse uses one line: hours a week × hourly cost × 46 weeks. That gives a year. Divide by 12 and you have a month.

Three of the numbers are ours. Here is why they look the way they do.

• 46 weeks, not 52. Holiday, public holidays and sickness take the other six. A 52-week year would inflate the figure.
• 15% goes to review. Someone still reads and approves what the machine produced. That time is real. It is deducted before you see any number.
• 45% is shown first. That is the cautious share of the work a machine can carry. The share is our claim, not yours. So it starts low.

The cost is your arithmetic. The saving is ours. We keep the two apart.

An example — not your numbers

An example — not your numbers. Two staff spend 8 hours a week each on the same documents. That is 16 hours a week. An hour costs DKK 650 with salary, pension and overhead.

• 16 hours × DKK 650 × 46 weeks = DKK 478,400 a year.
• The calculator rounds to the nearest thousand and shows DKK 478,000. Divided by 12: about DKK 40,000 a month. Exactly DKK 39,867.
• 16 hours × 46 weeks ÷ 12: about 61 hours a month.
• Cautious share: 0.45 × (1 − 0.15) = 0.3825.
• 0.3825 × DKK 39,867: about DKK 15,000 a month. Exactly DKK 15,249.
• 0.3825 × 61 hours: about 23 hours a month.
• Over a year: about DKK 183,000.

The other two scenarios give about DKK 20,000 a month at 60% and about DKK 25,000 at 75%. We show them. We do not count on them until we have seen the work.

What the waiting costs

The waiting does not cost DKK 40,000. That work has to be done, whoever does it.

The waiting costs the roughly DKK 15,000 and the roughly 23 hours that could have come back. And did not. Each month you do not ask is one such month. No more. No less either.

The timeline is short because we keep it short. The audit is in writing within 5 working days. The first workflow follows 2–4 weeks after agreement. Ask in September and November looks different. Ask in November and January does.

A month of the same document work has a price. A month of not asking has the same price.

What the figure leaves out

The arithmetic leaves out the switch. That is the time it takes to get used to a new way of working. It is hard to measure and easy to inflate. So it is out. The figure is therefore low, not high.

It leaves out something else too. If the hours go on waiting for someone — a client, a counterparty, an authority — then none of this applies. A machine moves no waiting time. That is an honest no, and we put it in writing.

Documents are the clearest example. The same arithmetic covers the other work that repeats: calls you do not get to, the inbox, quotes, data entry between systems, follow-up, invoicing and reminders, reports. Tell us what repeats. We will find what saves the most.

You only need two numbers. Hours a week and cost per hour. Type them into the calculator at /en/tools/ai-besparelse. Your month is right there.

The next step

You tell us what repeats. We map it for free and write it down within 5 working days: hours, kroner, where to start, and one fixed price — or an honest no. It takes at most 3 hours of your time.

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