How to work out your team's Time Tax in five minutes

Every finance team pays a tax nobody budgets for: the hours spent assembling numbers instead of deciding on them. I call it the Time Tax. Here is how to put a number on yours.

1. Pick one task that repeats

Not “reporting”. One task. “Rebuilding the monthly management pack in Excel.” “Ticking bank lines against the ledger.” The narrower, the better the number.

2. Count the hours across everyone

Add up the time of every person who touches it, for one cycle, then convert it to a month. Two people spending four hours each on a weekly task is about 35 hours a month, not 8.

3. Use the loaded cost, not the salary

Salary is the floor. Benefits, bonuses, taxes and overhead usually add 30–40%. Divide the yearly total by the hours that person actually works (about 2,100 a year on a standard week) and you have the loaded hourly cost.

4. Multiply

Hours a month × loaded hourly cost × 12 is the Time Tax for that task.

Worked example (illustrative): a management report that takes 10 hours a month, done by someone who costs $50 an hour loaded, is $6,000 a year.

5. Ask how much of it can run on its own

Work that lives in Excel or moves between two systems on the same rules every time is usually 70–90% automatable. Work that needs judgment mostly stays human. In the example above, up to 90% of the report can run on its own: up to $5,400 a year back, from one report. Plan on the conservative case, about 70% of that, and you still recover $3,780.

That last step is where most people stop guessing and start deciding. The Time Tax calculator does the maths for every task on your list, splits automation from AI, and tells you whether you need outside help at all. Often you don’t.