What each input means, where to find the numbers, and how the calculator turns them into a dollar estimate.
Where to find it
Your HR system, payroll provider, or a quick headcount. Use full-time equivalents if you have a mix of part-time staff. Contractors who use company software count.
Why we ask
We use this as a general signal for organisational size. It helps calibrate whether the estimate is in a plausible range — a 5-person firm and a 200-person firm have very different software footprints.
Example
A 30-person accounting firm enters 30.
Where to find it
Your company credit card or bank statement filtered to recurring software charges. Count each distinct vendor or product — Microsoft 365 is one tool, QuickBooks is another, DocuSign another. If you are unsure, count the recurring line items on last month's statement.
Why we ask
The number of tools on its own is not used in the dollar calculation, but it flags how complex the software estate is. More tools means more overlap risk and more contracts to review.
Example
The same firm has 22 paid subscriptions: Microsoft 365, QuickBooks Online, DocuSign, a practice management system, tax software, a CRM, Calendly, Zoom, LastPass, a payroll system, five or six specialist tools, and several individual staff subscriptions.
Where to find it
Add up all recurring SaaS and software subscription charges from the past month. Include per-seat licences, platform fees, and annual plans prorated to monthly. Exclude one-time purchases. Round to the nearest hundred dollars.
Why we ask
This is the primary input for the software and cloud review opportunity. We apply a conservative waste fraction (10–20%) to estimate what a review typically surfaces as worth cancelling, right-sizing, or renegotiating.
Example
The firm pays $4,200/month across all software subscriptions.
Where to find it
Check your AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud billing console. Also include any managed hosting providers (e.g. Rackspace, DigitalOcean), cloud storage (Dropbox Business, Box, SharePoint extra storage), and cloud-based backup services. If your software costs already bundle cloud hosting, enter 0 here to avoid double-counting.
Why we ask
Cloud costs are included alongside software costs as a combined spend pool for the review opportunity estimate. Cloud accounts often have idle resources, oversized instances, and forgotten storage buckets.
Example
The firm pays $800/month for cloud file storage and backup.
Where to find it
Think about any report your team rebuilds from scratch on a regular schedule — weekly, monthly, quarterly. Count the total hours spent: pulling data, formatting spreadsheets, copying figures between systems, building slide decks, emailing results. Be honest about the full cycle including corrections and re-runs.
Why we ask
This is the input for the reporting overhead estimate. We multiply hours × loaded rate × 12 to get the annual cost of the current manual process, then apply a 55% automation recovery fraction to estimate how much could be freed up.
Example
The firm spends 40 hours/month producing a weekly billing summary, a monthly P&L, a partner dashboard, and client-facing snapshots.
Where to find it
Take an employee's annual salary and divide by 2,080 (working hours in a year). Then multiply by 1.25–1.35 to account for employer taxes, benefits, and overhead. For a mixed team, use a weighted average of the staff who spend the most time on reporting. Round to the nearest $5.
Why we ask
We use this to turn hours into dollars. A loaded rate captures the true cost to the business, not just the wage.
Example
With an average salary of $58,000 and a 1.3× overhead multiplier: ($58,000 ÷ 2,080) × 1.3 ≈ $36/hr. They round up to $65/hr to reflect the more senior staff who actually build the reports.
(Monthly software cost + Monthly cloud cost) × 12 × 10–20%
Research consistently shows that 10–40% of enterprise software spend is unused or under-used. We use a more conservative 10–20% range because not everything unused is safe or straightforward to cancel — some licences are bundled, some are in active contracts, and some have a legitimate low-use reason. A real review surfaces the specific items; the calculator gives you a conservative floor.
Hours/month × Loaded hourly cost × 12
This is the total annual cost of the manual reporting work you described. It does not assume any automation — it is simply what the current process costs in employee time.
Reporting overhead cost × 55%
Automation does not eliminate all reporting work. Exception handling, data validation, stakeholder questions, and final review typically remain. We use 55% as a conservative estimate of what a well-implemented automation workflow actually recovers. Some engagements recover more; a few recover less.
Software & cloud opportunity + Reporting time recoverable
This is the combined range representing the area the Checkup will examine. It is not a guaranteed saving — the Technology Cost and Automation Checkup produces specific, itemised findings with actual dollar values, not a range.
| Employees | 30 |
| Paid software tools | 22 — Microsoft 365, QuickBooks, DocuSign, practice management, tax software, CRM, Calendly, Zoom, payroll, and several specialist and individual tools |
| Monthly software cost | $4,200 |
| Monthly cloud cost | $800 — cloud file storage and backup |
| Hours/month on recurring reports | 40 hrs — weekly billing summary, monthly P&L, partner dashboard, client snapshots |
| Loaded hourly cost | $65/hr |
These numbers mean the Checkup will look for approximately $6,000–$12,000 in software and cloud savings, and assess $31,200 worth of annual reporting work of which $17,160 may be automatable. The Checkup would produce specific, itemised findings — for example, “Cancel 4 unused DocuSign seats: $1,140/yr” or “Automate the monthly P&L report: 8 hrs/month recovered.”
The actual findings for a firm like this typically land within the estimated range, but the range is intentionally conservative — some reviews find more.
It uses your numbers and conservative industry assumptions. It tells you whether the opportunity is worth examining — not what the specific items are.
Each finding is itemised with a vendor name, a dollar amount, a recommended action, and a rationale. You receive a written report you can act on — or take internally — regardless of whether you engage Data To Insight for implementation.
The calculator takes two minutes. The consultation confirms whether the Checkup makes sense for your business.
