Every UK SME has a mission-critical spreadsheet running something important: stock, job costings, the reminders sheet, the CRM, the schedule. Five questions, then a real annual cost in pounds based on time, errors and the work the business cannot do because the spreadsheet is the bottleneck.
A scoped custom replacement that handles your specific workflow, with the right integrations and the right approval and audit trail. Fixed quote, owned by you, no vendor lock-in.
This is a 60-second estimate based on the inputs above and the cost ranges we see across UK SMEs. Real spreadsheets vary, and a real fixed quote needs a 20-minute scoping conversation, free.
People time multiplies the hours per week by 48 working weeks per year by the fully-loaded hourly cost of the role using the sheet. Fully-loaded cost includes salary, NI, pension, equipment and a share of overhead, which is roughly 1.4x base salary.
Errors and rework takes the error frequency, multiplies it by 12 months, and applies a per-error cost of two hours of senior time to identify, correct and trace consequences. This is conservative: real-world post-mortems on spreadsheet incidents typically run four to six hours of senior time per material error.
Downstream cost applies a multiplier based on what the spreadsheet runs. Internal admin scores 1.0x because the cost is mostly time. Customer-facing or money work scores higher because errors and delays leak revenue or trigger client unhappiness. Compliance work scores highest because the downstream cost includes regulatory fines and audit failures.
The total is the sum of those three components. Worth a moment to sit with the number, then a conversation about what you would build instead. See related guides on automating data entry, Google Sheets automation, and automating expense reports.
