Open the editable Excel workbook. It expands the full-cost guide into a base case, downside case, sensitivity table and twelve-month incremental cash schedule. All starting values are fictional. They demonstrate the calculation, not an achievable price, saving or WCAI result.
What to complete
- Use the discovery pack to reconcile offered work, completions and backlog. The model assumes equal workload and final quality; it cannot repair an unfair comparison.
- Replace the blue input cells in both scenarios. Record the source, period, owner and uncertainty in the Evidence sheet. The exception time includes initial review; routine and exception groups are mutually exclusive.
- Enter retained administration and support effort not already priced elsewhere. Enter any additional fixed cover/headroom required for peaks and fallback on top of the baseline staffing. Do not subtract cover already counted in the baseline again. The default zero additional cover is an untested illustration, not a recommendation.
- Separate one-off incremental cash from existing internal staff capacity consumed by implementation. Exclude sunk cost from the forward investment decision while retaining it in the programme's historical cost record.
- Identify contractor hours whose spending can actually be removed, their effective date and the remaining staffing plan. The model caps removed hours at available released capacity; a cap prevents impossible arithmetic but does not establish that the removal is operationally feasible.
- Replace the illustrative adoption schedule. Adoption is the fraction of offered cases following the new path; the rest retain baseline handling. Monthly release therefore equals adoption times the variable handling reduction, less fixed retained effort and additional cover. Contractor removal is capped against that month's available hours after its effective date. Distinct additional contribution scales with adoption; recurring costs begin in full.
- If the new process needs extra operating hours, enter like-for-like purchased hours and their cash rate. These enter cash cost once. Only the remaining uncovered hours carry an internal capacity burden; the workbook flags them for a hold. Surplus purchased hours are not assumed to create a second benefit. Aggregate hours still need a real role, shift and contract assessment.
Read the outputs separately
| Output | Meaning and limit |
|---|---|
| Gross hours released | Baseline handling minus proposed handling and other retained effort |
| Available released hours | Gross release less additional fixed cover/headroom; negative values mean more capacity is required |
| Remaining internal capacity value | Available positive hours after actual contractor removals, multiplied by a productive-use fraction and hourly value |
| Net economic benefit | Net cash benefit plus usable remaining internal capacity value, less the opportunity cost of uncovered extra hours |
| Net cash benefit | Removable contractor expenditure plus distinct additional cash contribution, less new recurring costs |
| Steady-state recovery | Implementation cost divided by positive monthly benefit; economic and cash bases are labelled separately |
| Cash schedule | One-off outlay, phased benefit, full recurring cost and transition expense by month |
The base illustration releases 360 hours; the downside releases 220. At the guide's assumptions, steady-state economic recovery is 4.5 and about 9.5 months. Removing 150 contractor hours in either case would give S$2,550 monthly cash benefit and about 21.2 months' steady-state cash recovery. That is conditional on the stated cash outlay and feasible staffing. The twelve-month schedule is a separate timing example and need not break even within the displayed year.
Do not add the cash benefit to the economic benefit: the contractor hours are already included in the capacity calculation. An avoided future hire belongs against a credible funded future baseline, with its own timing; it is not current spending removed. The simple workbook excludes that case to avoid disguising a speculative hire as a saving.
Interpret the sensitivity
The sensitivity sheet varies the exception share and uses the base scenario's other inputs. It shows how operational variation changes effort and economic benefit. It is not a probability distribution and supplies no estimate of how likely each row is. If cost or routine handling changes with the exception share, revise those assumptions too.
A negative capacity result may require additional staffing, overtime or reduced scope. The cash schedule does not automatically price that extra labour: enter funded additional hours and their rate, or hold the case. Paid extra hours enter cash cost; they are not also charged as an internal opportunity cost. Likewise, the calculation does not monetise unmeasured risk reduction or assume that a higher error rate is acceptable.
The schedule uses nominal, pre-tax, undiscounted cash flows and no financing model. Apply the organisation's discount rate, tax treatment, working-capital assumptions and approval policy for an investment decision requiring those measures. The model is a transparent starting point for scrutiny, not a substitute for finance review.
Input validation helps with direct entry but may be bypassed by pasted or imported data. Recheck ranges, units and formulas after bulk changes. The example has no locked cells or macros; an edited formula changes the model and needs review.
Inspect the formulas in the workbook alongside the assumptions recorded in the Evidence sheet. Check a normal case and a downside case by hand, including whether the same hours have been counted as both cash savings and retained capacity. The investment memo records the decision and alternatives that the spreadsheet alone cannot choose. For a question about the method or a suspected calculation error, contact WCAI with the worksheet, cell reference and inputs involved.
Read our editorial principles for evidence, contribution and correction standards.