They download an attachment. Open a spreadsheet. Copy three fields and paste them into a second program. Save. Message a colleague that the details have finally arrived. Tomorrow they do it again.
It is not quite a crisis, so the process survives. It is not in anyone’s job description either, so nobody fixes it. Welcome to the copy-paste tax: due every day, and in nobody’s budget.
The tax is more than the typing
The visible cost is the minutes spent carrying details from A to B. The bigger cost is everything attached to each handover.
- Someone has to know which spreadsheet is the current one.
- Someone notices that the customer’s name is spelled differently in each program.
- Someone asks whether the file has arrived yet.
- And when something breaks, the team searches a chain of assumptions that nobody wrote down.
The person in the middle becomes the business’s unofficial connector. Because they are good at their job, the process looks more reliable than it is. An odd reward for being competent.
Another program does not always help
It is tempting to fix a software problem with more software. Sometimes that is right. Sometimes it just adds one more place where the same detail ends up. Before you choose a tool, map the path of one detail:
- Where does the detail first appear?
- Who needs it next, and in what form?
- Which decision does a person really have to make?
- Which steps are pure transfer or reformatting?
- Where do exceptions happen, and who should see them?
These questions are not glamorous. That is why they work. A program you already pay for may handle the step already; how to check is in ‘The cheapest solution might already be installed’.
Give the machine the predictable work
The goal is not to remove judgement. The goal is that nobody spends their judgement on whether an order number belongs in column F or G.
The right solution may be a ready-made link between two programs, a short script, or an AI model (A language model is the actual AI behind an AI assistant: it has learned from a great deal of text and writes an answer to an input.) where the documents vary a lot. For some steps, an Excel macro is enough. There is no bonus for making it complicated.
One limit always applies with us: nothing we build sends a message outside your firm or spends money without a person making the final decision. The machine prepares, your team decides.
How high is your tax?
Before you change anything, an honest number helps. The calculator below only multiplies your own estimates: hours per week, people, hourly rate and working weeks. It assumes no savings. What an improvement might give back is shown as three assumptions side by side, not as a promise.
Calculator
What does a task that comes back every week cost you?
Enter your own figures; the calculator assumes no savings.
The fields hold sample values. Replace them with your own.
Your estimate. Include checking, chasing and correcting.
How many people on your team do this work regularly.
Salary plus social charges and overheads. The worked examples on this site use CHF 90.–.
52 weeks minus holidays and public holidays. Swiss employees are entitled to at least four weeks of holiday a year (Art. 329a CO).
Your task over a year
CHF 24'840.– a year
Range: CHF 18'630.– to 31'050.–
276 hours a year (range 207 to 345)
That is about 6.6 full-time weeks of 42 hours.
What a bounded improvement would give back
Suppose a change takes part of this time off your team’s hands. Nobody knows which share is realistic before measuring. So here are three assumptions side by side.
| Assumption | Hours a year | CHF a year |
|---|---|---|
| 10 % less time | 28 | CHF 2'480.– |
| 25 % less time | 69 | CHF 6'210.– |
| 50 % less time | 138 | CHF 12'420.– |
Worked examples, not a forecast. Record the time before a change, then measure again afterwards with the same method.
For comparison: the recommended Pro Setup (Pro Setup is our recommended package at CHF 1'490.–: vault, workflows with AI agents, first integrations, an introduction session and three months of Business seat.) costs CHF 1'490.– once. At your hourly rate, that equals 17 hours. Running costs come on top. What a setup costs in its first year
How the calculator works: hours per week × people × working weeks = hours a year. Hours a year × hourly rate = cost a year. The range applies the chosen precision to the hours. Amounts are rounded to CHF 10.–, hours to whole hours.
The calculator runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent or stored.
Is the number bigger than you thought? It often is, because chasing and correcting rarely get counted. How to record the time properly for one week is shown in ‘Where does the time go?’, with a worksheet.
A better measure of success
Do not count how many processes are automated. Ask how much attention a process still needs:
- Can your team see the current status without asking?
- Do exceptions stand out, instead of sitting quietly?
- Can someone retry a failed step on their own?
- Does the process still run when the person who knows every spreadsheet is on holiday?
Good automation does not make people disappear from the process. It gives them a better role in it. What that looks like in a real firm is shown in ‘From inbox to booking: one click, full control’.
Worksheet
Map the path of one detail
Take one detail your team types in regularly, such as an invoice number, and follow it for a week.
With these notes you can check any quote, including one from us. In our setups, we record a figure you choose at the start and measure it again two weeks after handover.