HR Automation Savings Calculator
Cost a single manual process, then work out what automating part of it saves — time returned and errors avoided, against build and running cost, with payback in months.
Free · No sign-up · Nothing leaves your browser · Figures reviewed 22 September 2026
Your details
Time a real one. Estimates of manual effort run low almost every time.
Licences, maintenance, and keeping it working when something upstream changes.
Annual saving from automating leave approvals
₹7,56,000
672 hours a year returned, paying back in about 3.4 months.
- Time · 80%
- Errors avoided · 20%
What it costs today
- Runs a month
- 400
- Minutes a runAcross 2 persons
- 6
- Hours a year
- 960
- Cost a year
- ₹8,64,000
After automating
- Share automatedFew processes go to 100% — exceptions still need a person
- 70%
- Hours returned
- 672
- Time saving
- ₹6,04,800
- Errors avoided100.8 a year at ₹1,500 each
- ₹1,51,200
- Total saving
- ₹7,56,000
The investment
- Build or set-up cost
- ₹2,00,000
- Running cost a year
- ₹60,000
- Net in year one
- ₹4,96,000
- Payback
- 3.4 months
The share automated is the assumption to argue about. Exceptions, escalations and the cases nobody documented usually keep 20–40% of a process manual, and the residue is often the expensive part.
Automation has a maintenance cost that rarely appears in a business case: something upstream changes and the automation has to change with it. The running-cost line is where that belongs.
Automation cases are much stronger one process at a time than across a function. Pick the one that runs most often, time a real instance of it, and see whether the arithmetic holds.
The number to argue about is the share automated. Exceptions, escalations and the cases nobody documented usually keep twenty to forty per cent of a process manual — and the residue is often the expensive part.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I calculate savings from automating a process?
- Multiply runs per month by minutes per run by the people involved to get annual hours, cost them at the relevant hourly rate, then apply the share of the process that can realistically be automated. Add errors avoided, subtract build and running cost.
- What share of a process can actually be automated?
- Sixty to eighty per cent is typical for a well-understood process. The residue is exceptions and escalations, which are the hardest cases and often the most expensive per instance.
- Why include a running cost for automation?
- Because something upstream always changes and the automation has to change with it. Automation that is never maintained quietly stops being correct, which is worse than not having it.
About this tool
Built by the ViniOffice team. Figures and rules last reviewed 22 September 2026 against the statutory reference this team maintains. Indian statutory rates are date-effective and change by notification — confirm against the current one before running payroll or filing.
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