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What does re-keying cost your business?
Every time the same information gets typed into a second system by hand, it costs minutes. This page turns your minutes into a pounds-per-year figure — using the same arithmetic HMRC uses to value admin time: hours, multiplied by an ONS median wage. Time one loop. Count a week. The sum does the rest.
The method — four steps
List the loops. Anywhere the same information is typed twice: bank statement lines into the job spreadsheet, emailed instructions into the job system, job sheets into invoices, timesheets into payroll.
Time one occurrence of each — with a clock. Don't estimate — most dodgy statistics in this genre started life as somebody's estimate.
Count a normal week's occurrences. The diary and the sent-items folder will tell you.
Multiply out. Minutes ÷ 60 × times per week × 46 working weeks × the loaded hourly wage of whoever does it (their median wage plus 15% employer National Insurance).
The wage data
| Role | Median hourly pay (April 2025) | Loaded (+15% employer NI) |
|---|---|---|
| Data-entry administrator | £14.45 | £16.62 |
| Book-keeper / payroll clerk | £16.33 | £18.78 |
| Office manager | £19.20 | £22.08 |
Source note: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, April 2025 (provisional) — median hourly pay excluding overtime, all employees, occupation codes 4152 / 4122 / 4141. Employer NI: 15% above the £5,000 secondary threshold, 2026-27 rates.
Wage data: ONS ASHE April 2025 (provisional). Reviewed when the revised release lands (October/November 2026).
A worked example
A 12-person service firm, three loops: bank receipts into the job ledger (25 minutes, four times a week), emailed instructions into the job system (10 minutes, fifteen times a week), job sheets into invoices (12 minutes, ten times a week). That's 370 minutes — about six hours — a week. At a book-keeper's loaded wage: a little over £5,300 a year.
| Loop | Minutes × times/week | Hours/year | £/year (book-keeper, loaded) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank receipts → job ledger | 25 × 4 | 77 | £1,440 |
| Emailed instructions → job system | 10 × 15 | 115 | £2,160 |
| Job sheets → invoices | 12 × 10 | 92 | £1,728 |
| Total | 370 min/week | 284 | £5,327 |
Rows are rounded to the nearest pound; the total is computed before rounding — which is why the column appears £1 out. We'd rather explain a pound than hide one.
Now price yours.
Your re-keying, priced
£0 a year
0 hours a year · 0 hours a week
This prices the time, not the error tail — rare mis-keys with outsized consequences are real, and no wage formula prices them.
A priced cost is not a captured saving. Fixing it means one process at a time, and measuring each fix.
Start here
Want the loops found for you?
Book a free 30-minute process audit. We'll time the worst loops together, and you'll leave with a written map of what could run itself — whether or not we ever work together.
No pitch deck, no obligation. The map is yours either way.
Want the whole-firm number, not just one loop? Try the cost-of-manual-work calculator → — headcount plus a few questions, same wage data. Late invoices the sore spot? The late-payment calculator → prices what you could charge on them — and what the chasing costs. Not sure re-keying is your worst process? The 20-question self-audit → ranks them all in two minutes, no email. This tool is maintained by The Quiet Engine — custom software for UK small businesses, on a monthly retainer. The model, in 90 seconds →
Sources
- ONS, Employee earnings in the UK: 2025 (ASHE, provisional), 23 October 2025 — occupation medians from dataset Tables 2.6a and 14.6a. live · archive · occupation dataset (archive)
- GOV.UK, Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027 — employer Class 1 NI 15%, £5,000 secondary threshold. live · archive
- HMRC, Making Tax Digital: estimating the wider economic benefit, 27 February 2025 — the hours × ASHE-median-wage valuation method. live · archive