Calculating the real costs of office disorganisation
POSTED 20 Feb 2012

Disorganisation is a slow and gradual drain on your business finances. The leak of money happens in subtle ways that all too often, goes unnoticed.  Over time however, it sweeps away and you start to wonder where the money has gone at the end of every month.  Consider the following:

• Your electricity bill needs paying, you have mislaid it but ‘you will deal with it later’ as something else has cropped up that requires your time.  You locate it a week after the due date – £25 charge.
• You throw your post in an unopened pile on the desk, which you promise yourself ‘you will deal with later’, and a networking or tradeshow registration deadline passes - £10 late fee or worse, no spaces left and an opportunity missed!
• You put your unopened bank statements into the same unopened pile on the desk without looking at them, again promising yourself that you ‘will deal with them later’, and bingo, you miss a vital error in the statement – £100 lost?  More?
• You spend time trying to put things into some kind of order, given that this will take at least an hour of your time, multiply the number of hours by your hourly rate and prepare to be horrified by the amount of money you have just lost.

It really is very simple, the more disorganised you are, the more it is likely that you are losing money.  All however, is most certainly not lost.  A few simple changes can ensure that wasted valuable time, which of course equals potential revenue, is kept to a minimum.  Changing old habits however, can be more of a challenge but start in small chunks, stay consistent and your new habits will soon become second nature.  When you think of how much money being disorganised is costing you, can you really afford not to be?
Do the short calculation below to see how much money your business is losing per day through back office disorganisation.  This is just an example, add any other items that are relevant to you to this list to give you a better idea:

A. Missing the due date on a
utility bill (late payment interest)                                  = £

B. Your time spent on trying to tidy up
= number of hours X your hourly rate                          = £

C. Time spent on trying to locate misplaced items
= number of hours X your hourly rate                          = £

TOTAL:  A + B + C                                                            = £__________per day