A manual action costs more than employee minutes
Direct execution time is only part of the cost. Add waiting, clarification, switching between systems and correcting mistakes. One action can look insignificant, but hundreds of repetitions each month turn it into a real operating expense, especially when delays affect payment or customer experience.
Establish a baseline
Record the number of monthly operations, average execution time, error rate and waiting time between stages. Include management hours spent checking progress and finding statuses. This simple model will not produce a perfect accounting figure, but it will reveal the scale of the loss and the biggest opportunities.
Compare change, not feature lists
After launch, measure the same indicators. Check whether cycle time fell, whether less data is entered twice and whether returns and manual clarifications decreased. The difference between the baseline and the new process is the economic result of the system.