Work that moves data between tools has a number.
Most owners know the re-typing is happening. Almost nobody has priced it, because it never appears as a line item: it is spread across salaries that would be paid anyway. Four questions is usually enough to get within range.
Your numbers
Loaded means salary plus tax plus benefits, roughly 1.3x base.
What that costs
About 1,152 hours a year.
Roughly $51,840.
That is not a software cost. It is a payroll line item you cannot see, spent moving data between tools that should already be talking.
6 people × 4 hours/week × 48 working weeks = 1,152 hours × $45/hour = $51,840
You are making decisions on numbers that are 12 days old. Over a year that is roughly 144 days of operating on a picture of the business that has already changed.
These are your numbers, not ours. Four inputs, 48 working weeks, no multipliers. Adjust anything you think is generous and see what happens. A real audit usually finds the parts nobody thought to count.
The number above is the conservative one.
Every item below is real, and none of them are counted, because pricing them would mean guessing. One number you can defend is worth more than four that sound impressive, and a single soft assumption is enough for a skeptical reader to dismiss the whole page.
- Errors introduced by re-keying, and the time spent finding them later
- Deals that slip while someone waits on a number
- The cost of a decision made on a stale figure
- Staff turnover caused by work that feels pointless
If the conservative number already stings, the real one is worse.