How do you calculate the request workload of accounting or a shared services center?

Workload is calculated in hours for each request type: multiply the number of requests per month by the active time spent on one request, then add the time spent on clarifications, repeat requests, and sorting the shared inbox. Convert hours into money using the hourly cost of an employee. For accounting and a shared services center (SSC), calculate over a full month, because requests spike at month-end and quarter-end along with the period close.

What to count

• Requests by type, excluding repeats: letters, questions about pay and deductions, expense reports, account reconciliation statements, requests for supporting documents. A total like "how many emails came in" won't tell you what to change: a letter and an expense report take different amounts of work.
• Active time per request. The time the accountant actually works on a request, not the time from submission to reply. Waiting in a queue and approvals are not part of the team's workload.
• Clarifications. How many requests needed follow-up because details were missing, and how many minutes the back-and-forth took.
• Repeat requests. The same question a second time, reminders, and "when will it be ready" calls. They take time but produce no new result.
• Sorting the shared inbox. How many minutes a day go to the shared inbox, messengers, and forwarding emails to assignees.

In an SSC, count each function separately: accounting, HR, procurement. This shows which one is overloaded and where requests pass from one function to another.

How to collect the data if there is no tracking

• For a month, log every request in a simple spreadsheet: date, type, channel, whether it needed clarification, and whether it was a repeat.
• Time a few dozen requests of each type and take the average.
• Whoever sorts the shared inbox records how many minutes it takes each day for a couple of weeks.
• Mark the period-close days separately: workload on those days is higher than the monthly average.

Many teams start with no data at all: before ITG Corporation moved its internal services to the SimpleOne platform, it was impossible to track the status of a request or get objective metrics of service quality. A manual count is enough to get started.

How to convert to hours and money

Hours per month = sum across types (number of requests × active time) + number of clarifications × time per clarification + number of repeat requests × time per reply + minutes per day sorting the shared inbox × working days in the month.

Hourly cost = the team's monthly payroll including employer taxes and benefits ÷ the team's working hours in the same month.

A hypothetical example (the numbers are made up for illustration):

• 400 letters × 12 minutes = 80 hours;
• 120 clarifications × 6 minutes = 12 hours;
• 150 repeat requests × 4 minutes = 10 hours;
• sorting the shared inbox: 30 minutes a day × 20 working days = 10 hours.

That's 112 hours a month. At a hypothetical hourly cost of $50, that is $5,600 a month, or $67,200 a year. Compare these figures with the share of requests a portal, a knowledge base, and automation can take over.

These numbers are your "before" measurement. Use them as the baseline when you build a business case for leadership.

How it works in SimpleOne ESM

SimpleOne ESM is a set of SimpleOne platform tools for managing internal services. Accounting gets its own service catalog on the portal:

• each service has a form with required fields, so a request arrives with all the details;
• tasks are assigned automatically based on assignee workload, as described in the SimpleOne ESM documentation;
• the number of requests for each service is available in reports, and team performance in traffic light scorecards.

How to set up accounting request intake is covered in the answer "How do you set up a self-service portal for accounting requests?". For a shared services center, see the SSC automation page.