How to Calculate the ROI of your Process Post DocXtract Implementation - The ROI Calculator

Intro

Every automation pitch leads with a percentage. "70% faster" tells you nothing you can act on --- faster than what, and does any of it leave your cost base?

This guide works the other way round. Six steps, each producing a number from your own operation, ending in what the change is worth to you and how confident you can be in it. It takes an afternoon and no vendor input. Written for finance and operations leaders who have to decide whether document automation is worth doing, not for the person preparing the slide.

Key steps include

• Build the current cost per document in five lines: Direct handling, review and approval, rework, overtime and peak cover, error leakage. The baseline is almost always understated because only the first line shows up in a budget --- and loaded hourly cost, not salary, is what belongs in it.
• Model the post-implementation cost with exceptions included: The new cost is not the processing fee. It is the fee plus the exception queue plus any one-time setup, and the exception line is the one a vendor will understate.
• Separate cash saving from released capacity: Removed hours only become cash if you redeploy the headcount or stop backfilling. If the team absorbs growth instead, the benefit is avoided hiring --- real, but a different line in the P&L.
• Work in a range, not a single number: Two inputs dominate the answer --- measured touch time and your loaded hourly cost. Run the model at conservative settings for both and at your base case, and commit on the conservative one.

Outcome

The guide includes the four formulas set out in full, a worked example for an AP function processing 20,000 invoices a month --- cost per document today, run cost after automation, monthly and annualised saving, and first-year ROI --- a two-scenario sensitivity table, six ways these numbers mislead you, and a checklist to run before you approve anything.