Count your task volumes before you outsource anything

Key takeaways

Task volume is the number of items a repetitive task processes in a period, such as invoices a week or calls a day. Counting it for two weeks, with minutes per item and the busiest day, turns guesses into hours, cost and team size. Without volumes, any outsourcing quote or plan is built on opinion.

• Count items, not hours: invoices, orders, calls, records.
• 2 weeks of counts, including the busiest day.
• Volume times minutes per item gives weekly hours.
• Note seasonal peaks from last year's records.

What should you count?

Count the unit of work the task produces: one invoice raised, one order query answered, one record updated. Count exceptions separately, because they usually take three to five times longer than standard items. Record the day and time of arrival too, since the pattern of arrival decides turnaround and cover.

• How UK SMEs can use outsourcing to handle repetitive tasks
• Exception handling: the few cases that drive most cost

Where do the counts come from?

Most volumes already exist in your systems: invoices in the accounts package, orders in the shop platform, tickets in the helpdesk, calls in the phone system. Where nothing is logged, a tally sheet for two weeks is enough. Check last year's figures for peaks such as year-end, January sales or summer bookings.

• Demand forecasting for small teams: plan capacity ahead
• Seasonal and peak customer service cover

How do volumes turn into hours and cost?

Multiply volume by minutes per item, then add time for exceptions. In an illustrative example, 300 invoices a week at 4 minutes is 20 hours, plus 15 exceptions at 15 minutes, nearly 4 more: about 24 hours a week. At an indicative managed offshore rate of £9–£18 an hour, that is £216–£432 a week. These are example figures, not GBL prices.

• Work out your cost per task before you outsource
• Standard times: how long should a routine task take?
• BPO cost per hour in the UK

When are volumes misleading?

Averages mislead when work arrives in bursts. A task with 50 items a day on average but 150 on Mondays needs cover sized for Monday or an agreed catch-up time. Volumes also mislead when one item type hides several variants, so count the variants separately if their times differ.

• Unpredictable workload? Why fixed staffing struggles
• Cut-off times: what same-day processing really means

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: owners estimate volumes from memory and land within half or double the real figure. Two weeks of counts settles the question and usually changes which task goes first.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Volume count checklist

Record these for each task.

• Unit of work and where it is logged.
• Daily counts for two weeks.
• Exceptions counted separately.
• Typical minutes per item and per exception.
• Busiest day and seasonal peaks.

• Repetitive task inventory: list every recurring job once
• Run a time audit to find what to outsource

Next step

Send us two weeks of counts for your largest repetitive task. We will help you turn them into hours, cover and an outline of what a managed team would need.