A hiring decision and a workflow change are different interventions. Compare them over the same service boundary, quality standard and observation period. First establish whether the constraint is demand, relationship work, preparation, coordination or another bottleneck; a stalled pipeline alone does not identify the remedy.
The full cost of a hire
Use finance-approved inputs rather than a universal salary or loaded multiple:
- Pay and applicable on-costs: actual proposed salary, employment conditions and relevant obligations, confirmed with appropriate advice.
- Recruitment and onboarding: direct expenditure and the existing team's time.
- Ramp: a scenario for observed output and review during onboarding; do not assume placements or new revenue.
- Management: supervision, review, correction and handover effort by role.
- Continuity: retained relationship records, permissions, cover and the cost of a plausible replacement scenario. Do not assume all costs restart or all relationships disappear.
The full cost of a system
- One-time work: actual agreed scope, implementation, testing and handover quote. A free call does not set a flat installation fee.
- Ongoing costs: separately quoted provider subscriptions, maintenance, monitoring and support; no universal monthly retainer is assumed.
- Residual work: source verification, permissions, review, exceptions, conversations and accepted handoffs.
- Failure and continuity: agreed stop behaviour, recovery, ownership and usable exports. Never assume a database belongs to you without checking rights and terms.
Compare what each option can actually deliver
A person can carry relationship and judgement work that a bounded tool cannot own. A workflow can support repeatable preparation, but it still needs access, setup, review and failure handling. Neither route guarantees referral volume, demand or placements. Existing tools or a simpler process may be enough.
Use conservative scenarios, state unknowns and test the same accepted output. Released staff time becomes capacity; it becomes cash only through a real avoided expense or additional accepted and collected contribution after all costs. Do not add a notional wage saving to revenue from the same released hour.
Current commercial boundary
This article was reviewed on 27 September 2026. The current Firm Capacity System starts with repeated work within a service a firm already sells. NDIS outreach is a supporting historical application, not the umbrella offer. A free 25-minute founder conversation is separate from a paid Blueprint or installation quote; it does not promise a written cost model or recommendation. The old Referral Agent 90-day booking/refund claim is not a current offer on this page. Existing signed client agreements retain their actual scope and terms. No outreach, hiring decision or provider change is authorized by this exercise.