Build the business case

The Business case workspace compares what you pay today with one or more options. It works out the saving per year, the payback in months and the three-year net for each option, and it records the sponsor's decision.

Enter your costs today

1. Open the project and go to Business case.
2. Fill in the yearly amount for each cost line. HR templates start with four lines: HRIS and payroll subscriptions, Manual HR admin time, Payroll error corrections, and Spreadsheets and add-on tools.
3. Add lines for anything else you pay for each year. Remove lines that do not apply.

The total of these lines is your cost today.

Add your options

1. Add an option and give it a name, such as the vendor or the package.
2. Enter its one-time cost: implementation, migration, integration and training.
3. Enter its cost per year.
4. Repeat for each option you are comparing.
5. Choose the option you recommend.

How the figures are worked out

Figure	Calculation
Saving per year	Cost today minus the option's cost per year
Payback in months	One-time cost divided by the monthly saving
Three-year net	Three years of saving minus the one-time cost

If an option costs as much or more per year than you pay today, there is no saving and no payback figure is shown.

Pain points

The business case shows a count of the pain points you have flagged on current-state steps in Process maps. It updates as you flag more. Use it for the part of the case that is not about cost.

Record the decision

Set the sponsor decision to Pending, Approved or Not approved. While it is Pending, the Overview lists the business case under what needs attention. The change is written to the project's activity log with the name of the person who made it.

Who can change it

Owners and Editors can change the business case. Contributors and Guests can view it.

For a walk-through of the thinking behind the numbers, read how to build the business case for replacing HR software.