ROI calculator · Ireland & UK
What is paper actually costing you?
Put in your own figures, adjust the assumptions until you believe them, and see every line of the arithmetic. Nothing is hidden in the code.
Your costs today
Business-wide figures, not per site.
Labour
Time spent on food safety paperwork, not on the checks themselves.
Recording, writing up, filing and chasing whoever missed a sheet.
Gross hourly cost to the business, including employer contributions.
Print and storage
Monthly spend across the business.
Audits
Usually the largest line, and the one most calculators leave out.
Pulling folders, cross-referencing dockets, filling the gaps. Costed at eight hours a day at the rate above.
Food Guard
List pricing is in euro. Set your own figure if you are quoted in sterling.
Filled from the plan and site count above. Overwrite it with your actual quote. Sensor hardware is quoted separately and is not included.
Your estimate
Estimated net saving in year one, after paying for Food Guard
The assumptions
These are the numbers we cannot know. Drag them until you believe them.
The checks still happen. Writing up, filing and chasing largely stop.
Never quite zero. Some things still get printed.
Filter by site, sheet and date range, then export.
This is an estimate built from figures you entered. It is not a quotation, a forecast or a promise of savings, and your results will depend on how your operation runs. Sensor hardware is quoted per site after a survey and is not included above.
How the sum works
No hidden multiplier.
Here is every line.
Most vendor calculators bury a flattering percentage in the code and hand you a big number. These are the three lines above, written out.
Labour
Employees × hours a week each × 52 × hourly cost. The saving is that total multiplied by the reduction you set, not by one we chose for you.
- Counts the admin around the check, not the check
- Uses a full 52 weeks, not 48
- Your hourly cost, not an industry average
Print and storage
Printing plus ink plus paper and storage, monthly, multiplied by twelve. The easiest line to verify, because you can check it against last year’s invoices.
- Consumables and physical archiving together
- Small on one site, real across an estate
- Defaults to 85% saved, never 100%
Audit preparation
Days a year × eight hours × your hourly cost. This line is missing from most calculators, and it is usually the biggest one on the page.
- Scheme audits and inspection preparation
- Greenaway describe this becoming a search
- Set it to zero if you have never been audited
What is deliberately not counted
Stock saved by catching a chill failure overnight is real money, but it needs sensors rather than software, and the hardware is not priced here. Fines, lost contracts and reputational damage are excluded too — they are real and they are unquantifiable.
- No stock loss line without sensors quoted
- No fines or contract loss guessed at
- The number you get is the conservative one
Common questions
About these numbers
before you quote them.
Where do the default assumptions come from?
They are starting points, not findings. Three people spending five hours a week on paperwork and three days a year on audit preparation is typical of what food businesses tell us, but we have not measured it across a sample and we are not presenting it as research. Change every figure to match your own operation before you take the total seriously.
Why does the saving not reach 100%?
Because it would not be true. The checks themselves take about as long either way — somebody still has to probe the fridge. What goes away is the writing up, the filing, the chasing and the reconstruction at audit time. A calculator that shows your entire manual cost disappearing will not survive contact with a finance director.
Can I work in sterling?
Yes, switch the currency at the top. Note that Food Guard list pricing is published in euro, so if you are working in sterling you should overwrite the licence figure with the actual quote you have been given rather than relying on the plan buttons. Ask us for a sterling quote.
Why is stock loss not included?
Software alone does not prevent it. A chill failing overnight is caught by a wireless sensor that alerts a named person, not by a checklist app. Since sensor hardware is quoted separately after a site survey, including a stock saving here would be counting a benefit whose cost is not on the page. See temperature monitoring.
Can I get this as a written business case?
Yes. Send us your figures and we will put the same arithmetic into a document you can take to whoever signs it off, with the assumptions stated rather than buried.
Test it on a real shift instead.
A fortnight on your own floor will tell you more than any calculator. No card required.