What your empty back-office seat really costs
A fill-in worksheet for an open AR, AP or admin role: the salary and benefits, the weeks it takes to hire, the hours you spend covering it, and what late invoices cost you meanwhile.
What’s inside
- A one-page fill-in worksheet to print, or save as a PDF, and fill in by hand.
- The real cost of a hire: salary plus benefits and payroll taxes, worked out the way the BLS measures it.
- The cost of the gap: 39 days median time to fill (SHRM), recruiting costs, and the hours you spend covering the seat.
- How to put a fair dollar value on your own hour.
- The cost of late invoices while nobody is chasing them, using days sales outstanding (DSO).
- A worked example for an AR clerk at the US median pay of $50,670 a year, about $72,400 all in.
- A comparison line so you can set your total against any quote, including ours.
Who it’s for
Owners and office managers at US small and mid-sized businesses with an accounts receivable, accounts payable, data entry or admin seat that’s empty, about to be, or that you’re thinking of creating. Useful before you post the job ad, and before you talk to anyone selling an alternative.
Rather hand the work off? Dull is a done-for-you service, not software. We do the work of the seat for you, in your own tools.
Want the quick version first? Try the empty seat calculator or see what an AR clerk costs in 65 US cities.
Get the worksheet
Free. It opens on this page as soon as you send the form.
Thanks, it’s yours.
Open it now, then print it or save it as a PDF.
Open the worksheetWant a number to compare against? Book a 15-minute call and we’ll give you a flat monthly quote for the work.
Frequently asked questions
Where do the numbers in the worksheet come from?
Median pay is from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025). The all-in cost divides pay by 0.70, because wages are 70.0% of total compensation for private-industry workers (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026). Time to fill (a median of 39 days) and the average cost per hire (nearly $4,700) are SHRM benchmarks. Everything else you fill in with your own numbers.
Is there an online version?
Yes. The empty seat calculator does the owner-time and hiring math for you in the browser. The worksheet goes further: it adds the cost of late invoices and gives you a page to keep, share with a partner or bring to a planning meeting.
How does Dull compare?
Dull is a done-for-you service, not software. We do the work of the seat for you for a flat monthly fee, quoted on a 15-minute call, month to month. The worksheet has a line to compare that quote with your own total. Book a call to get one.