ROI & Annual Cost Savings Matrix Markdown Table Template
An ROI table is the one slide-sized piece of a business case that a budget holder will actually check. It lists where money and time go today, what the proposed tool or process would cost instead, and what the difference is worth over a stated period. Finance partners read it to test assumptions, executives read the totals row to decide yes or no, and procurement reuses it when the renewal comes up a year later.
Edit This Template
Edit cells, add rows, or sort — the Markdown updates livePaste cells from Excel or Google Sheets into the first header to replace the table · Tab / Enter / arrows move · Shift+F10 opens row & column actions
When to Use This Table
The arithmetic is simple: net savings is current cost minus new cost, and ROI is net savings divided by the new cost, expressed as a percentage. What makes the table credible is everything around the arithmetic — the hourly rate used to price engineering time, the time horizon, the one-time costs of switching, and the assumption that freed-up hours turn into something valuable. A reviewer who cannot see those inputs will discount the result, and may discount you along with it.
Be careful with very large percentages. When the new solution costs almost nothing, ROI shoots into the thousands and stops carrying information; when it costs nothing at all, the ratio is undefined, not infinite. In those cases the absolute dollar savings and the payback period are the numbers that persuade. A conservative table that survives a finance review beats an impressive one that gets sent back.
What Goes in Each Column
| Column | Alignment | What to put here |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Center / Workflow | left :--- | The activity or budget line being replaced, with the volume assumption in brackets (“Table formatting, 10 h/mo”). Left-aligned. One row per line item that finance could find in a budget or timesheet; vague rows like “efficiency gains” do not survive review. |
| Current Manual Cost | right ---: | Annualised cost today, right-aligned with the same currency and unit in every cell ($12,000 / yr). For labour, hours × fully loaded hourly rate; for licences, the contract value. State the rate used in a note below the table. |
| Automated Solution | right ---: | Annualised cost of the proposed option: licences, hosting, and remaining human time, since automation rarely takes hours to zero. Right-aligned. Put one-time migration and training costs in a separate row or table rather than leaving them out. |
| Net Annual Savings | right ---: | Current cost minus new cost, right-aligned, same unit as the other money columns. Show negative values with a minus sign rather than parentheses unless your finance team uses accounting format — and be consistent. |
| ROI % | center :---: | Net savings ÷ new cost × 100, rounded to a whole percentage. Centered per the template, though right alignment lines up digits better. When the new cost is zero, write n/a with a footnote rather than “Infinite”. |
How to Fill It In
- 1Agree the hourly rate with finance before touching anything else. A fully loaded rate covers salary, benefits, and overhead; using a different figure from the one finance uses is the fastest way to get the table rejected.
- 2Measure current effort from time-tracking, ticket logs, or a two-week sample in which people record time spent on the workflow. Estimates from memory tend to be generous.
- 3Price the new option from the vendor quote, including seat growth, and estimate the hours that will remain after the switch. Add one-time costs such as migration, training, and integration work.
- 4Calculate savings and ROI per row, then compute the totals row from the column sums — not by averaging the per-row ROI percentages, which gives the wrong answer.
- 5Add a short assumptions list under the table (rate, horizon, volumes, what is excluded) and a payback period. Paste the source spreadsheet through Excel to Markdown so the table and the model stay identical.
Ready-to-Paste Variations
Three-year view with one-time costs
Uses the template’s totals and adds a hypothetical $6,000 migration cost. Three-year ROI here is $133,680 ÷ $8,220 ≈ 1,626%, and payback is about 1.6 months.
| Line item | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | 3-year total |
| :--- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Current process cost | $47,300 | $47,300 | $47,300 | $141,900 |
| New tool licences | $740 | $740 | $740 | $2,220 |
| Migration & training (one-time) | $6,000 | $0 | $0 | $6,000 |
| **Net savings** | **$40,560** | **$46,560** | **$46,560** | **$133,680** |Hours-based savings with loaded rates
Shows the time model explicitly, so a reviewer can challenge an input instead of the conclusion. Remaining hours after the switch are included.
| Workflow | Hours / mo before | Hours / mo after | Loaded rate | Annual value of hours saved |
| :--- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Table formatting | 10 | 1 | $100 / h | $10,800 |
| CSV ingestion fixes | 20 | 4 | $100 / h | $19,200 |
| Documentation cleanup | 6 | 2 | $85 / h | $4,080 |Common Mistakes
Writing “Infinite” ROI when the new option is free.
Division by zero is undefined. Write
n/a, footnote it, and let the absolute savings figure make the case. Also check whether “free” really excludes setup and maintenance time.Assuming automation removes all of the manual hours.
Estimate the hours that remain — review, exceptions, maintenance — and price them in the new-cost column. A reviewer will ask, and an honest residual makes the rest of the table believable.
Leaving out one-time switching costs.
Add migration, training, and integration effort as a separate line and show a multi-year view so the reader sees when the investment pays back.
Computing the total ROI by averaging the row percentages.
Sum the money columns first, then divide total savings by total new cost. Averaging percentages weights a $500 line the same as a $24,000 one.
Counting saved hours as cash savings.
Unless headcount or contractor spend actually falls, label the figure “value of time freed” and say what the team will do with it. Finance teams draw this distinction even when the proposal does not.
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ROI & Annual Cost Savings Matrix: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the formula for ROI?
ROI = (gain − cost) ÷ cost × 100. In this table the gain is the current cost avoided, so ROI is net savings divided by the new solution’s cost. State the time horizon, because one-year and three-year ROI on the same purchase differ.
What hourly rate should I use for engineering time?
Use the fully loaded rate your finance team already uses for internal costing, which includes benefits and overhead on top of salary. If none exists, ask finance for one rather than inventing it, and write the figure in the assumptions note.
Is payback period better than ROI for small purchases?
Often, yes. For low-cost tools ROI percentages become huge and abstract, while “pays for itself in six weeks” is easy to judge. Payback period is one-time cost divided by monthly net savings; include both if space allows.
How do I show negative savings?
Use a leading minus sign (-$1,200) and keep the row in the table. A line that costs more after the change is useful information, and hiding it undermines the totals once someone finds it.