Make the case for Independent Inventory Verification
Why forecast the ROI of inventory verification?
When planning an investment in inventory automation, a credible financial forecast is often the difference between interest and approval.
RAWview’s Inventory Verification ROI & Business Case Builder helps you quantify the true cost of manual inventory checking, compare it against an automated approach, and present the results in a format suitable for operational, financial, and executive stakeholders.
Whether you’re validating an internal assumption or preparing a formal investment case, the output is designed to support informed decision-making.
How it works
The ROI Calculator is designed to be straightforward, defensible, and grounded in operational reality.
You’ll be asked to input a small number of details about your current inventory verification process — including labour effort, frequency, and associated costs — along with the timeframe you’re evaluating.
From this, the calculator:
Defensible ROI Analysis - Clear financial metrics including annualised ROI, payback period, and IRR.
Configurable project horizon - Adjust the evaluation period to match your internal investment framework.
Decision-ready outputs - Use the results to support internal discussions, budget reviews, or formal approval processes.
What information do I need?
To use the calculator effectively, you only need a high-level understanding of your current inventory verification process.
Specifically, the calculator asks for:
Current verification effort: Labour hours and equipment used to perform manual inventory checks.
Verification frequency: How often locations are currently checked — and whether this frequency is under pressure to increase.
Labour cost structure: Basic remuneration inputs used to calculate a fully loaded hourly cost.
Project timeframe: The period over which you want to assess financial return.
Where relevant, the calculator also allows you to estimate productive capacity unlocked — representing time no longer spent on manual checking that could be redeployed to higher-value operational activities. This is shown separately from cost savings to maintain transparency.
ROI Calculator FAQs
Our Project ROI Calculator is ideal for a wide range of logistics professionals looking to assess the financial impact of automating their perpetual inventory processes with a drone project, including:
- Warehouse Managers: Evaluate the financial benefits of shifting from manual to automated inventory management.
- Business Owners: Determine the cost savings and ROI of investing in automated inventory drone technology.
- Operations Managers: Understand the potential revenue gains and cost savings from automating manual perpetual inventory tasks.
- Supply Chain Analysts: Assess the impact of automation on the overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness of supply chain operations.
- Financial Controllers: Justify investments in automation by demonstrating potential returns and efficiency gains.
- Logistics Coordinators: Identify the financial benefits of streamlining inventory processes through automation.
- Project Managers: Plan and manage the transition to automated systems by understanding the ROI and potential productivity improvements.
- IT Managers: Evaluate the financial and operational impact of implementing new automation technologies within the organisation.
- CFOs (Chief Financial Officers): Make data-driven decisions on capital investments in automation, ensuring they align with the company’s financial goals.
- Procurement Officers: Assess the long-term cost benefits of adopting automated inventory solutions.
We request details about gross salary, overtime, pension contributions, and paid holiday to calculate the true cost per hour of labour to your business:
- Gross Salary: This is the base amount paid to the warehouse operative before any deductions.
- Overtime: The calculator includes overtime to ensure that any additional hours worked are factored into the cost of labour.
- Pension Contribution %: Pension contributions are a significant part of the total cost to the employer, so they are included to give a more accurate figure.
- Paid Holiday: Paid holidays are accounted for because they represent a cost to the business even when the employee is not working.
- National Insurance Contribution: We use all of these data points to calculate the employer’s annual National Insurance contribution for an average warehouse operative. This is an essential cost that needs to be factored into the net hourly labour cost, ensuring that all aspects of employment expenses are included.
- True Cost Calculation: By combining these elements, the calculator determines the actual cost per hour of employing a warehouse operative. This comprehensive approach ensures that your labour costs are fully accounted for when calculating the financial impact of automating the inventory process
The calculator requests the remuneration costs of a single warehouse operative because it uses this data—calculated as explained in the previous FAQ—to determine the average cost per hour of labour, which is then applied across the entire task. Here’s how it works:
- Calculation method: The calculator takes the total number of hours invested in the task per year—including any intended increase in stocktake frequency (e.g., moving from quarterly to monthly routines)—and multiplies it by the net hourly labour cost. This approach ensures that the full scope of labour costs is captured, even if you plan to increase the frequency of stocktakes.
- Why it’s effective: By focusing on the per-hour labour cost, as calculated in the previous FAQ, the calculator can accurately scale the total cost based on the cumulative hours worked, regardless of how many staff members are employed. This method provides a comprehensive picture of your overall labour expenses without needing to input each individual employee’s details.
ROI is calculated by comparing the annual cost of manual inventory verification with the projected cost of automated verification, factoring in initial capital investment and ongoing service costs. Productive capacity unlocked is shown separately and does not inflate ROI or payback calculations. Instead of just showing a basic ROI figure, the calculator provides three more insightful metrics:
- Annualised ROI: This shows the average return per year over the duration you select, making it easier to compare projects of different lengths.
- Internal Rate of Return (IRR): IRR reflects the expected annual growth rate of your investment, taking into account the timing of costs and returns.
- Payback Period: This shows how long it will take for the automation project to recover its upfront costs through cost savings and any added revenue.
These metrics give you a clearer, more comprehensive view of your project’s financial performance over time.