Is the plan limited by money or by people?
Three business cases asking for $290,000 against a $250,000 budget, and needing 80 project-manager weeks against the 40 you have. The optimizer returns $91,000 a year of benefit and does not spend the whole budget.
Finance Starter Optimization free
After you install, this is the model to open.
Split a Fixed Budget Across Three Things
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
The answer
What the money buys, and what actually limited it:
- Annual return
- $91,000 from $223,333 spent
- Unspent budget
- $26,667
- Binding constraint
- people not money
- A manager-week is worth
- $700 measured, not assumed
The report shows the project-manager limit binding while the budget is not, so the scarce thing in this decision is not money, it is the people who have to implement, and no version of this conversation held in a finance meeting would have surfaced that. The case with the best return per dollar gets only a fifth of what it asked for, because it is by a distance the heaviest on manager time. Raise the weeks from 40 to 45 and the return goes to $94,500, so five weeks bought $3,500 and a contractor at less than $700 a week pays for itself. Past about 56 weeks the budget binds instead and another manager adds almost nothing.
The model
One row per case with the money it wants, the annual return it promises and the implementation weeks it consumes. Two headroom rows hold the two limits the answer has to respect.
| Cases | 3 |
| Budget | $250,000 |
| Project-manager weeks | 40 |
| Requested | $290,000 and 80 weeks |
| Split and annual return | solved |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- How often does an ordinary year lose money?What If the Biggest Client Leaves?
- Did that payment land on the right client?Match the Invoices to the Client List
- What are the odds the carry is zero?What Does Carry Actually Look Like?
- Do overruns or write-offs cost you more?Will the Fee Book Cover the Practice?
- Which invoice should you check before it goes out?Which Invoices Do Not Look Right?
- What is your diversification rule costing you?Which Deals Can We Actually Fund?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Optimization in Google Sheets.