The formula
Cost of one role for the week = People x Hourly rate x Hours per shift x Shifts per week
Total schedule cost = Sum of all roles x (1 + Payroll on-cost %)
A schedule is a list of promises: this many people, for this many hours, at these rates. Multiplying each role out and adding the roles up is the entire model, which is exactly why it works before the week starts, while payroll only reports after the money is gone. The on-cost line is not optional padding: employer payroll taxes alone start at 7.65% of pay, and scheduling tools that price the roster on bare wages systematically under-promise the labor budget. Hours are shown alongside cost because rates change at review time, but hours change every week.
How to use it, with an example
- One row per role, not per person. Four servers at the same rate are one row with 4 people.
- Use the shifts each person actually works in this week, not the contract average.
- Set the on-cost to your payroll provider’s figure. If you do not know it, 10 to 15% is the common estimating band.
- Read the loaded weekly total, then divide it by the week’s forecast sales. That is the labor percentage this exact roster will produce.
- If the number is too high, move hours, not people: stagger starts, cut the overlap between shifts, and shorten the shoulders of the day first.
Worked example: A week’s roster has 4 servers at $16 an hour working 6-hour shifts, 5 shifts each: 4 x $16 x 6 x 5 = $1,920. Three cooks at $19, 8-hour shifts, 5 each, cost $2,280, and 2 dishwashers at $15, 6-hour shifts, 4 each, cost $720. Wages total $4,920 across 288 scheduled hours. Add a 12% payroll on-cost of $590.40 and the schedule truly costs $5,510.40 a week, about $23,878 a month. The calculator above is prefilled with these same numbers.
A roster priced like this is most useful inside the system where the schedule lives. On Odoo for Restaurants, shifts are planned against the same employee records that carry pay rates and employer costs, and the Odoo HR module keeps hours, timesheets and payroll in one place, so the cost of the plan and the cost of what actually happened can be compared line by line.
Common mistakes
- Pricing the schedule on wages alone. Bare wages understate the commitment by the full payroll on-cost, typically 10 to 30%. Every week then “mysteriously” overruns a budget that was never real.
- Forgetting the salaried and the invisible shifts. Managers covering the floor, the prep cook who comes in at 6am, the trainee shadowing on Friday: if a human is in the building working, the schedule costs money, whether or not they appear on the pretty version of the roster.
- Scheduling to the Saturday template all week. A roster copied from the busiest day carries peak hours into dead dayparts. Build the week day by day from expected covers, the way a good restaurant POS system cost analysis separates fixed from variable spending.
- Letting overtime arrive by accident. Overtime is rarely a decision; it is a drift, one swapped shift at a time, at 1.5 times the rate. Price any week where someone passes 40 hours with their overtime hours at the premium rate before you publish.
- Cutting the wrong hours when the number is high. Removing a Friday server saves the biggest line and costs covers, turns and tips. Shorten shift shoulders and overlaps first: the hours with no sales attached.
- Never comparing planned with actual. The forecast roster and the paid roster differ by call-outs, swaps and held-over staff. That gap, reviewed weekly, is where scheduling discipline comes from.
FAQs
How do I work out what my weekly schedule costs?
Role by role: people multiplied by hourly rate, hours per shift and shifts per week, added together, then grossed up by your payroll on-cost percentage. The worked example above lands at $5,510.40 a week for a three-role roster once a 12% on-cost is included.
What on-cost percentage should I put on top of wages?
Employer Social Security and Medicare are 7.65% of pay; unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation take it higher, and benefits higher still. Many restaurants estimate 10 to 15% for a taxes-and-basic-costs view, while operations with real benefit packages can see 20 to 30%. Your payroll provider’s reports give the true figure.
Should overtime be in the scheduling cost?
Yes, priced at its real rate. If someone is rostered past 40 hours in the week, the hours beyond 40 are usually paid at 1.5 times the base rate under US federal rules, and some states add daily overtime on top. Either split that person into two rows at the two rates, or raise the row’s rate to reflect the blend.
How do I turn schedule cost into a labor percentage?
Divide the loaded weekly total by the same week’s sales (actual, or forecast if you are planning). $5,510.40 of scheduled labor against $18,000 of weekly sales is 30.6%. Most full-service restaurants plan the roster to land inside roughly 30 to 35%.
What is a good number of scheduled hours per week?
There is no universal figure, because hours follow covers. Judge hours through sales per labor hour and labor percentage together: a lean roster on a dead week can still be the wrong roster.
