The short answer
Compare available hours with remaining preparation, review and correction work by week and skill. Subtract leave, committed internal work and a chosen contingency allowance first. In the worked example, 122 hours of demand exceed 112 planned hours; spare bookkeeping time cannot automatically cover a reviewer shortage.
Calculate available time before estimating demand
Start with scheduled working hours, then subtract leave, holidays, training, internal meetings and other committed time. Keep a separate allowance for unpredictable work. The allowance is a planning choice based on your firm's history, not a universal industry percentage.
Do not count a manager's whole week as preparation time if that person also reviews work and handles escalations. Split capacity by role or skill where the team cannot substitute freely. Forty available hours from a new bookkeeper do not replace four hours of specialist review.
A weekly capacity example
Illustrative team supply
| Input | Hours |
|---|---|
| Four people × 40 scheduled hours | 160 |
| Leave and training | −16 |
| Internal work already committed | −20 |
| Available before contingency | 124 |
| Chosen contingency allowance | −12 |
| Plannable capacity | 112 |
Suppose the same week requires 96 hours of preparation, 12 of review and 14 of known corrections: 122 hours in total. Demand exceeds the 112-hour plan by ten hours. Contingency is not free capacity to sell again; using it for already-known work leaves no room for genuine surprises.
Include recurring work before tasks exist
List work due in the planning window, whether or not a task has already been created. Include monthly and quarterly cycles, annual engagements, onboarding and agreed one-off work. Use remaining hours for work in progress so you do not count both the original estimate and the hours already spent.
For each job, record the due date, preparation estimate, review estimate, required skill and dependency. Estimate from similar completed clients rather than a single average for every account. A payroll client with five stable employees and one with frequent changes will create different work.
Check the reviewer separately
In the example, there might be enough preparation time but only eight reviewer hours against 12 required. That four-hour review shortage blocks release even if another bookkeeper has spare time. Move suitable preparation earlier, reserve review slots or obtain appropriately qualified cover. Reallocating the same deadline to a different person does not create the missing skill.
Test changes in the week they affect. A monthly total may look comfortable because the first week is quiet. The relevant question is whether preparation and review fit before each deliverable, especially where several clients share the same external deadline.
Run a short weekly planning review
Weekly capacity decisions
Weekly capacity decisions
- Update actual availability and planned leave.
- Add upcoming recurring work and confirmed new engagements.
- Replace original estimates with remaining effort for started work.
- Compare demand and supply by week and required skill.
- Identify client dependencies and likely corrections.
- Agree reallocation, earlier preparation or authorised delivery changes.
- Record the decision and check its effect next week.
Claister's documented workload forecasting includes recurring work not yet created and compares estimates with tracked time. The forecast remains an input to the manager's decision. Use the peak-week plan to act on shortages and client profitability to understand the cost of repeated overruns.
Questions
Not reliably. Tasks differ in effort, skill and review needs. Use hours and dependencies alongside counts.
Choose it from your own unplanned work history and service commitments. Revisit the allowance as actual data improves.
About this article
Author: Claister
Published by Claister, the company building the accounting practice management software discussed on this website.
Design partner: Natalija Miadzelic
Editorial review: Natalija Miadzelic · Accountant · Approved
Editorial policyAccounting firm capacity, fees and profitability
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