Make or Buy Tracker Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet that prices every job you make in-house three separate ways — in cash, fully absorbed, and all in — and tells you which of them are cheaper bought in.
Every workshop has a list of things it makes itself because it has always made them itself. Some of them are cheaper bought in, and the reason is rarely the price on the subcontractor’s quote — it is that the hour you spend making it is an hour you could have sold instead. This file puts both halves of that on the same row.
What is in it
- Setup — two numbers, and what an hour costs at each bench.
- Items — 200 rows across 20 work centres, eleven things typed per job.
- By Work Centre — whole benches, not just individual parts.
- What To Move — the jobs ranked, with a running total of money and of hours freed.
- How Full Are You — the same decision re-priced as the order book fills or thins.
- Overview — the position on one screen, plus a Start Here tab saying where to type.
Who it is for
Workshops and factories, but not only them. Anything you could pay somebody else to do sits in the same arithmetic: bookkeeping, cleaning, delivery, artwork, installation, machining, laundry, translation, packing, IT support, printing, groundwork. Every item also carries the subcontractor’s minimum order, so a job you could never buy in that quantity is left off the list however good the price looks.
The worked example
The workbook comes with a workshop already filled in: 30 jobs across 9 work centres, 9,415 hours a year. On the cash cost alone, 6 of those jobs are cheaper bought in. Once the hours are priced at what they could have earned instead, it is 13 — worth $70,852 a year and 3,776 freed hours, which is 40.1% of everything the benches do.
The How Full Are You tab shows why that answer moves. In an empty workshop only 6 jobs are worth sending out, worth $3,325 a year; flat out it is 14 jobs and $78,604. Same quotes, same costs, a completely different answer. Moving just the top five frees 2,079 hours and $40,930.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. WhatsApp’tan sipariş ver — $9
Orders are taken on WhatsApp: message me and I’ll send the payment details, then the files as soon as the payment is confirmed.
A look inside the file
Questions people actually ask
How do I decide whether to make something myself or buy it in?
Compare three costs and use the right one: the cash cost of making it, the fully absorbed cost your accounts show, and the all-in cost — cash plus what those hours could have earned instead. In the worked workshop that is $486,121 in cash, $714,057 fully absorbed and $670,321 all in, against $678,220 to buy the lot in. On cash alone six of the thirty jobs were cheaper bought in; all in, thirteen were, worth $70,852 a year and 3,776 freed hours.
Is this only for a workshop?
No — it fits anything you could pay somebody else to do: bookkeeping, cleaning, delivery, artwork, installation, machining, laundry, translation, packing, IT support, printing, groundwork. The file holds two hundred jobs across twenty work centres, and every rate comes from what an hour costs at each of your own benches.
I don't know what a freed hour is worth to us — does that break the answer?
Start with a quarter of what you charge for an hour and refine it later; the How Full Are You tab shows exactly how much that guess is moving the answer. With an empty workshop, six jobs are worth sending out and it is worth $3,325 a year; flat out it is fourteen jobs and $78,604. That is the same quotes and the same costs, which is why the decision belongs twice a year rather than once in 2019.
Does it work in Google Sheets, and is it a subscription?
Yes — the file is built as .xlsx, so it opens in Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, goes into Google Sheets through File → Import → Upload, and works in LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install and no subscription. You download a file and it is yours. It holds two hundred jobs across twenty work centres, with the worked workshop filled in, a blank copy and a plain-English PDF guide.
Does it decide for me, and does it account for a slower subcontractor?
No, and it says so on the page — it gives you the money and the hours and leaves the parts that are not arithmetic, such as control, secrecy, quality and the customer who insists, where they belong. Lead time appears on the row in days sooner or later without entering the arithmetic, because you know what a late part costs you and a spreadsheet does not. Where a subcontractor's minimum order is bigger than a year of your usage, the job is left off the What To Move list however good the price looks. It is not a quoting, planning, stock or purchasing tool and nothing syncs.
Need it built around your business?
This one assumes a workshop that prices an hour by work centre and buys from subcontractors with minimum order quantities. If yours works differently — a single shared machine everything has to queue behind, subcontract prices that move with the material rather than per part, or several sites where the same job costs a different hour in each — I can build the same arithmetic around how you actually work.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.