Bench Time Calculator NZ
This bench time calculator works out how much income a contractor loses to the gaps between contracts, and what day rate would make that income back. Bench time is the time you are available to work but not billing anyone: one contract has ended and the next has not started. It is easy to price a contract as if it will run back to back with the next one, and then find the year has come in short, because every gap is a week with no income while your costs carry on. The size of the loss depends on how long your contracts run compared with the gaps between them, not on the gaps alone. You enter your day rate, the length of a typical contract in weeks, the length of a typical gap between contracts, the weeks of leave you take in a year and the days a week you bill. The calculator gives you your income for the year after bench time, the weeks you bill and the weeks you spend on the bench, what the bench time costs you compared with working every available week, and the day rate that would earn the same over the weeks you actually bill. The contract length and the gap are your own estimates, so try the figures from your last few contracts to see what your own record says.
From the same team as Calculate.co.nz
Your Timesheets at jobtracker.co.nz logs your hours on a week grid or a timer that keeps counting when your phone locks, free on every plan. Career and Timesheets turns those hours into projects and rates, fixed fees and retainers, numbered invoices with GST only when you are registered, expenses and mileage, and the tax to set aside, from $4.99 a month billed yearly.
Log your hours freeHow it works
Your available weeks are 52 less the weeks of leave you take. Over the year your work runs in cycles of one contract followed by one gap, so the share of available weeks you bill is the contract length divided by the contract length plus the gap. Available weeks times that share gives the weeks you bill, and the rest are bench weeks. Your income is the weeks you bill times the days you bill a week times your day rate. The cost of bench time is the income you would earn billing every available week, less that figure. The day rate that makes it up is your day rate times your available weeks divided by the weeks you bill, which earns the full-availability income in the weeks you actually work.
Worked example
A contractor charges $900 a day, five days a week, and takes 4 weeks of leave, so she is available for 48 weeks. Her contracts run for 26 weeks with 4 weeks between them, so she bills 26 of every 30 available weeks: 48 x 26 / 30 is 41.6 weeks billed and 6.4 weeks on the bench. That is 208 billed days and $187,200 for the year. Billing all 48 weeks would have earned $216,000, so the bench time costs her $28,800. To earn $216,000 in 41.6 weeks she would need $1,038.46 a day.
| Line | Weeks | Income |
|---|---|---|
| Available, 52 less 4 weeks of leave | 48 | $216,000 |
| Billed, 48 x 26 / 30 | 41.6 | $187,200 |
| On the bench | 6.4 | $28,800 |
| Day rate to earn $216,000 in 41.6 weeks | $1,038.46 a day |
Related calculators
- Billable Days Per Year Calculator: the working days left after holidays and leave.
- Day Rate Calculator: a day rate built up from your costs and target income.
- Fractional Portfolio Calculator: clients needed at a day rate to reach your income.
- Contractor Effective Hourly Rate Calculator: your real rate after unbilled hours and costs.