On top of gross
Across most of Europe, employing one administrative person costs 20–40% on top of gross pay, arrives with a 13th and sometimes 14th month, and cannot be undone quickly when the work shrinks. Meanwhile the work itself — invoices, PDFs, spreadsheets, supplier e-mails — is exactly what a machine now does well. Here is the arithmetic, country by country.
Pick a country and a gross monthly salary. The model adds employer contributions, mandatory extra months, and deferred obligations — then divides by the hours that person is really at their desk after holidays and sick leave.
Ranked by the true annual cost of one administrative employee in a small firm. The last column is the honest one: how hard it is to reverse the decision once made — the reason a fractional role beats a fractional hire.
| Country | Gross / year | Employer adds | True cost / year | On top | € / worked hour | Pay runs | Hard to undo |
|---|
Nobody needs a whole bookkeeper. A firm of eight needs a third of one — which is precisely the amount you cannot hire. Each clerk below is a named colleague with a mailbox, a chat, and a defined job; you switch one on and off by the month.
Incoming PDFs, scans and spreadsheets: sorted, named, filed against the right counterparty, with the numbers pulled out and checked against the order.
The month-end hunt for receipts nobody sent. Pre-sorted books your accountant can actually work with — never tax advice, that stays with your licensed adviser.
Quotes requested, prices compared against the last order, confirmations matched to deliveries, discrepancies raised before the invoice lands.
First-line replies in German, French, Dutch or Italian, at three in the morning, in the same tone every time — and an honest hand-off when it is out of scope.
Standard agreements drafted from your own templates, renewal dates tracked, changes against the last version flagged. Drafting, not legal advice.
Orders against deliveries, bank statements against invoices, payment reminders that go out on the day they should rather than the week after.
Europe is halfway through making structured invoicing compulsory. Every date below is a deadline by which a five-person company must change how documents move — with no back office to do it.
Everything below is a limit we would rather state now than have you discover in month two.
Pick the clerk whose job you are currently doing yourself at nine in the evening. One month, one price, cancel at the end of it — the opposite of a hire, which is the entire point.