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Labor Cost Planning Tool

Salary Allocation Calculator
Project Labor Costs Across Any Time Horizon

Enter an annual salary, the percentage allocated to a specific project, an annual growth or reduction factor, and a time horizon. Annual and monthly allocated costs are projected for each year.

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Labor Cost Planning Tool

Salary Allocation Projection Calculator

What Is Salary Allocation?

Salary allocation is the process of attributing a portion of an employee's total compensation to a specific project, department, client, or cost center. When an employee splits their time across multiple projects, allocating their salary proportionally to each gives you accurate project-level cost data rather than treating all labor as overhead. This is essential for understanding true project profitability, building accurate proposals and quotes, and making informed decisions about where to grow or cut.

Salary Allocation Formula

Adjusted Salary (Year n) = Salary × (1 + Growth Rate)n
Allocated Annual Cost = Adjusted Salary × (Allocation % ÷ 100)
Allocated Monthly Cost = Allocated Annual Cost ÷ 12

Salary Allocation Example

Annual Salary: $120,000  |  Allocation: 50%  |  Growth: 5%/year  |  Horizon: 3 years
Year 1: $120,000 × 1.05 = $126,000 → Allocated Annual: $63,000 → Monthly: $5,250
Year 2: $126,000 × 1.05 = $132,300 → Allocated Annual: $66,150 → Monthly: $5,512.50
Year 3: $132,300 × 1.05 = $138,915 → Allocated Annual: $69,457.50 → Monthly: $5,788.13

When to Use Salary Allocation Projections

Use salary allocation projections when building multi-year project budgets, preparing client proposals where labor is a significant cost, planning headcount growth and its impact on specific cost centers, or modeling what happens to project economics if salary costs increase at different rates than project revenue. The growth factor field allows you to model both raises (positive percentage) and reductions (negative percentage), making this tool useful for both growth planning and cost reduction scenarios.

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