Headcount Planning

For most startups and small businesses, payroll will by far be the biggest expense item. Headcount planning, therefore, is crucial to understanding where your business is headed.

Causal makes headcount planning simple, mostly via the Categories concept which removes the need for duplicated formulas and lookups.

Video guide

1. Initial setup

The structure of a headcount plan is almost exactly the same across different companies, and we’ve developed 3 entrypoints for you to get started without having to build your headcount plan from scratch:

1. Headcount wizard (recommended)
2. Basic headcount template
3. Advanced headcount template

1.1 Headcount wizard (recommended)

The wizard takes your headcount data (current employees, salaries, start dates, etc.) and sets up a basic headcount plan, which you can then customise.

1.1.1 Getting started

1. Go to the homepage, click New Model > From Data Wizard, and select the Headcount wizard
2. Follow the instructions to authenticate with your HRIS
3. Wait for your HRIS data to be loaded into Causal

1.1.2 Customising the model

The first thing to customise is the employee list in the model. You should replace the example employee data with your own.

1. Click on the ‘Employee’ category in the left sidebar to open up the Employee data table at the bottom of the screen
2. Edit the employee names and metadata to match your current team. If you currently have this information in a spreadsheet, you can copy and paste the column of names over to save time.

Once your employee list is correctly set up, the overheads assumption is the next thing to customise. The ‘Taxes and overheads’ variable is a percentage value that represents all the non-salary costs of employing someone.

You can get a rough sense of what its value should be by looking at your P&L and doing a rough calculation of how much you’re spending on salary costs vs other payroll costs.

If you’re not sure, then 25% is a reasonable estimate for most companies.

1.2 Basic headcount template

If you don’t have an HRIS that Causal supports, then this is the next best option. This template is at the right level of detail for most early-stage startups and small businesses.

1.2.1 Getting started

1. Go to the homepage, click New Model > From Template, and select ‘Headcount & Hiring Plan’

1.2.2 Customising the model

The first thing to customise is the employee list in the model. You should replace the example employee data with your own.

1. Click on the ‘Employee’ category in the left sidebar to open up the Employee data table at the bottom of the screen
2. Edit the employee names and metadata to match your current team. If you currently have this information in a spreadsheet, you can copy and paste the column of names over to save time.

Once your employee list is correctly set up, the overheads assumption is the next thing to customise. The ‘Taxes and overheads’ variable is a percentage value that represents all the non-salary costs of employing someone.

You can get a rough sense of what its value should be by looking at your P&L and doing a rough calculation of how much you’re spending on salary costs vs other payroll costs.

If you’re not sure, then 25% is a reasonable estimate for most companies.

1.3 Advanced headcount template

Our ‘advanced’ template is at the right level of detail for bigger companies, accounting for annual salary increases and bonuses, as well as breaking out different payroll overheads separately (taxes, benefits, payroll processing fees).

1.3.1 Getting started

1. Go to the homepage, click New Model > From Template, and select ‘Headcount & Hiring Plan (advanced)’

1.3.2 Customising the model

2. Planned hires

Once your model accurately represents your current team and their costs, you can start filling in planned hires.

1. Click on the ‘Employee’ category in the left sidebar to open up the Employee data table at the bottom of the screen
2. Add new rows and metadata for roles that you’re planning to hire in the future

Some things to keep in mind:

• You can leave the ‘End date’ blank for planned hires
• If you create new Titles, then make sure to navigate to the Title category and assign it to a Department

3. Actualising new hires

Once a planned hire joins the company, you’ll need to update your headcount model to reflect that.

1. Click on the ‘Employee’ category in the left sidebar to open up the Employee data table at the bottom of the screen
2. Find the row that represents the now hired planned hire. Right-click on it and click ‘Delete’.
3. Add a new row representing the actual new hire (with their name, salary, etc.). If you’re connected to your HRIS, then you can simply refresh the data source in order to bring them in automatically.