A service-business capacity worksheet

Begin with the time you can consistently allocate

Service capacity is the amount of work you can deliver within a defined set of constraints. A simple time worksheet starts with available hours, subtracts recurring non-job work and a buffer, then divides the remainder by total hours per job. Round down when a partial job cannot be sold or completed.

This is a planning ceiling under your assumptions, not a sales forecast or a recommendation to fill every hour. OpenStax discusses time and other constrained resources. Our worksheet applies the basic distinction to a one-person service month.

Use hours that fit employment, household obligations, recovery, and actual appointment windows. Do not enter an aspirational total you cannot regularly provide.

Work through one month

Twenty-eight divided by 2.5 is 11.2, so the whole-job capacity is eleven. Those eleven jobs use 27.5 hours, leaving 0.5 unallocated job-hours in addition to the four-hour buffer. Twelve jobs would need thirty job-hours, exceeding the twenty-eight available by two.

Use the printable worksheet

Download the blank worksheet ↓

The original one-page SVG worksheet has spaces for the time budget, job components, planned volume, capacity gap, and next decision. Open it in your browser and print on A4 or Letter using “fit to printable area.” You can also print this guide for the worked example.

Fill in these steps: A, available hours; B, recurring non-job hours; C, buffer; D, the sum of job-specific components. Usable job-hours are A − B − C. Whole-job capacity is the floor of usable hours divided by D when D is positive and usable hours are nonnegative.

If D is zero or unknown, stop and measure a job rather than dividing. If B + C exceeds A, the schedule is already overallocated. Do not display a negative count as usable capacity. The blank worksheet is for handwriting; it does not upload or store entries.

Check the actual bottleneck

A monthly total can look feasible while the calendar fails. If all customers require the same two Saturday morning slots, spare weekday editing hours cannot create extra appointments. Equipment, access, another person’s approval, or a supplier can impose a tighter limit than your own hours.

Split the work by stage when necessary: appointment time, editing, review, and handover. Compare the planned jobs with each stage’s capacity and the dates on which that stage is available. The smallest binding capacity governs the promise you can make.

Measure a real pilot’s delivery time to improve the estimate. A revision allowance is not an invitation to hide recurring overruns; update the model if the observed job consistently takes longer.

Compare capacity with the economics

At price $160, variable cost $60, and monthly fixed costs $600, contribution is $100 per job and break-even is six jobs. Eleven jobs would produce $1,760 revenue, $660 variable costs, and a $500 simplified operating result after fixed costs. That excludes owner pay and other costs not included in the inputs.

At 2.5 owner-hours per job, contribution per job-hour is $40. This is a capacity metric, not an hourly wage: recurring administration, fixed costs, and other excluded items still consume resources. A $150-contribution job taking five constrained hours produces $30 per constrained hour, even though its dollar contribution per job is higher.

Do not choose solely by that ratio. Customer commitments, demand, quality, cash timing, and ethical obligations also matter. Model only work you can legitimately and reliably provide.

Choose a smaller promise when the plan does not fit

If the planned volume exceeds capacity, choose an explicit response: reduce the volume, narrow the scope, change the process, move dates with agreement, or examine additional resources and their costs. Do not assume that unpaid overtime is free capacity.

State the chosen appointment limit in the service offer. Enter a feasible volume into the Numbers Lab and compare the result with the original target. If even feasible full capacity cannot reach break-even, revisit the cost model or offer before committing more money.

The break-even guide connects this time check with cost steps and sales mix. Keep a date for reviewing the worksheet against actual hours; capacity estimates should change when the work changes.