Most finance teams can tell you exactly how much their company spends on operating expenses. What they can’t easily measure is the hidden internal labor it takes to manage that spending.

Recent industry benchmarks show that many mid-sized companies lose the equivalent of 500–700 working days each year—two to three full-time employees—just keeping the lights on for routine purchases.

At an average fully loaded cost of $50/hour, that translates into more than $250,000 in hidden labor cost tied up in non-strategic tasks.

The Hidden Labor Cost of "Just Buying Stuff"

When we talk about operating expenses, we typically focus on what we're spending—office supplies, IT services, facilities management, professional services, travel, equipment maintenance.

What we don't see is the massive internal effort required to manage that spending:

Vendor Selection & Sourcing:

Even a “simple” supplier decision can take 20–30 hours of research and evaluation. Multiply that across dozens of choices annually, and you’re looking at months of lost time.

Contract Management & Negotiations:

Drafting, redlining, legal reviews—every agreement pulls people away from higher-value work.

Vendor Relationship Management:

Onboarding, performance tracking, and issue resolution take hours per vendor, per year. With hundreds of suppliers, the administrative load adds up fast.

Purchase Processing:

Every PO requires approvals, ordering, receiving, and payment. Even if it takes “just 30–40 minutes,” thousands of transactions add up to thousands of hours.

Why This Matters

These are necessary but non-strategic costs of doing business. They keep the company running, but they don’t improve your bottom line.

The real problem? While your team is buried in this work, they’re not focused on strategic activities like:

Negotiating stronger deals with existing suppliers
Consolidating suppliers to unlock volume discounts
Identifying smarter alternatives
Preventing maverick spend that drives costs up

The Symptoms You're Probably Seeing

Process Inefficiency: Delayed decisions, manual approvals, inconsistent vendor use
Hidden Costs: Duplicate services, missed discounts, unnoticed price increases
Lost Focus: High-value talent tied up in low-value tasks

The Real Opportunity

Companies that modernize their operating expense management report:

30% reduction in processing time through streamlined systems
15-25% cost savings from supplier consolidation and better oversight
Improved budget predictability through better spend visibility
Freed-up resources for strategic initiatives

Imagine reclaiming 200+ working days and directing that effort toward activities that actually save money and improve operations.

The Strategic Question

Managing operating expenses will always take time and resources. The question is: Are you managing them efficiently—or is the admin grind holding your business back?

Most companies are still handling operating expenses manually and reactively. The ones gaining competitive advantage are treating expense management as a strategic capability, not just an administrative necessity.

Where We Can Help

At Wolfe Procurement, we specialize in helping companies cut through the noise of expense management. We’ll audit your processes, quantify the hidden labor costs, and show you how to reclaim time and money for what truly matters.

Want to know how many workdays your company is losing? Let’s find out together.

Your Operating Expenses Are Consuming 700 Working Days (And You Probably Don't Know It)