← The FP&A libraryPractice · 18 questions →
Budgeting & planning
Headcount planning
Planning people by role, start date, and fully loaded cost — salary, employer taxes, benefits, equipment — since people are most businesses' largest cost.
Owned by: AnalystTest band: Analyst
The formula
Loaded cost ≈ Salary × (1 + benefits & taxes %)
In practice
A hire starting in March costs ten months this year, not twelve. Model start dates and ramp, and add 20–30% to salary for the loaded cost.
The kind of thing the test asks
- A $90k salary hire starts on 1 April. The salary cost in this calendar year's budget is…
- A $100k salary in the US usually costs the business about…
More in budgeting & planning
Free · no account · no card
Get your 2027 budget built from your QuickBooks — P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, in Excel.
Knowing the method is half of it. Wauvel runs it on your QuickBooks, every day.
$99/mo, everything included. Free for 14 days, no card.