Unified QHSE vs Point Solutions: Build the Cost Case

Hold the scope constant

List the workflows, roles, sites, history, attachments, reporting and support each option must cover. Confirm the included applications and integrations. A lower quote may omit a required task, while a larger package may include applications your team does not need. Keep exclusions visible beside the totals.

Separate one-off and recurring costs

Record configuration, migration, interfaces, training and transition effort separately from subscription, support, maintenance and routine administration. Include work reconciling records across tools. Check whether an internal cost is additional expenditure or existing staff time, and avoid charging the same hours twice.

Model benefits without double counting

Measure time released from the same tasks in both options. Keep that capacity visible even when payroll does not change. Count a cash saving only when a named payment changes. Do not value the same hours as both a salary saving and additional capacity, or assume a shorter task establishes fewer incidents.

Test difficult handoffs in both options

A common platform name does not prove that applications share the required record, permissions or history. Separate tools need a supported handoff or an explicit manual process. Test rejection, duplication, changed values and failed delivery in each option, then include the demonstrated support burden in the comparison.

Make uncertainty part of the decision

Use the same currency, horizon, tax treatment and timing assumptions. Compare delayed rollout, additional interface work and lower cash realisation. Record which assumptions change the decision. Keep essential workflow gaps outside any weighted average so a low price cannot hide a task the organisation cannot perform.

Give every assumption an owner and a source

A cost case is easier to defend when each figure has a named person and a place it came from. Hours and hourly cost belong to operations and finance; the quoted subscription belongs to procurement and should be attached in writing; interface and migration effort belong to whoever will do the work. Where a number is only an estimate, say so in the same row. When a reviewer later asks why a figure was chosen, the answer should be a document or a measurement, not a recollection.

Look for costs that appear after signature

Ask both vendors the same list of questions about charges that a first quote can leave out: additional user tiers or external users, storage and attachment limits, separate test or sandbox environments, access to an application programming interface, extra sites or languages, and the price at renewal. Ask what the export of your records costs and in which format it arrives, because the cost of leaving is part of the cost of staying. Compare the answers in one table so a missing answer is visible as a gap rather than assumed to be zero.

Test the conclusion against a worse case

Once both options are priced, rerun the comparison with the quote at its upper end, the rollout delayed by a quarter and the cash saving set to zero. If the preferred option only wins when every assumption is favourable, the decision rests on optimism and not on the evidence. If it still wins, record that result beside the base case so approvers can see how much margin the choice has.

Count only the costs and savings that reach your budget

HSE's published estimate of the cost of workplace injury and ill health in Great Britain divides the burden between individuals, employers and government. The same logic applies to a software case. Savings that accrue to an insurer, a customer or an employee are real but are not savings to the budget you are asking for. Mark each line of the comparison with the party that bears it, and keep only the lines that reach your own organisation in the cash column. The others can be listed as context, with their source.

HSE: costs to Britain of workplace injury and ill health. HSE's statistics on who bears the cost. We use only the idea of splitting costs by party and quote no figure from it. Checked 3 October 2026.

Adjust the estimates for optimism

HM Treasury's supplementary Green Book guidance on optimism bias says that project appraisers tend to be over-optimistic and recommends explicit adjustment of estimates of costs, benefits and duration. It is public-sector guidance and sets no percentage for a QHSE tool. Its practical lesson carries over: run the cost case with costs raised, benefits lowered and duration lengthened by amounts you can defend, and show the original beside the adjusted case. Compare the two options on both.

HM Treasury: Green Book supplementary guidance on optimism bias. A 2013 publication for UK public-sector appraisal. It supplies no figure for software projects. Checked 3 October 2026.

Use OSHA's injury-cost tool as a cross-check, not as an input

OSHA's Safety Pays page describes a tool that uses injury cost data compiled by the National Council on Compensation Insurance to estimate the direct and indirect cost of 40 injury and illness types. If the case mentions avoided injuries at all, run your own injury mix through it and show the result outside the savings column. Neither option's price is a reason to expect fewer injuries, so any reduction assumption needs its own evidence.

OSHA: Safety Pays. A US estimating tool for injury costs. It does not model software or prevention. Checked 3 October 2026.

Worked example: the same hours counted twice

The numbers here are invented for illustration. Suppose a team spends 10 hours a week chasing overdue actions by email. One option is expected to cut that to 4 hours and the other to 6, so the released time is 6 and 4 hours a week. If the staff are salaried and no overtime or contract spend changes, the cash saving of both options is zero and the real difference is two hours a week of capacity. Charging both options at the hourly rate would show a saving that no budget line will ever record.