📌 Stage 2 · People and Revenue · Staff & Payroll · months in the plan year · 30–40 min

The July hire costs six months of 2026, not twelve

Learning goals

  • Compute how many months of the plan year an employee is on the books
  • Explain why the planned hire changes the salary curve in July
  • Read the FY2026 cost per person and for the whole roster
  • Use the start date as a planning lever

Concepts

Months in FY2026

An employee who starts Jul 1, 2026 costs the studio six months of 2026, not twelve. The model reads each start date and counts months, guarding against an empty row:

=IF($D5="",0,IF(YEAR($D5)<2026,12,13-MONTH($D5)))

Staff & Payroll J5: if the start date is blank, 0 months; if the year is before 2026, 12 months (the employee is on the books all year); otherwise 13 minus the start month — a July start (month 7) gives 13 − 7 = 6.

💡 Tips:

  • The 13-MONTH() trick works for any year: it converts “starts in month m” into “months remaining including month m.”

The planned hire is a lever

Ellis Townsend (Junior Designer, planned hire) starts Jul 1, 2026 at $48,000.00 — $4,000.00 salary, $380.00 employer taxes, $560.00 health, $4,940.00 loaded per month. That is why the P&L salary line steps from $25,300.00 to $29,300.00 in July, and why the software subscription row steps to $1,750.00 at the same time.

Move the start date and the whole year moves with it: pushing the hire to October turns 6 months into 3 and saves $14,820.00; moving it into 2027 saves the full $29,640.00. Lesson 17 uses exactly this lever under the Worst scenario.

FY cost per person

FY2026 cost is the monthly loaded cost times the months in the year:

=$I5*$J5

Staff & Payroll K5: Maya's $9,867.50 × 12 = $118,410.00. Ellis shows $4,940.00 × 6 = $29,640.00 in K9. Row 10 totals the roster at $388,962.00.

Why the roster total is not 12 × monthly

Twelve months of the loaded monthly total would be 12 × $34,883.50 = $418,602.00. The actual FY2026 figure is $388,962.00 — $29,640.00 less — because Ellis only joins in July. The J and K columns are what keep the plan honest about timing; the P&L will read the same roster through SUMIF on the start dates.

Practice

Fixed case: Harbor Creative Studio LLC, a four-person design studio in Austin, Texas, planning calendar year 2026. Cached numbers are the Base scenario. Pale-green cells are formulas; white cells are typed inputs. The exercise opens on the sheet this lesson teaches. Cell J9 (months in FY2026 for the July hire) is blank: retype the start-date formula.

  1. Open Staff & Payroll and inspect the roster — The exercise opens on Staff & Payroll. Rows 5 to 8 are the four current employees (start dates in 2021–2024); row 9 is Ellis Townsend with start date Jul 1, 2026.
  2. Retype the months formula in J9 — Cell J9 is empty. Type =IF($D9="",0,IF(YEAR($D9)<2026,12,13-MONTH($D9))) and confirm: it should return 6. Column J should read 12, 12, 12, 12, 6 down the roster.
  3. Verify the per-person FY cost — K9 should read $29,640.00 = $4,940.00 × 6. K5 through K8 should read $118,410.00, $92,130.00, $78,990.00, and $69,792.00.
  4. Check the totals — J10 should sum to 54 person-months and K10 to $388,962.00 — the number the P&L payroll line adds up to.
  5. Feel the lever — In the exercise, temporarily change Ellis's start date in D9 to Oct 1, 2026 (type 10/1/2026). J9 should drop to 3 and K10 to $374,142.00. Then undo the change (Reset Data) to restore the cached plan.

Online exercise

The spreadsheet below is editable — follow the practice steps right on this page. Steps that need ribbon menus should be done in your own Excel with the downloadable practice file.

表格加载中…

Checklist

Work through each item; when every box passes, this lesson is done:

  • ☐ Retyped the months-in-year formula in J9 and it returned 6 for the July hire
  • ☐ K9 reads $29,640.00 and the roster total K10 reads $388,962.00
  • ☐ Can explain why FY cost is $29,640.00 below twelve full months of the loaded salary
  • ☐ Tested the start-date lever and restored the plan to the cached Base case