The true cost of an office admin (it is more than salary)
A full-time office admin for a trades company in BC costs $38,000 to $48,000 per year in salary, depending on experience and location. But salary is only 65 to 70 percent of the total cost. Add employer CPP and EI contributions ($3,500 to $4,500/year), benefits if you offer them ($3,000 to $6,000/year), paid vacation and sick days ($2,500 to $3,500/year), workspace and equipment ($2,000 to $4,000/year), and training and onboarding time (2 to 4 weeks of reduced productivity). The fully loaded cost of an office admin is $50,000 to $65,000 per year. Part-time helps (a 20-hour-per-week admin runs $22,000 to $30,000 fully loaded), but you lose coverage during the hours they are not working. A customer calling at 4pm on a Wednesday when your part-time admin left at noon gets voicemail, and 67 percent of callers who reach voicemail do not leave a message.
What an office admin actually does all day
To make this comparison honest, we need to list the actual tasks. A typical trades company admin handles: answering phone calls and routing inquiries (1 to 2 hours/day), scheduling and dispatching jobs (1 to 1.5 hours/day), creating and sending quotes (45 minutes to 1.5 hours/day), invoicing and payment follow-up (30 to 60 minutes/day), customer communication including confirmations, reminders, and updates (30 to 45 minutes/day), data entry into CRM or spreadsheets (30 to 45 minutes/day), ordering supplies and managing inventory (15 to 30 minutes/day), and handling complaints or service recovery (as needed). That is 5 to 8 hours of work per day, depending on volume. Some of these tasks are purely mechanical: data entry, sending templated emails, generating standard invoices. Others require judgment and empathy: handling complaints, making scheduling decisions for complex jobs, building customer relationships. The split is roughly 60 to 70 percent mechanical and 30 to 40 percent judgment-based.
Which admin tasks are fully automatable
The mechanical 60 to 70 percent can be automated today with existing tools. Automated quoting generates and sends quotes from job details in seconds. Dispatch automation assigns and schedules jobs based on technician availability, skill, and location. Invoice automation creates and sends invoices when jobs are marked complete. Automated review requests go out 24 hours after service. Lead capture and routing sends instant acknowledgments and routes inquiries to the right person. Customer reminders (appointment confirmations, day-before notifications, post-service follow-ups) run on autopilot. Data entry from forms, emails, and calls into your CRM happens automatically through integrations. The total cost of automating these tasks is typically $3,000 to $8,000 as a one-time build plus $50 to $150/month in platform fees. Compare that to $50,000 to $65,000 per year for an admin doing the same work manually.
Which tasks still need a human
Automation cannot handle tasks that require emotional intelligence, creative problem-solving, or real-time judgment in ambiguous situations. When a customer calls upset about a botched install, they need to talk to a person who can listen, empathize, and make a decision about how to resolve the issue. When a VIP commercial client needs a custom scope that does not fit your standard pricing, a human needs to assess and negotiate. When a technician calls in sick and three jobs need to be rearranged around a complex commercial install, someone needs to make judgment calls about priorities. Phone calls from new customers who have questions before booking (the consultative sell) convert better with a human than an automated system. These tasks represent 30 to 40 percent of what an admin does, but they are the highest-value 30 to 40 percent because they directly affect customer retention and revenue on complex jobs.
The hybrid model most trades companies land on
The answer for most trades companies with 3 to 15 employees is not admin OR automation. It is both, with clear boundaries. Automate everything mechanical: quoting, invoicing, scheduling routine jobs, review requests, lead acknowledgments, and data entry. Hire a part-time admin (15 to 20 hours/week) to handle inbound calls, customer relationships, complaint resolution, and exception management. The part-time admin focuses exclusively on the tasks that require a human, which means they are doing higher-value work and are less likely to burn out from data entry tedium. The combined cost: $22,000 to $30,000/year for the admin plus $5,000 to $10,000 one-time build and $100/month for automations, roughly $28,000 to $42,000 in year one, then $23,000 to $31,000 ongoing. That is 40 to 55 percent less than a full-time admin while delivering better coverage (automation works 24/7) and faster response times.
Decision framework: which path is right for your company
Use this framework. If you are under 20 jobs per month with 1 to 2 crew members: start with automation only. The volume does not justify a hire, and automation handles 90 percent of your admin needs for under $200/month. If you are doing 20 to 50 jobs per month with 3 to 8 crew members: go hybrid. Automate the mechanical work and hire part-time for customer-facing tasks. If you are over 50 jobs per month with 8+ crew members: you need both a full-time admin and automation. The volume demands a dedicated person, but automation still saves them 3 to 4 hours per day on tasks they should not be doing manually. Regardless of your size, start with the automation layer first. It takes 2 to 4 weeks to set up, costs a fraction of a hire, and immediately shows you how much admin work remains, which tells you exactly how many hours of human help you actually need.