Agencies · 🇫🇷 France
Social charges that made every hire cost more than budgeted
A Paris agency budgeting headcount on gross salary was consistently 40% short on the real cost.
Paris digital agency, 12 staff, monthly TVA. Client identity withheld — we publish names only with written permission, so this engagement is described by its shape rather than by who it was.
12
Months restated
DSN
Monthly filing regularised
Per-role
True cost model built
The situation
- The agency planned hiring against gross salary and was repeatedly surprised by the cash requirement.
- DSN submissions were being made late, and the TVA return was assembled manually each month.
What we found
- Employer social charges were not modelled in hiring decisions, understating cost per head substantially.
- DSN filings were late in several months, which carries penalties.
- TVA was prepared from a spreadsheet rather than generated from the ledger.
What we did
- Built a fully loaded cost-per-role model including employer social charges.
- Regularised DSN submissions onto the correct monthly cycle.
- Moved TVA preparation into the ledger so the return reconciles automatically.
The outcome
- Hiring decisions are now made against real cost, and the agency reduced planned headcount by one role once the true figure was visible.
- DSN and TVA are both filed on time from reconciled data.
Start with a conversation
Recognise any of this in your own books?
Thirty minutes. We review where your books stand and where the money's actually going — no obligation.