Revenue Leakage Calculator
For city, county and utility revenue teams with officers collecting in the field. Estimate how much revenue leaks between payer and treasury, how much better controls could recover, and how fast a collection system would pay for itself.
If unregistered payers paid like registered ones. Closing this gap needs enumeration, not just controls.
A planning estimate from your own inputs, not a measurement. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere; it stays in your browser and in the link if you share it.
How the estimate works
The calculator starts from what you can see: collections that reached your account. It assumes some cash was paid by payers but never arrived, at the leakage rate you choose, and works back to what payers actually paid. Digital payments that go straight to your account leak far less, so they get their own, much lower rate.
The "with better controls" side assumes two changes: more payers pay digitally, and the cash that remains is protected by system receipts, cash limits, daily reconciliation and audit logs. Your one-off and running costs then give a payback period and a five-year net figure.
Treat the result as a reason to look closer, not a forecast. The best next step is to measure: run strong controls in one ward or one revenue stream for a few months and compare it with a similar area.
Questions
What is revenue leakage?
Revenue leakage is money that payers hand over, or should owe, that never reaches the treasury. In field collection it usually comes from unrecorded cash, under-recorded receipts, late or missing deposits, unapproved waivers and payers who were never registered.
Where do the leakage percentages come from?
They are planning assumptions, not measured figures. Leakage varies enormously between programmes, and nobody can tell you your rate without looking at your data. The presets are deliberately round starting points. If you have audit findings, a past reconciliation exercise, or collections from a pilot area with strong controls, use those instead.
How is the estimate calculated?
Your recorded collections are split into cash and digital. Each part is grossed up by its leakage rate to estimate what payers actually paid. The difference is today's leakage. The "after" figure applies your new cash share and cash leakage rate to the same total, and payback compares the one-off cost with the recovered revenue left after running costs.
Why are unregistered payers shown separately?
Better controls stop money disappearing after it is collected. They don't find properties and businesses that were never on the register. That gap is closed by enumeration, so it is shown on its own rather than mixed into the payback.
Is my data stored?
No. The calculation runs in your browser. The values you enter are kept in the page address so you can share or bookmark the result, and nothing is sent to a server.
Planning a collection system?
I build field apps and payment pipelines that work offline and log every record. If you want a second opinion on your controls, a tender or a build plan, get in touch.