> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://abundance.alloconomy.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Ready to Help Is Different from Busy Helping - URL: https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-05-ready-and-used/ - Published: 2026-10-09T14:07:47.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-29T20:19:16.000Z - Description: A support team costs money while it waits as well as while it helps. A 100-minute example makes available capacity and unused capacity easy to see. - Author: Sathya Narayanan - Tags: Alloconomy, Foundations, Activity-Based Costing, #series-detail Foundations · Mental model 5 ## Follow the work: ten simple ideas 1. Start here[The ten-idea cheat sheet](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/activity-based-costing/)A simple map of the work behind a price. 2. Idea 1[Costs follow work](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-01-costs-follow-work/)Connect a customer promise to the tasks behind it. 3. Idea 2[Different levels of work](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-02-different-levels/)Find what makes an activity repeat. 4. Idea 3[Averages hide differences](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-03-averages-hide-differences/)Compare equal shares with actual use of shared work. 5. Idea 4[Choose a useful measure](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-04-count-the-work/)Match the measure to the activity it explains. 6. Idea 5**Available and used capacity**Current essaySeparate available time from time used by customers. 7. Idea 6[Extra steps add up](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-06-extra-steps/)Build a job from its ordinary steps and additions. 8. Idea 7[Follow the customer journey](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-07-whole-customer-journey/)Look at the help before and after a sale. 9. Idea 8[Ask what actually changes](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-08-what-actually-changes/)Compare the money that changes under a decision. 10. Idea 9[Use the time you free](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-09-give-saved-time-a-job/)Turn faster work into a chosen benefit. 11. Idea 10[Keep the model useful](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-10-keep-it-useful/)Measure enough to support the decision, then improve it. ## The quiet hour still exists Mayan opens a help desk for an afternoon. Some people come with questions. At other times, he waits, ready to help. The waiting time is not imaginary. He made the time available even though nobody used it. A business that pays a help team faces the same difference. **Capacity** means how much work a resource can do. For a help team, we can often express it as minutes available for helping. For a warehouse, it might be space available for storing goods. [![AVAILABLE: 100 minutes: $100 to provide the time; USED: 60 minutes: $60 assigned to support work; UNUSED: 40 minutes: $40 shown separately](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f5/a9/f5a9f801-5a10-44d6-b07c-6658660be1a9/content/images/2026/10/05-abc-05-ready-and-used.png)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f5/a9/f5a9f801-5a10-44d6-b07c-6658660be1a9/content/images/2026/10/05-abc-05-ready-and-used.png?ref=abundance.alloconomy.com) $100 supplied = $60 used + $40 unused. Numerical examples are illustrative; actual business economics require case-by-case analysis. [Open full-size infographic](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f5/a9/f5a9f801-5a10-44d6-b07c-6658660be1a9/content/images/2026/10/05-abc-05-ready-and-used.png?ref=abundance.alloconomy.com). ## Buy 100 minutes, use 60 Imagine a small software help team. After allowing for breaks and other necessary work, it has 100 useful support minutes in a period. Providing that time costs $100\. These are invented numbers. The cost of available support time is **$100 ÷ 100 = $1 a minute**. Customers use 60 minutes. Their support work receives **60 × $1 = $60**. The remaining **40 minutes, worth $40**, are shown as unused capacity. We can still explain the whole bill: **$60 used + $40 unused = $100 supplied**. If we instead divide the whole $100 by only the 60 busy minutes, we get about $1.67 per busy minute. That mixes two questions: how costly it is to provide time, and how much of that time customers used. ## Why keep the unused part visible? The manager can now ask a clearer question: why were 40 minutes unused? Perhaps it was a quiet day. Perhaps the team needs spare time to answer quickly when several people need help together. Unused capacity is not automatically waste. It is simply capacity we should see and understand. The goal is not to keep every person busy every second. ## Apply it to Walmart fulfillment and SaaS A warehouse can have shelf space ready before goods arrive. Empty shelf space and occupied shelf space are different states of the same resource. Hiding the empty part in every stored item's cost can make slow periods look like the items themselves became harder to store. A SaaS company can also have support capacity ready before customers ask questions. The little example above helps distinguish the resource it provides from the portion customers use. We have measured only one resource group. This is not the cost of running the entire warehouse or software company. ## Try it A team provides 200 useful minutes at a cost of $100\. Customers use 150 minutes. What is the rate, and what remains unused? **Answer:** 50 cents per minute; $75 used and $25 unused. **Carry this idea:** show what you made available, what customers used, and the difference between them. ## Source [Kaplan and Anderson's explanation of time-driven ABC](https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/rethinking-activity-based-costing?ref=abundance.alloconomy.com) supports separating practical capacity supplied from capacity used. The small numbers here are original teaching examples. --- [← Choose a useful measure](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-04-count-the-work/) · [Extra steps add up →](https://abundance.alloconomy.com/alloconomy/abc-06-extra-steps/)