In: Finance
Discuss briefly and evaluate if the following statement is accurate or not.
“Payback Period accounts for Time Value of Money but does not consider cash-flows that occur after the initial outlay is paid. It is therefore effectively useless as a project evaluation tool.”
Payback period refers to the period within which an entity can recover its investment amount which has been invested by it at initial point of time. In other words, payback period states the period in terms of years within which an entity could recover its costs incurred at Year0. It does not take into account time value of money as under such approach the cash flows are not discounted.
In discounted payback period, the cash flows occuring in future years are discounted to determine the number of years within which an entity could recover its investment. It takes into account effect of time value of money.
Thus the given statement is not accurate as payback period does not account for time value of money or does not discount cash flows. However, it consider the cash flows occuring in near future term. Also it is not a useless project evaluation tool.
Hence as per the above analysis, the given statement is not accurate.