PAYBACK PERIOD Definition

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PAYBACK PERIOD, in capital budgeting, is the length of time needed to recoup the cost of CAPITAL INVESTMENT. The payback period is the ratio of the initial investment (cash outlay, regardless of the source of the cash) to the annual cash inflows for the recovery period. The major shortcoming for the payback period method is that it does not take into account cash flows after the payback period and is therefore not a measure of the profitability of an investment project. For this reason, analysts generally prefer the DISCOUNTED CASH FLOW methods of capital budgeting; primarily, the INTERNAL RATE OF RETURN and the NET PRESENT VALUE methods.

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TARGET is the goal intended to be attained and which is believed to be attainable, e.g. sales target, margin target, or profit target.

POSITIVE CONFIRMATION is the positive form of a receivables confirmation asking the customer to respond whether the customer agrees or disagrees with the client's reported receivable balance. The negative form of accounts receivable confirmation asks the client's customer to respond only if the customer disagrees with the balance determined by the client. The negative form is used when controls over receivables are strong and accounts receivable consists of many accounts with small balances. The positive form is used when controls are weak or there are fewer, but larger, accounts.

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