6. The payback period

The payback method helps firms establish and identify a maximum acceptable payback period that helps in their capital budgeting decisions.

Consider the case of Cute Camel Woodcraft Company:

Cute Camel Woodcraft Company is a small firm, and several of its managers are worried about how soon the firm will be able to recover its initial investment from Project Alphas expected future cash flows. To answer this question, Cute Camels CFO has asked that you compute the projects payback period using the following expected net cash flows and assuming that the cash flows are received evenly throughout each year.

Complete the following table and compute the projects conventional payback period. For full credit, complete the entire table. (Note: Round the conventional payback period to the nearest two decimal places. If your answer is negative use a minus sign.)

	Year 0	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Expected cash flow	-$4,500,000	$1,800,000	$3,825,000	$1,575,000
Cumulative cash flow
Conventional payback period:	years

The conventional payback period ignores the time value of money, and this concerns Cute Camels CFO. He has now asked you to compute Alphas discounted payback period, assuming the company has a 8% cost of capital. Complete the following table and perform any necessary calculations. Round the discounted cash flow values to the nearest whole dollar, and the discounted payback period to the nearest two decimal places. For full credit, complete the entire table. (Note: If your answer is negative use a minus sign.)

	Year 0	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Cash flow	-$4,500,000	$1,800,000	$3,825,000	$1,575,000
Discounted cash flow
Cumulative discounted cash flow
Discounted payback period:	years

Which version of a projects payback period should the CFO use when evaluating Project Alpha, given its theoretical superiority?

The regular payback period

The discounted payback period

One theoretical disadvantage of both payback methodscompared to the net present value methodis that they fail to consider the value of the cash flows beyond the point in time equal to the payback period.

How much value does the discounted payback period method fail to recognize due to this theoretical deficiency?

$1,696,274

$1,250,286

$4,529,607

$2,916,953