How do we calculate the payback period for a proposed capital budgeting project? What are the major criticisms of the payback method?
We compute the payback period for a proposed project through adding a project’s positive cash flows, one period at a time, till the sum equals the basic investment. The figure of time periods it takes to cover this investment is the payback period.The major criticisms of the payback method are that cash flows later than the payback period are ignored and the time value of money is not considered.