The payback period is the smallest positive value of θ.To make this transition from negative to positive stand out, we format column G so that negative values are blue and positive values are black. To further enhance the visibility of the result,column H uses an IF function to display a blank if the cumulative cash flows are less than or equal to zero, or the period number if the cumulative cash flows are positive. As this is the final answer, the range is shaded in a different color to make it more prominent. Cell H5 contains a formula to label the type of analysis, simple or discounted, to emphasize the measure of merit used.