Payback period is defined as the expected number of years required to recover the original
investment. If all factors being held constant, project with shorter payback period is considering
as better project because investor can recover the capital invested in a shorter period of time
(Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2005). Besides, shorter payback period means greater project’s liquidity.
Since cash flows expected in the distant future are generally riskier than near-term cash flows,
the payback is often used as an indicator of a project’s riskiness.
However, there are some limitations by using payback period to measure the project’s
effectiveness in an investment. The first limitation of payback period is it ignores any benefits
that occur after the payback period and does not measure profitability. Payback period stresses
on capital recovery rather than profitability. It does not take into account of the returns from
the project after its payback period (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2005). For instance, project A may
have a payback period of 10 years whereas project B may have payback period of five years.
According to payback period method, project B have shorter period and will be selected.
However, it is quite possible that after seven years, project A gives return of 50% for another
five years whereas project B stop giving returns after five years. Therefore, the payback period
have its limitation when comparing two projects, one involving a long gestation period and the
other yielding quick results but only for a short period.
Besides, payback period does not give any consideration to the time value of money. Cash flows
occurring at all point of time are simply added and treated as equal value. It is contravention of
the basic principle of financial analysis which promise compounding or discounting of cash
flows when they arise at different points of time (Investopedia). Nevertheless, this research will
still apply payback period method due to the ease of use and widely application despite
recognized limitations.