The major weakness of payback is that the appropriate payback period cannot be specified in light of the wealth maximization goal because it is not based upon discounting cash flows to determine whether they add to the firm’s value. Instead, the appropriate payback period is merely a subjectively determined maximum acceptable period of time over which a project’s cash flows must break even (i.e., just equal the initial investment). A second weakness is that this approach fails to take fully into account the time factor in the failure to recognize cash flows that occur after the payback period. This weakness can be illustrated by an example.