Investment Appraisal

Irrelevant Costs, Insurance (General Liability, Physical Damage, Workers Compensation, Health insurance), Security, Depreciation, Salaries Benefits, Bad Debt Expense, Permits, Rental Equipment, Payroll Taxes, Accounting Fees, Supplies, Computer Maintenance, Miscellaneous.

are costs that have already been incurred and cannot be changed by any decision made

* Projects that impact the company’s regulator compliance such as effluent treatment (environment) and warehouse automation (safety).

Another variable cost to consider is continuing education and training for employees. Like any business, it is important for those in the health and fitness field to stay on top of current trends in the industry. From time to time it may be beneficial and necessary for full-time employees to attend seminars or training sessions to expand their knowledge in the industry. This is a good example of a cost that would not be incurred on a regular basis, but should be budgeted for at least once a quarter. Two variable costs that organizations overlook are office supplies and fuel. In every organization employees use office supplies. In many organizations fuel is needed for

Inherently, in all businesses there is overhead costs or non-direct costs. If management wants to know the true cost

Drake, P. (n.d.). What is free cash flow and how do I calculate it? Florida Atlantic University, pp. 1-6. Retrieved from: http://educ.jmu.edu/~drakepp/general/FCF.pdf [Accessed: 6 Aug 2013].

The PAYBACK technique is based on cash flows and it measures the time which is required for a proposal’s initial cash outflow to equal its cash inflow generated by the investment, the solution is expressed in years and month or days.

All the costs by a company can be broken into two categories, fixed costs and variable costs. Costs that are independent of output are called fixed costs. Fixed costs remain constant throughout the relevant range and are usually considered sunk for the relevant range. Buildings and machinery are included inputs that cannot be adjusted in the short term. They are only fixed in relation to the quantity of production for a certain time period. The cost of all inputs is variable, in the long run.

Payback method (LO3) Assume a $50,000 investment and the following cash flows for two alternatives.

The salary of the supervisor of an assembly line with excess capacity is an example of an irrelevant future cost for an accept-or-reject decision.

According to an accounting textbook, cost is defined as a resource sacrificed or foregone to achieve a specific objective. It is something given up in exchange. It is necessary for project managers to understand project cost management since project costs money and consumes resources.

1. Large Amount of Company Resources: Involvement of large amount of company resources and efforts which will necessitate careful evaluation to be undertaken before a decision is reached.

According to the business dictionary, investment appraisal is the technique used to determine if an investment is going to be profitable or not. Investment decision is extremely vital because it is consistently concerned with the future survival, success and growth of the organisation. The primary objective of an organisation is maximization of shareholder wealth; investment must make not only to maintain shareholder’s wealth but also to increase it. To ensure the maximization objective, it is important that the management managing the organisation make best decision that are based on the best information available and use of the most appropriate appraisal techniques.

An investment also known as a security is a pledge of money from an individual, government, or cooperation that is expected to accrue additional wealth on top of its original dollar amount. An investment can be a long-term or short-term obligation depending on the investor’s goals and/or assets they choose to invest in. The investment decision process is a two-step process which is necessary to make a sound trustable and efficient investment. The first step involves an evaluation of the investment you as the investor are interested in committing money towards, including characteristics of the security (i.e. how it acts in the current market, how the current/future market may react to this investment and possible returns on your investment). Finally, the management of your investment portfolio, including how often it should be revised, how the performance of your securities should be measured (how often they should be measured), and other important aspects of your current investments. Investing revolves around one basic concept, improving our future, investors invest money today to improve their welfare in the future which is why understanding what an investment is and the process of decision making before investing is extremely important.

Project appraisal techniques are used to evaluate possible investment opportunities and to determine which of these opportunities will generate the best return to the firm’s shareholders. Therefore, it is vital for the firm if they wish to continue receiving funds from shareholders to employ the best techniques available when analysing which investment opportunities will give the best return. There are two types of project appraisal techniques: non-discounted cash flows and discounted cash flows. The Net Present Value and internal rate of return, examples of discounted cash flows, are in use in many large corporations and regarded as more effective than the traditional techniques of payback and accounting rate of return. In this paper, I