(eCornell) Making Capital Investment Decisions

About This Course

The key to financial success for any business is choosing the right projects to pursue at the right time, for the right price and with the right financing structure. Your role as a manager includes participating in decisions about which projects make sense for the company and are likely to return a profit. To do so, there are six concepts you need to understand: net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, discounted payback period, profitability index, and equivalent annual cost. Non-financial managers need to be conversant in how each of these concepts work to be able to offer valuable insight and expertise. Working through the examples in this course using both a financial calculator and popular spreadsheet applications will help you practice applying the tools and strategies, and will set you up to make project decisions that lead to growth and profitability.

* Participants in this course need one of the two financial calculators below.

Hewlett-Packard 12C, or
Texas Instruments BA II Plus
Both calculators are available at most office supply stores and from a variety of online sources. There is also a Texas Instruments BA II Plus app for iPhone and iPad , which meets the calculator requirement for this course.