Capital Budgeting: An Important Factor in a Company's Survival and Future

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Capital Budgeting
Deciding if it is time to buy a new car can certainly be influenced by the amount of money that will be tied up for the next several years. For the average person, it could be a very precarious decision, especially with the volatility of the economy. There are many factors to consider when making major purchases such as time, money, resale value, and overall necessity. Whether it is a personal budget or a budget for a multi-million dollar company, trying to predict what will happen in the future will always have it’s risks. However, it is an important aspect of a company’s survival and the overall success in the future.
As stated in Corporate Finance by Ehrhardt and Brigham, capital implies long-term assets that are utilized in production and a budget is a plan that outlines anticipated expenditures during a coming period (p 381). So, when the two words are combined to imply one definition, the term capital budget is a synopsis of planned investments of assets that will remain for more than a year. Additionally, capital budgeting is the process as a whole of analyzing projects and determining which ones to acknowledge and then incorporate in the capital budget (Ehrhardt & Brigham, 2011, p. 381).
The capital budgeting practice includes forecasting and identifying cash flows, performing scenario and sensitivity analysis, and applying capital budgeting tools (Kwok & Rabe, 2010). This process is essentially where the financial potential for a possible investment or multiple investments is evaluated. In the chance that there are several potential opportunities for investment, each investment must be analyzed and compared against the other possibilities in order to figure out which opportunity has the pote...

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Works Cited

Ehrhardt, M., & Brigham, E. (2011). The Cost of Capital. Corporate Finance (p. 342-343). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Keshav, A. (2009). Need And Importance Of Capital Budgeting. . Retrieved May 13, 2014, from http://accountlearning.blogspot.com/2011/07/need-and-importance-of-capital.html
Kwok, J. S., & Rabe, E. C. (2010). Conflict between doing well and doing good? Capital budgeting case study - Coors. Journal of Business Case Studies, 6(6), 123-130. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.davenport.edu/docview/818384065?accountid=40195
Paden, R. (2014). Components of a Capital Budget. Houston Chronicle.

Sullivan, Arthur, & Sheffrin, Steven (2005). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 375.
The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade. (2009, May 14). TIME.

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