Learning Track · 4 Guides
Capital Budgeting
NPV, IRR, payback & profitability index.
Capital budgeting is where strategy becomes arithmetic: which projects deserve the firm’s scarce capital? The tools in this track — NPV, IRR, payback, and the profitability index — each answer the question from a different angle, and each has failure modes you must know before trusting it.
The guides here not only explain the mechanics with worked examples, they also show where the rules disagree, why NPV wins the argument, and how practitioners combine all four measures into a disciplined investment protocol.
Net Present Value (NPV)
The gold standard rule for investment decisions.
6 sections · 13 min read
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
The break-even discount rate — and its traps.
6 sections · 13 min read
Payback Period
How fast does the investment come back?.
6 sections · 11 min read
Profitability Index
Value created per dollar invested.
6 sections · 11 min read
Practice this track
Reading is half the work — compute the other half. Apply this track’s concepts directly in the NPV & IRR calculator and the NPV Profile simulator.