ModeldrillPayback period
A financial modeling exercise from Modeldrill. Solve it with a live spreadsheet grid in your browser, with Fill right and Fill down, and it is checked the moment you submit.
The task
Fill the cumulative cash flow in row 6 (a running total from year 0), then the payback period in B8: the full years before the cumulative total turns positive plus the fraction of the next year needed to recover the rest.
What this exercise teaches
Payback ignores the time value of money and anything after the payback year, but it answers the question owners ask first: how long until we get our money back?
A hint if you get stuck
A running total anchors the start of the range: SUM($B$5:B5). For the payback, count the negative cumulative years with COUNTIF, then use INDEX to fetch the last negative total and the next year's cash flow.
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