Question

What criteria do accountants use to decide whether to use present or future values in accounting statements?

Answer 1

Answer:

Present value is nothing but how much future sum of money worth today. It is one of the important concepts in finance and it is a basis for stock pricing, bond pricing, financial modeling, banking, and insurance, etc. Present value provides us with an estimated amount to be spent today to have an investment worth a certain amount of money at a specific point in the future. Present value is also called a discounted value. It is an indicator for investors that whatever money he will receive today can earn a return in the future. With the help of present value, method investors calculate the present value of a firm’s expected cash flow to decide if a stock is worth to invest today or not.

The formula for calculating PV is shown below

PV = CF/ (1+r)n

Here ‘CF’ is future cash flow, ‘r’ is a discounted rate of return and ‘n’ is the number of periods or year.

Example

Let’s say that you have been promised by someone that he will give you 10,000.00 Rs 5 year from today and interest rate is 8% so no we want to know what the present value of 10,000.00 Rs which you will receive in future so,

PV = 10,000/ (1+0.08)5

PV = 6805.83 (To the nearest Decimal)

So present-day value of Rs 10,000.00 is Rs 6805.83

Explanation: