Are you indifferent between receiving $1,000 today and receiving $1,000 one year from today? If your intuition prefers receiving the funds today, rather than one year from today, then your intuition recognizes the time value of money. Owners of cash can permit borrowers to rent the use of their cash. Interest is payment for the use of cash.

Expenditures for an investment most often precede the receipts produced by that investment. Cash received later has less value than cash received sooner. The difference in timing affects whether making an investment will earn a profit. Amounts of cash received at different times have different values. We use interest calculations to make valid comparisons among amounts of cash paid or received at different times.

Concepts

Businesses typically state interest cost as a percentage of the amount borrowed per unit of time. Examples are 12 percent per year...