Depreciation, compound decay, nominal against effective rates, and timelines with changing conditions.
Practise Finance, growth and decay in the app →
What gets asked
- Calculate straight-line and reducing-balance depreciation.
- Convert a nominal rate to an effective annual rate.
- Track an investment through a rate change or an extra deposit on a timeline.
- Decide which of two options is better, with reasons.
You must be able to
- Straight-line loses the same rand amount each year; reducing balance the same percentage.
- Divide a nominal rate by its compounding periods before compounding it back up.
- Move every amount on the timeline to ONE date before comparing or adding.
- Keep full calculator precision until the final rounding.
Traps that cost marks
- Growing a deposit made in year 3 for the full term. A cash flow only earns from the date it enters: count its periods from there.
- Comparing nominal rates with different compounding directly. Convert both to effective annual rates first - that is the common scale.
- Using for a car losing value. Decay uses : value shrinks by the rate each period.
Worked example
A machine worth R depreciates at p.a. on the reducing balance. Value after 2 years?
- .
- .
- .