An efficient allocation of capital is the most important finance function in the modern items. It involves decisions to commit the firms funds to the long term assets. Capital budgeting or investment decisions are of considerable importance to the firm since they tend to determine its value by influencing its growth, profitability and risk.
The investment decisions of a firm are generally known as the capital budgeting, or capital expenditure decisions. A capital budgeting decision may be define as the firms decisions to invest its current funds most efficiently in the long term assets in anticipation of an expected flow of benefits over a series of years.
The long term assets are those that affect the firms operations beyond the one year period. The firms investment decisions would generally include expansion, acquisition, modernization and replacement of the long term asset. Sale of division or business is also as an investment decision. Decisions like the change in the methods of sales distribution, or an advertisement campaign or a research and development programmed have long term implications for the firms expenditures and benefits, and therefore, they should also be evaluated as investment decisions.
It is important to note that investment in the long term assets invariably requires large funds to be tied up in the current assets such as inventories and receivables. As such, investment in fixed and current assets is one single activity.