Q. Define Return on capital employed?

Return on capital employed (ROCE) is as well called accounting rate of return. Distinctly IRR ROCE uses average annual accounting profit before interest and tax in the evaluation of investment projects expressing this as a percentage of the amount of capital invested. The verdict as to whether a project is acceptable is made by comparing project ROCE with a target ROCE such like a company's current ROCE.

The problem with utilizing accounting profit rather than cash flow is that only cash flow is linked directly to an increase in company value. ROCE as well ignores the time value of money. For the reason that it averages accounting profit over the life of the project the amount of profit in a given year is irrelevant ROCE consequently ignores the timing of accounting profits.

ROCE as well suffers from definition problems as there are several definitions in common use and so care must be taken to ensure comparisons are made using identical definitions. Capital invested is able to be defined as initial capital invested or average capital invested but other definitions are met in practice.