The simple form of the calculation is the initial investment divided by the annual cash surplus the service produces. Investment means everything paid out before the first appointment, so the device, the fitting out of the room, the training, the initial stock of consumables and the setup fees. Annual surplus means what the service leaves after the costs it causes. That is the contribution per appointment multiplied by the appointments in a year, less the additional fixed costs that come with the service. That second figure is the same one built up under Break-even einer Zusatzleistung.
Both a bank and an owner ask this before anything else, for different reasons. The owner is asking how long the pharmacy is exposed, because until the payback point the money is gone and the service is a bet. The bank is asking whether the surplus comes in fast enough and reliably enough to cover the instalments on whatever it lends, which is the question behind Kapitaldienstfähigkeit. The two questions overlap, but they are not identical, because a payback period comfortably inside the useful life of the equipment can still be a poor match for a repayment schedule that starts immediately.
The weakness of the calculation is the input nobody has, because uptake is unknowable before the service runs while every other number is either known or estimable. A single figure therefore invites false confidence, so the honest output is a range. It is built from a cautious uptake assumption, a middle one and an optimistic one, with the cautious case treated as the decision case. A range also shows how steeply the answer changes with volume, which is usually the most useful thing the exercise produces.
Two structural choices change the arithmetic without changing the conclusion:
- Paying for the equipment monthly instead of buying it outright reduces the investment in the numerator and lowers the surplus in the denominator, which is the trade set out under Leasing oder Kauf von Laborgeräten.
- Payback is measured in cash instead of profit, so it belongs next to a Liquiditätsplanung and is read against the monthly picture in the BWA instead of a year end result.
This glossary entry is general information about German pharmacy law and practice. It is not legal advice. For binding guidance on your own pharmacy, contact your Landesapothekerkammer.
