Quote History Quoted:
starting balance x 1+ rate of return ^ (years)
Say $5000 x 1.07^15 years = $13,795.16
View Quote
This^^^
investment/balance times Rate of return (in decimal) plus 1 (so 7% ROR means 1.07) raised to the number of periods you want it to compound. This is only accurate if it's compounded annually though.
Lets say you have something bearing 7% return but it's actually compounded weekly. You need to take the rate of return per the compounding time-period (a week) and raise it to the number of weeks. You divide 7% by 52 to get a weekly rate of 0.13461538%. The equation to solve that would look like: $5,000 X 1.0013461538^(52 X 15) = $14,278.17
I know it's not much of a difference but over long time periods the compounding period makes a difference.