Summary Of Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)

6 Months Ended

Jul. 02, 2017

Basis of Consolidation and Classification

Basis of Consolidation and Classification. The unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of General Dynamics Corporation and our wholly owned and majority-owned subsidiaries. We eliminate all inter-company balances and transactions in the unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements. Some prior-year amounts have been reclassified among financial statement accounts or disclosures to conform to the current-year presentation.

Consistent with industry practice, we classify assets and liabilities related to long-term contracts as current, even though some of these amounts may not be realized within one year.

Interim Financial Statements

Interim Financial Statements. The unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements have been prepared pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. These rules and regulations permit some of the information and footnote disclosures normally included in financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to be condensed or omitted.

Our fiscal quarters are 13 weeks in length. Because our fiscal year ends on December 31, the number of days in our first and fourth quarters varies slightly from year to year. Operating results for the three- and six-month periods ended July 2, 2017, are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending December 31, 2017.

The unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements contain all adjustments that are of a normal recurring nature necessary for a fair presentation of our results of operations and financial condition for the three- and six-month periods ended July 2, 2017, and July 3, 2016.

These unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements should be read in conjunction with the Consolidated Financial Statements and notes thereto included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016.

Accounting Standards Updates

Accounting Standards Updates. Since the first quarter of 2016, we have adopted the following accounting standards issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that have impacted our prior-period financial statements:


•	Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-09, Compensation - Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting


•	Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers


•	ASU 2015-17, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Balance Sheet Classification of Deferred Taxes

See Note Q for further discussion of each of these accounting standards.

We also adopted ASU 2016-16, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Intra-Entity Transfers of Assets Other Than Inventory, on January 1, 2017. We recognized the cumulative effect of this standard as a $3 decrease to retained earnings on the date of adoption. ASU 2016-16 requires recognition of the current and deferred income tax effects of an intra-entity asset transfer, other than inventory, when the transfer occurs, as opposed to former GAAP, which required companies to defer the income tax effects of intra-entity asset transfers until the asset was sold to an outside party. The income tax effects of intra-entity inventory transfers will continue to be deferred until the inventory is sold.

There are several new accounting standards that have been issued by the FASB but are not yet effective, including ASU 2017-07, Compensation - Retirement Benefits (Topic 715): Improving the Presentation of Net Periodic Pension Cost and Net Periodic Postretirement Benefit Cost. ASU 2017-07 requires the service cost component of net benefit cost to be reported separately from the other components of net benefit cost in the income statement. The ASU also allows only the service cost component of net benefit cost to be eligible for capitalization. We intend to adopt the standard on the effective date of January 1, 2018. We have not yet determined the effect of the ASU on our results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.

For a discussion of other accounting standards that have been issued by the FASB but are not yet effective, refer to the Accounting Standards Updates section in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016.

ASU 2016-09, Compensation - Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting. We adopted ASU 2016-09 in the second quarter of 2016. ASU 2016-09 impacted several aspects of our accounting for share-based payment transactions. The ASU requires that excess tax benefits and tax deficiencies (the difference between the deduction for tax purposes and the compensation cost recognized for financial reporting purposes) be recognized as income tax expense or benefit in the Consolidated Statement of Earnings. Previously, these amounts were recognized directly to shareholders’ equity. While this area of the ASU permits only prospective adoption, because we adopted the standard in the second quarter of 2016, we were required to subsequently restate the first-quarter 2016 financial statements to reflect the adoption as of the beginning of the year. Therefore, the Consolidated Statement of Earnings for the three-month period ended July 3, 2016, has been restated accordingly.

ASC Topic 606. We adopted ASC Topic 606 on January 1, 2017, using the retrospective method. The adoption of ASC Topic 606 had two primary impacts on our Consolidated Financial Statements. The impact of adjustments on profit recorded to date is now recognized in the period identified (cumulative catch-up method), rather than prospectively over the remaining contract term. For our contracts for the manufacture of business-jet aircraft, we now recognize revenue at a single point in time when control is transferred to the customer, generally when the customer accepts the fully outfitted aircraft. Prior to the adoption of ASC Topic 606, we recognized revenue for these contracts at two contractual milestones: when green aircraft were completed and accepted by the customer and when the customer accepted final delivery of the fully outfitted aircraft. The cumulative effect of the adoption was recognized as a decrease to retained earnings of $372 on January 1, 2015.

We applied the standard's practical expedient that permits the omission of prior-period information about our remaining performance obligations. No other practical expedients were applied.

ASU 2015-17, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Balance Sheet Classification of Deferred Taxes. We adopted ASU 2015-17 on January 1, 2017, using the retrospective method. ASU 2015-17 requires that deferred tax assets and liabilities be classified as noncurrent on the Consolidated Balance Sheet. The adoption of ASU 2015-17 resulted in reclassifications among accounts on the Consolidated Balance Sheet, but had no other impacts on our results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.

Revenue Recognition

The majority of our revenue is derived from long-term contracts and programs that can span several years. We account for revenue in accordance with ASC Topic 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, which we adopted on January 1, 2017, using the retrospective method. See Note Q for further discussion of the adoption, including the impact on our 2016 financial statements.

Performance Obligations. A performance obligation is a promise in a contract to transfer a distinct good or service to the customer, and is the unit of account in ASC Topic 606. A contract’s transaction price is allocated to each distinct performance obligation and recognized as revenue when, or as, the performance obligation is satisfied. The majority of our contracts have a single performance obligation as the promise to transfer the individual goods or services is not separately identifiable from other promises in the contracts and, therefore, not distinct. For contracts with multiple performance obligations, we allocate the contract’s transaction price to each performance obligation using our best estimate of the standalone selling price of each distinct good or service in the contract. The primary method used to estimate standalone selling price is the expected cost plus a margin approach, under which we forecast our expected costs of satisfying a performance obligation and then add an appropriate margin for that distinct good or service.

Our performance obligations are satisfied over time as work progresses or at a point in time. Revenue from products and services transferred to customers over time accounted for 71% and 70% of our revenue for the three- and six-month periods ended July 2, 2017, and 68% and 71% of our revenue for the three- and six-month periods ended July 3, 2016, respectively. Substantially all of our revenue in the defense groups is recognized over time. Typically, revenue is recognized over time using an input measure (e.g., costs incurred to date relative to total estimated costs at completion) to measure progress. Contract costs include labor, material, overhead and, when appropriate, G&A expenses.

Revenue from goods and services transferred to customers at a point in time accounted for 29% and 30% of our revenue for the three- and six-month periods ended July 2, 2017, and 32% and 29% of our revenue for the three- and six-month periods ended July 3, 2016, respectively. The majority of our revenue recognized at a point in time is for the manufacture of business-jet aircraft in our Aerospace group. Revenue on these contracts is recognized when the customer accepts the fully outfitted aircraft.

On July 2, 2017, we had $58.6 billion of remaining performance obligations, which we also refer to as total backlog. We expect to recognize approximately 55% of our remaining performance obligations as revenue by 2018, an additional 30% by 2020 and the balance thereafter.

Contract Estimates. Accounting for long-term contracts and programs involves the use of various techniques to estimate total contract revenue and costs. For long-term contracts, we estimate the profit on a contract as the difference between the total estimated revenue and expected costs to complete a contract and recognize that profit over the life of the contract.

Contract estimates are based on various assumptions to project the outcome of future events that often span several years. These assumptions include labor productivity and availability; the complexity of the work to be performed; the cost and availability of materials; the performance of subcontractors; and the availability and timing of funding from the customer.

The nature of our contracts gives rise to several types of variable consideration, including claims and award and incentive fees. We include in our contract estimates additional revenue for submitted contract modifications or claims against the customer when we believe we have an enforceable right to the modification or claim, the amount can be estimated reliably and its realization is probable. In evaluating these criteria, we consider the contractual/legal basis for the claim, the cause of any additional costs incurred, the reasonableness of those costs and the objective evidence available to support the claim. We include award or incentive fees in the estimated transaction price when there is a basis to reasonably estimate the amount of the fee. These estimates are based on historical award experience, anticipated performance and our best judgment at the time. Because of our certainty in estimating these amounts, they are included in the transaction price of our contracts and the associated remaining performance obligations.

As a significant change in one or more of these estimates could affect the profitability of our contracts, we review and update our contract-related estimates regularly. We recognize adjustments in estimated profit on contracts under the cumulative catch-up method. Under this method, the impact of the adjustment on profit recorded to date on a contract is recognized in the period the adjustment is identified. Revenue and profit in future periods of contract performance are recognized using the adjusted estimate. If at any time the estimate of contract profitability indicates an anticipated loss on the contract, we recognize the total loss in the quarter it is identified.