NOTE 1. BASIS OF PRESENTATION AND SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

BASIS OF PRESENTATION

The accompanying consolidated financial statements represent the consolidation of General Electric Company (the Company) and all companies that we directly or indirectly control, either through majority ownership or otherwise. See Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 that discusses our consolidation and financial statement presentation. As used in this report on Form 10-Q (Report), “GE” represents the adding together of all affiliated companies except GE Capital (GE Capital or Financial Services), whose continuing operations are presented on a one-line basis; GE Capital consists of GE Capital Global Holdings, LLC (GECGH) and all of its affiliates; and “Consolidated” represents the adding together of GE and GE Capital with the effects of transactions between the two eliminated.

We have reclassified certain prior-period amounts to conform to the current-period presentation. Certain columns and rows may not add due to the use of rounded numbers. Percentages presented are calculated from the underlying numbers in millions. Unless otherwise indicated, information in these notes to the consolidated financial statements relates to continuing operations.

INTERIM PERIOD PRESENTATION

The consolidated financial statements and notes thereto are unaudited. These statements include all adjustments (consisting of normal recurring accruals) that we considered necessary to present a fair statement of our results of operations, financial position and cash flows. The results reported in these consolidated financial statements should not be regarded as necessarily indicative of results that may be expected for the entire year. It is suggested that these consolidated financial statements be read in conjunction with the financial statements and notes thereto included in our consolidated financial statements of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017.

SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Please refer to Note 1, Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies, to the consolidated financial statements of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 for the discussion of our significant accounting policies as well as the additional revenue accounting policy information provided in Note 9, reflective of our adoption of ASC 606.

ACCOUNTING CHANGES

On January 1, 2018, we adopted Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, and the related amendments (ASC 606), which supersedes most previous U.S. GAAP revenue guidance. We elected to adopt the new standard on a retrospective basis to ensure a consistent basis of presentation within our consolidated financial statements for all periods reported. In addition, we elected the practical expedient for contract modifications, which essentially means that the terms of the contract that existed at the beginning of the earliest period presented can be assumed to have been in place since the inception of the contract (i.e., not practical to separately evaluate the effects of all prior contract modifications).

ASC 606 requires companies to identify contractual performance obligations and determine whether revenue should be recognized at a point in time or over time based on when control of goods and services transfers to a customer. As a result of the adoption of the standard, we recorded significant changes in the timing of revenue recognition and in the classification between revenues and costs. The financial statement effect of the adoption was a decrease to our previously reported retained earnings as of January 1, 2016 of $4,240 million and a decrease to our previously reported revenues and earnings (loss) from continuing operations of $2,224 million and $2,668 million, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2017 and $220 million and $1,182 million, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2016. The effect on our statement of financial position was principally comprised of changes to our contract assets, inventories, deferred taxes, deferred income and progress collections balances resulting in an $8,317 million decrease to previously reported total assets as of December 31, 2017.

As discussed in prior filings, some of the impacts of adopting the ASC 606 are:

Long-Term Service Agreements - For our long-term service agreements, we will continue to recognize revenue over time using percentage of completion based on costs incurred relative to total expected costs. We will also continue to record cumulative effect adjustments resulting from changes to our estimated contract billings or costs (excluding those resulting from contract modifications as discussed below). Our accounting will be impacted by various changes in the new revenue standard including (1) accounting for contract modifications and their related impacts and (2) changes in the accounting scope and term of our contracts.


•	Modifications - Under the new revenue standard, contract modifications will generally be accounted for as if we entered into a new contract, resulting in prospective recognition of changes to our estimates of contract billings and costs. That is, cumulative effect adjustments will generally no longer be recognized in the period that modifications occur.

There was limited guidance for accounting for contract modifications under prior U.S. GAAP. As a result, our previous method of accounting for contract modifications was developed with the objective of accounting for the nature of the contract modifications. Generally, contract modifications were accounted for as cumulative effect adjustments, which reflected an update to the contract margin for the impact of the modification (i.e., changes to estimates of future contract billings and costs); however, modifications that substantially changed the economics of the arrangement were effectively accounted for as a new contract.

•

Scope and term - The new revenue standard provides more prescriptive guidance on identifying the elements of long-term service type contracts that should be accounted for as separate performance obligations. Application of this guidance, which focuses on understanding the nature of the arrangement, including our customers' discretion in purchasing decisions, has resulted in changes to the scope of elements included in our accounting model for long-term service agreements. For example, significant equipment upgrades offered as part of our long-term service agreements will generally be accounted for as separate performance obligations under the new revenue standard.

Also, the term of our contracts is now defined as the shorter of the stated term or the term not subject to customer termination without substantive penalty. Over this contract term, we estimate our revenues and related costs, including estimates of fixed and variable payments related to asset utilization and related costs to fulfill our performance obligations. Historically, our accounting for long-term contracts did not reflect an expectation that a contract would be terminated prior to the stated term, particularly when the probability of termination was considered remote. Under prior U.S. GAAP, while termination rights were considered, more emphasis was placed on expected outcomes (i.e., use of best estimates). For example, we used historical experience with similar types of contracts as well as other evidence (e.g., customer intent, economic compulsion and future plans for operating the asset) to determine the contract term for application of our accounting model.

These changes to our long-term service agreement accounting have significantly impacted all of our industrial businesses except for Renewable Energy, Healthcare, and Lighting and were some of the drivers in the reduction of the related contract asset balance of $8,255 million as of December 31, 2017. While these contract asset balances have been reduced due to the accounting changes, the economics and cash impact of these contracts remain unchanged.

Aviation Commercial Engines - For Aviation Commercial engines our previous method applied contract-specific estimated margin rates, which included the effect of estimated cost improvements over time, to costs incurred to determine the amount of revenue that should be recognized. The new revenue standard will result in a significant change from our previous long-term contract accounting model. While we will continue to recognize revenue at delivery, each engine is now accounted for as a separate performance obligation, reflecting the contractually stated price and manufacturing cost of each engine. The most significant effect of this change is on our new engine launches, where the cost of earlier production units is higher than the cost of later production units driven by expected cost improvements over the life of the engine program, which will generally result in lower earnings or increased losses on our early program engine deliveries to our customers. The effect of this change reduced the related contract asset balance of $1,755 million as of December 31, 2017.

All Other Large Equipment - For the remainder of our equipment businesses, the new revenue standard’s emphasis on transfer of control rather than risks and rewards has resulted in an accelerated timing of revenue recognition versus our previous accounting for certain products. While this change impacts all our businesses, our Renewable Energy business was most significantly impacted on a year over year basis with certain of their products recognized at an earlier point in time compared to historical standards. Our policy under ASC 605 was to defer recognition until all risk had transferred to the customer, which was generally upon product installation or customer acceptance. For these equipment contracts, the customer has control of the equipment in advance of the related installation or acceptance event based on our evaluation of the indicators provided in ASC 606. Consistent with our industry peers, certain of our businesses’ products have transitioned either to a point in time or over time recognition based on the nature of the arrangement. This change in timing of revenue had an effect on inventory, contract assets and progress collections to reflect the transfer of control at an earlier point in time.

Refer to our Form 8-K filed on April 13, 2018 for supplemental information on the effect of the adoption of ASC 606 to our financial statements.

On January 1, 2018, we adopted ASU No. 2017-07, Compensation-Retirement Benefits (Topic 715): Improving the Presentation of Net Periodic Pension Cost and Net Periodic Postretirement Benefit Cost. The ASU requires the service cost component of the net periodic costs for pension and postretirement plans to be presented in the same line item in the statement of earnings as other employee-related compensation costs. The non-service related costs are now required to be presented separately from the service cost component. This change to the income statement has been reflected on a retrospective basis and had no effect on continuing or net income. The new standard also added guidance requiring entities to exclude these non-service related costs from capitalization in inventory or other internally-developed assets on a prospective basis, which is not expected to have a significant effect.

On January 1, 2018 we adopted ASU No. 2016-18, Statement of Cash Flows: Restricted Cash. The ASU requires the changes in the total of cash and restricted cash to be presented in the statement of cash flows. In addition, when cash and restricted cash are presented on separate lines on the balance sheet, an entity is required to reconcile the totals in the statement of cash flows to the related line items in the balance sheet. While not a direct effect of the adoption of the standard, to simplify the reconciliation of the statement of cash flows to the cash balances presented in our statement of financial position, we have elected to present cash and restricted cash as a single line on the balance sheet, which resulted in an increase of $668 million and $654 million to our previously reported December 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016 cash balances, respectively. The change to our cash balances and cash flows has been reflected on a retrospective basis for all periods presented.

On January 1, 2018, we adopted ASU No. 2016-16, Accounting for Income Taxes: Intra-Entity Asset Transfers of Assets Other than Inventory. The ASU eliminates the deferral of the tax effects of intra-entity asset transfers other than inventory and was required to be adopted on a modified retrospective basis. As a result, the tax expense from the intercompany sale of assets, other than inventory, and associated changes to deferred taxes will be recognized when the sale occurs even though the pre-tax effects of the transaction have not been recognized as they are eliminated in consolidation. This change to our income tax provision has been reflected as a $464 million cumulative catch up adjustment to increase retained earnings as of January 1, 2018 and is not reflected in periods prior to this date.

On January 1, 2018, we adopted ASU No. 2016-15, Statement of Cash Flows: Classification of Certain Cash Receipts and Cash Payments. The ASU is required to be reflected on a retrospective basis and provides guidance on the classification of certain cash receipts and cash payments, including requiring cash payments for debt prepayment or debt extinguishment costs be classified as financing activities and payments from a beneficial interest in securitization transactions be classified as investing activities. As part of the adoption, we will reclassify $553 million of cash receipts from our beneficial interest in securitized trade receivables within our consolidated statement of cash flows from cash inflows from operating activities to cash inflows from investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2017 (no effect to periods prior to 2017). The adoption of the ASU did not have a significant effect on our GE Industrial cash flows.

On January 1, 2018 we adopted ASU 2016-01, Financial Instruments - Overall (Subtopic 825-10): Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities. The ASU provides guidance related to the recognition and measurement of financial assets and financial liabilities with changes primarily affecting equity investments and disclosure of financial instruments. Under the new guidance, equity investments with readily determinable fair value, except those accounted for under the equity method of accounting, will be measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in earnings. The adoption had an insignificant impact to retained earnings and other comprehensive income.

Effective January 1, 2018, we voluntarily changed the cost method of the GE U.S. inventories that were previously measured on a last-in, first-out (LIFO) basis to first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis. We believe the FIFO method is a preferable measure for our inventories as it is expected to better reflect the current value of inventory reported in the consolidated statement of financial position, improve the matching of costs of goods sold with related revenue, and provide for greater consistency and uniformity across our operations with respect to the method of inventory valuation. While this change will also require us to make a conforming change for U.S. income tax purposes, all existing GE businesses previously using LIFO are expected to be in a deflationary cost environment due to the manufacturing life cycle of the products and continuous reduction in the manufacturing costs due to better efficiencies, which would significantly decrease the tax benefit that LIFO would otherwise provide. Prior to the change and as reported in our 2017 10-K, LIFO was used for approximately 32% of GE inventories as of December 31, 2017.

As required by U.S. GAAP, we have reflected this change in accounting principle on a retrospective basis resulting in changes to the

historical periods presented. The retrospective application of the change resulted in a decrease to our January 1, 2016 retained

earnings of $105 million and a decrease to our net loss from continuing operations by $13 million, $28 million and $124 million for the three months ended June 30, 2017, six months ended June 30, 2017 and the year ended December 31, 2017, respectively, and a decrease to our net earnings from continuing operations by $147 million for the year ended December 31, 2016. This change did not affect our previously reported cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities.