Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
14K characters. Original on sec.gov ·
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
Attached as exhibits to this Form 10-K are certifications of the Chief Executive Officer (as the principal executive officer) and Chief Financial Officer (as the principal financial and accounting officer), which are required in accordance with Rule 13a-14 of the Exchange Act. This “Controls and Procedures” section includes information concerning the controls and controls evaluation referred to in the certifications. This section should be read in conjunction with the certifications and the Grant Thornton LLP attestation report for a more complete understanding of the topics presented. Grant Thornton LLP has independently assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and its report is included below.
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer are responsible for the evaluation of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) under the Exchange Act) as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to ensure that information we are required to disclose in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is (i) recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules and forms and (ii) accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on that evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Principal Financial and Accounting Officer have concluded that because a material weakness exists in our internal control over financial reporting, as further described below, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of December 31, 2017 at a level that provides reasonable assurance as of the last day of the period covered by this report.
Management Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting
Management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act). Management has assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2017 based on criteria set forth in Internal Control - Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework). As a result of this assessment, management concluded that, as of December 31, 2017, our internal control over financial reporting was not effective in providing reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
During the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, we identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. A material weakness is defined as a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
We previously identified and disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, as well as in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for each interim period in fiscal 2017, material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. Specifically, during the quarter ended March 31, 2017, we identified a material weakness over accounting for income taxes. During the year ended December 31, 2016, we identified material weaknesses in our internal controls over revenue recognition, cost of goods sold and services delivered and the reporting of deferred revenue. Further, we identified material weaknesses in our account reconciliations and monitoring processes. These material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting resulted from a breakdown in the operation of identified preventative and detective controls which led to the Company not initially recording some transactions correctly.
To remediate the material weaknesses described above, we designed and implemented controls and enhanced and revised the design of existing controls and procedures. Specifically:
| • | we added resources to our revenue, tax and general accounting teams to ensure that we have the knowledge and resources to properly account for transactions in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”), |
| • | we implemented additional internal reporting procedures, including those designed to add depth to our detailed review processes of sales transactions and related accounting for deferred revenue and cost of product and service sales, |
| • | we implemented additional monitoring controls that help detect data entry errors of transactional information within the Company’s general ledger system, as well as added and refined existing system reports to help isolate outliers within the Company’s transactional data for further review, and |
| • | we improved communication and coordination among our finance and accounting departments and we expanded cross-functional involvement and input into period-end accruals. |
We successfully completed the testing of these remedial controls related to the previously reported material weaknesses and concluded that they are designed and operating effectively to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of our financial reporting and preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
During the fourth quarter of 2017, we identified a material weakness related to account reconciliations and monitoring over our U.K. subsidiary, Axon Public Safety U.K. Ltd. ("APS U.K"), which resulted from a breakdown in the operation of identified preventative and detective controls which led to the Company not initially recording some transactions correctly during 2016 and the interim periods in 2017.
To remediate the material weakness described above and related to APS U.K., we designed a specific plan to design new controls, and enhanced the design of existing controls and procedures. Specifically:
| • | during the 2017 year-end close of our accounting records we sent accounting personnel from our headquarters in Arizona to the U.K. to perform additional review procedures of the account reconciliations for APS U.K. and our corporate accounting team performed additional reviews of APS U.K. activity, |
| • | we plan for our corporate accounting team to continue to perform these additional review procedures on an ongoing basis, and |
| • | we plan to add internal reporting procedures, including those designed to add depth to our detailed review processes of inventory, sales transactions and related accounting for deferred revenue and cost of goods sold and services delivered for APS U.K. |
The material weakness specific to APS U.K. will not be considered remediated until the applicable remedial controls operate for a sufficient period of time and management has concluded, through testing, that these controls are operating effectively. As remediation has not yet been completed, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of December 31, 2017 at a level that provides reasonable assurance as of the last day of the period covered by this report.
Grant Thornton LLP has independently assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and its report is included below.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
Except as noted above, there was no change in our internal control over financial reporting during the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2017, that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
Board of Directors and Stockholders
Axon Enterprise, Inc.
Opinion on internal control over financial reporting
We have audited the internal control over financial reporting of Axon Enterprise, Inc. (a Delaware corporation) and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2017, based on criteria established in the 2013 Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”). In our opinion, because of the effect of the material weakness described in the following paragraphs on the achievement of the objectives of the control criteria, the Company has not maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2017, based on criteria established in the 2013 Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by COSO.
A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of control deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. The following material weakness has been identified and included in management’s assessment.
Management identified deficiencies in the Company’s internal controls related to account reconciliations and monitoring controls over its wholly-owned subsidiary, Axon Public Safety U.K. Ltd. (“APS-UK”). The combination of these deficiencies, when aggregated, resulted in a material weakness in the design and operating effectiveness of the Company’s controls.
We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”), the consolidated financial statements of the Company as of and for the year ended December 31, 2017. The material weakness identified above was considered in determining the nature, timing, and extent of audit tests applied in our audit of the 2017 consolidated financial statements, and this report does not affect our report dated March 1, 2018 which expressed an unqualified opinion on those financial statements.
Basis for opinion
The Company’s management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in the accompanying Management Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting (“Management’s Report”). Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audit. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects. Our audit included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.
Definition and limitations of internal control over financial reporting
A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.
Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.
Other information
We do not express an opinion or any other form of assurance on management’s description of the steps the Company has taken to remediate any of the material weaknesses as described in Management’s Report.
/s/ GRANT THORNTON LLP
Phoenix, Arizona
March 1, 2018
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