Apple 2012 Annual Report Download - page 78

Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure
None.
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Based on an evaluation under the supervision and with the participation of the Company’s management, the
Company’s principal executive officer and principal financial officer have concluded that the Company’s
disclosure controls and procedures as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act were
effective as of September 29, 2012 to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by
the Company in reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is (i) recorded, processed, summarized
and reported within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission rules and forms and
(ii) accumulated and communicated to the Company’s management, including its principal executive officer and
principal financial officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Inherent Limitations Over Internal Controls
The Company’s internal control over financial reporting is designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding
the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in
accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”). The Company’s internal control over
financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that:
(i) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the
transactions and dispositions of the Company’s assets;
(ii) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of
financial statements in accordance with GAAP, and that the Company’s receipts and expenditures are
being made only in accordance with authorizations of the Company’s management and directors; and
(iii) 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.
Management, including the Company’s Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, does not expect that
the Company’s internal controls will prevent or detect all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how
well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the
control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource
constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent
limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of internal controls can provide absolute assurance that all
control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected. Also, any evaluation of the effectiveness of
controls in future periods are subject to the risk that those internal controls may become inadequate because of
changes in business conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.
Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
The Company’s 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 conducted an assessment
of the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria set forth in
Internal Control – Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway
Commission. Based on the Company’s assessment, management has concluded that its internal control over
financial reporting was effective as of September 29, 2012 to provide reasonable assurance regarding the
reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with GAAP. The
Company’s independent registered public accounting firm, Ernst & Young LLP, has issued an audit report on the
Company’s internal control over financial reporting, which appears in Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K.
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