GUARANTEES AND WARRANTIES

3 Months Ended

Jan. 31, 2012

We follow FASB guidance for accounting for contingencies relating to the guarantor’s accounting for, and disclosures of, the issuance of certain types of guarantees.

From time to time, our subsidiaries guarantee third party payment obligations in connection with the sale of machines to customers that use financing. As of January 31, 2012, we had 23 outstanding third party payment guarantees totaling approximately $1.3 million. The terms of these guarantees are consistent with the underlying customer financing terms. Upon shipment of a machine, the customer has the risk of ownership. The customer does not obtain title, however, until it has paid for the machine. A retention of title clause allows us to recover the machine if the customer defaults on the financing. We accrue for potential liabilities under these guarantees when we believe a loss is probable and can be estimated.

We provide warranties on our products with respect to defects in material and workmanship. The terms of these warranties are generally one year for machines and shorter periods for service parts. We recognize a reserve with respect to this obligation at the time of product sale, with subsequent warranty claims recorded against the reserve. The amount of the warranty reserve is determined based on historical trend experience and any known warranty issues that could cause future warranty costs to differ from historical experience. A reconciliation of the changes in our warranty reserve is as follows (in thousands):

	Three months ended
	January 31, 2012			January 31, 2011
Balance, beginning of period	$	1,725		$	1,591
Provision for warranties during the period		900			535
Charges to the reserve		(850	)		(485	)
Impact of foreign currency translation		(15	)		28
Balance, end of period	$	1,760		$	1,669

The increased provision in the three months ended January 31, 2012 compared to the three months ended January 31, 2011 reflects the increased volume of sales and anticipated claims related to machines under warranty and the sale of a greater number of our higher performance machines which have a higher cost per claim.