Revenue and Accounts Receivable

3 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2021

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Revenue and Accounts Receivable

Revenue and Accounts Receivable

Revenue

Our revenue recognition policy is fully described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2021. The following tables disaggregate our revenue from contracts with customers by customer type and segment and provide a reconciliation to total operating revenues, including intersegment revenues, for the three months ended December 31, 2021 and 2020.

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2021				Three Months Ended December 31, 2020
	Distribution		Pipeline and Storage		Distribution		Pipeline and Storage
	(In thousands)
Gas sales revenues:
Residential	$	575,841	$	—	$	591,834	$	—
Commercial	250,761		—		208,947		—
Industrial	48,681		—		24,708		—
Public authority and other	15,192		—		13,062		—
Total gas sales revenues	890,475		—		838,551		—
Transportation revenues	27,869		163,859		27,767		164,761
Miscellaneous revenues	2,599		6,543		2,396		5,148
Revenues from contracts with customers	920,943		170,402		868,714		169,909
Alternative revenue program revenues (1)	50,986		(7,484)		7,441		(10,196)
Other revenues	493		—		495		—
Total operating revenues	$	972,422	$	162,918	$	876,650	$	159,713

(1)    In our distribution segment, we have weather-normalization adjustment mechanisms that serve to mitigate the effects of weather on our revenue. Additionally, APT has a regulatory mechanism that requires that we share with its tariffed customers 75% of the difference between the total non-tariffed revenues earned during a test period and a regulatorily determined revenue benchmark.

Accounts receivable and allowance for uncollectible accounts

Accounts receivable arise from natural gas sales to residential, commercial, industrial, public authority and other customers. Our accounts receivable balance includes unbilled amounts which represent a customer’s consumption of gas from the date of the last cycle billing through the last day of the month. The receivable balances are short term and generally do not extend beyond one month. To minimize credit risk, we assess the credit worthiness of new customers, require deposits where necessary, assess late fees, pursue collection activities and disconnect service for nonpayment. After disconnection, accounts are written off when deemed uncollectible.

Our policy related to the accounting for our allowance for uncollectible accounts is fully described in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2021. During the three months ended December 31, 2021, there were no material changes to this policy. Rollforwards of our allowance for uncollectible accounts for the three months ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 are presented in the table below. The allowance excludes the gas cost portion of customers’ bills for approximately 79 percent of our customers as we have the ability to collect these gas costs through our gas cost recovery mechanisms in most of our jurisdictions.

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2021
	(In thousands)
Beginning balance, September 30, 2021	$	64,471
Current period provisions	6,370
Write-offs charged against allowance	(6,429)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	522
Ending balance, December 31, 2021	$	64,934

	Three Months Ended December 31, 2020
	(In thousands)
Beginning balance, September 30, 2020	$	29,949
Current period provisions	6,937
Write-offs charged against allowance	(2,288)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	491
Ending balance, December 31, 2020	$	35,089