Revenue and Accounts Receivable

12 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2022

Revenue from Contract with Customer [Abstract]

Revenue and Accounts Receivable

Revenue and Accounts Receivable

The following tables disaggregates our revenue from contracts with customers by customer type and segment and provides a reconciliation to total operating revenues, including intersegment revenues, for the periods presented.

	Year Ended September 30, 2022
	Distribution		Pipeline and Storage
	(In thousands)
Gas sales revenues:
Residential	$	2,472,461	$	—
Commercial	1,120,322		—
Industrial	224,427		—
Public authority and other	66,691		—
Total gas sales revenues	3,883,901		—
Transportation revenues	113,043		707,205
Miscellaneous revenues	10,282		13,679
Revenues from contracts with customers	4,007,226		720,884
Alternative revenue program revenues (1)	26,041		(27,224)
Other revenues	1,927		—
Total operating revenues	$	4,035,194	$	693,660

	Year Ended September 30, 2021
	Distribution		Pipeline and Storage
Gas sales revenues:
Residential	$	2,129,704	$	—
Commercial	841,145		—
Industrial	113,091		—
Public authority and other	50,565		—
Total gas sales revenues	3,134,505		—
Transportation revenues	107,822		646,416
Miscellaneous revenues	10,971		14,141
Revenues from contracts with customers	3,253,298		660,557
Alternative revenue program revenues (1)	(13,303)		(23,210)
Other revenues	1,978		—
Total operating revenues	$	3,241,973	$	637,347

	Year Ended September 30, 2020
	Distribution		Pipeline and Storage
Gas sales revenues:
Residential	$	1,704,444	$	—
Commercial	650,396		—
Industrial	89,467		—
Public authority and other	41,339		—
Total gas sales revenues	2,485,646		—
Transportation revenues	99,435		636,819
Miscellaneous revenues	19,085		9,754
Revenues from contracts with customers	2,604,166		646,573
Alternative revenue program revenues (1)	20,856		(37,234)
Other revenues	1,971		—
Total operating revenues	$	2,626,993	$	609,339

(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 revenue benchmark.

Accounts receivable and allowance for uncollectible accounts

Rollforwards of our allowance for uncollectible accounts for the years ended September 30, 2022, 2021 and 2020 are presented in the table below.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in March 2020, regulators issued collection moratoriums, which required us to temporarily suspend our customer collection activities and charging late fees. After regulators lifted these moratoriums, we resumed customer collection activities during the third quarter of fiscal 2021. These regulatory orders influenced our bad debt expense and writeoffs from fiscal 2020 through 2022.

We actively work with our customers experiencing financial hardship to offer flexible payment options and to direct them to aid agencies for financial assistance. Our allowance for uncollectible accounts reflects the expected impact on our customers’ ability to pay. Our allowance for uncollectible accounts also reflects the fact that we have the ability to recovery the gas cost portion of uncollectible accounts through our gas cost recovery mechanisms in five states, which covers approximately 81 percent of our residential and commercial customers.

	Allowance for uncollectible accounts
	(In thousands)
Balance, September 30, 2019	$	15,899
Current period provisions	24,796
Write-offs charged against allowance	(12,698)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	1,952
Balance, September 30, 2020	29,949
Current period provisions	43,807
Write-offs charged against allowance	(11,019)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	1,734
Balance, September 30, 2021	64,471
Current period provisions	16,576
Write-offs charged against allowance	(32,885)
Recoveries of amounts previously written off	1,831
Balance, September 30, 2022	$	49,993