Recent Accounting Pronouncements (Policies)

6 Months Ended

Mar. 29, 2020

Accounting Changes and Error Corrections [Abstract]

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

In August 2017, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued accounting guidance on hedging activities. The amendment better aligns an entity’s risk management activities and financial reporting for hedging relationships through changes to both the designation and measurement guidance for qualifying hedging relationships and the presentation of hedge results. The guidance is effective for fiscal years and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2018 (first quarter of fiscal 2020 for us). The adoption of this guidance had no impact on our consolidated financial statements.

        In February 2018, the FASB issued guidance on reclassification of certain tax effects from accumulated comprehensive income, which allows for a reclassification of stranded tax effects from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ("TCJA") from accumulated other comprehensive income to retained earnings. The guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018 (first quarter of fiscal 2020 for us). The adoption of this guidance had no material impact on our consolidated financial statements.

        In June 2016, the FASB issued updated guidance which requires entities to estimate all expected credit losses for certain types of financial instruments, including trade receivables, held at the reporting date based on historical experience, current conditions, and reasonable and supportable forecasts. The updated guidance also expands the disclosure requirements to enable users of financial statements to understand the entity’s assumptions, models and methods for estimating expected credit losses. Subsequently, the FASB issued guidance clarifying and amending certain aspects of the credit losses standard in November 2019 and February 2020. The guidance is effective for fiscal years and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2019 (first quarter of fiscal 2021 for us). Early adoption is permitted. We are currently evaluating the impact that this guidance will have on our consolidated financial statements.

        In August 2018, the FASB issued updated guidance modifying certain fair value measurement disclosures. The updated guidance contains additional disclosures to enable users of the financial statements to better understand the entity’s assumption used to develop significant unobservable inputs for Level 3 fair value measurements, but also eliminates the requirement for entities to disclose the amount of and reasons for transfers between Level 1 and Level 2 investments within the fair value hierarchy. This guidance is effective for fiscal years and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2019 (first quarter of fiscal 2021 for us). Early adoption is permitted. We do not expect the adoption of this guidance to have a significant impact on our consolidated financial statements.

        In December 2019, the FASB issued guidance simplifying the accounting for income taxes by removing certain exceptions to general principles in Topic 740 and amending certain existing guidance for clarity. This guidance is effective for fiscal years and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2020 (first quarter of fiscal 2022 for us). Early adoption is permitted. We do not expect the adoption of this guidance to have an impact on our consolidated financial statements.

In March 2020, the FASB issued guidance for the global transition away from referencing LIBOR, which provides temporary optional guidance in the form of optional expedients to ease the potential burden in accounting for reference rate reform. The amendments in this update apply only to contracts, hedging relationships, and other transactions that reference LIBOR or another reference rate expected to be discontinued because of reference rate reform for hedging relationships existing as of December 31, 2022. The guidance is effective as of March 12, 2020 through December 31, 2022. As of March 29, 2020, this guidance had no impact on our consolidated financial statements. We are currently evaluating the impact this guidance will have on our consolidated financial statements for future periods.

Contract Assets and Contract Liabilities

Our RUPOs represent a measure of the total dollar value of work to be performed on contracts awarded and in progress. We had $3.0 billion of RUPOs as of March 29, 2020. RUPOs increase with awards from new contracts or additions on existing contracts and decrease as work is performed and revenue is recognized on existing contracts. RUPOs may also decrease when projects are canceled or modified in scope. We include a contract within our RUPOs when the contract is awarded and an agreement on contract terms has been reached. Although RUPOs reflect business that is considered to be firm, cancellations, deferrals or scope adjustments may occur. RUPOs are adjusted to reflect any known project cancellations, revisions to project scope and cost, foreign currency exchange fluctuations and project deferrals, as appropriate. Our operations and maintenance contracts can generally be terminated by the clients without a substantive financial penalty. Therefore, the remaining performance obligations on such contracts are limited to the notice period required for the termination (usually 30, 60, or 90 days).