American Software, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's American Software fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your touchtone phone. Please note this call may be recorded, and I will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to CFO of American Software, Vincent Clingus. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chloe. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to American Software's fourth quarter fiscal 2020 earnings conference call. On the call with me is Alan Dow, President and CEO of American Software. Alan will provide some opening remarks, and then I will review the numbers. But first, I'd like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements. including statements regarding, among other things, our business strategy and growth strategy. Any such forward-looking statements speak only as of this date. These forward-looking statements are based largely on our expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified and are beyond our control. Future developments and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying the forward-looking statements. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by statements made on this call. Such factors include but are not limited to changes and uncertainty in general economic conditions, the growth rate of the market for our products and services, the timely availability and market acceptance of these products and services, the effect of competitive products and pricing and other competitive pressures, and the irregular and unpredictable pattern of revenues In light of these risks and uncertainties, there could be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Alan for our opening remarks.

Thank you, Vince. This spring has been an experience for all time. Personally and on behalf of the company, I want to express our gratitude to all the frontline workers and first responders who have worked so hard to keep us all safe and healthy in these extraordinary times. As an organization, we embrace and support diversity and equal rights for all of our teammates around our ecosystem and within our communities, because it makes us better. And it is simply the right thing to do. As we all know, this view is not universally held across the country and around the globe. And to that end, we respect the right for civil protests to raise the awareness of the social injustices that still exist today. As community members, we invest time, personal monetary contributions, and matching corporate funds to help those who have basic living needs and to enhance the opportunities for all to excel. In regards to our fourth quarter and fiscal year results, I am extraordinarily pleased with how our team has pivoted multiple times during the last few months. The most dramatic shift was the transformation to operating virtually, which we did in early March. Within 24 hours, we went from the old normal to 100% virtual. In anticipation of that event, our team members were prepared, and I can report that we were extraordinarily successful. We remained open and fully operational, supporting the needs of our customers as they navigated the global crisis and managed their supply chains under very dynamic conditions. Customers have shared many stories about the value they gained from using our solutions and working with our team members that span a wide array of challenges, from explosive growth for protective gear, disinfectants, and home-based food products, to managing the staggered closing and then reopening of the bricks and mortar retail. The bottom line is that in the weeks following the transition, we gained efficiency in every area of our business. Our implementation projects accelerated, our support operations engaged more with customers, and our sales team learned how to market, sell, contract, and transition a project implementation all in the virtual environment. We're using our expertise to enable prospects and customers to work more effectively in this 100% virtual world. Especially considering all that was happening our fourth quarter was a solid end to a very successful year on many fronts. We clearly have transitioned the business to the software as a service engagement model as evidenced by the 64% year-over-year increase in subscription revenue and 53% growth in annual contract value for cloud services over the prior year period. We're gaining momentum and building a solid recurring revenue stream of maintenance and cloud services which now represents approximately 57% of total revenues. We expect that percentage of recurring revenue to continue trending higher in the future based on the strong preference for subscription contracts, with that rate approaching 60% by the end of this fiscal year. As I stated earlier, we accelerated our professional services activities which is reflected in the 16% growth in professional services revenue on a year-over-year basis. We have a solid backlog for our supply chain services organization due to our strong bookings performance over the past few quarters and are expanding the number of resources in some of the areas where we see continuing demand to ensure that the specific skill sets will be available where we see demand increasing. Based on the seasonal nature of the services work, In the backlog of project activities, we expect to show growth in the first quarter services revenue on a year-over-year comparison basis. We had a strong start to the fourth quarter, but the middle was a bit muddled as the realities of the pandemic took hold. While that momentum we had entering the quarter began to reemerge as we exited the quarter, our net new ATD growth was affected by a few delays in deal closures as well as the loss of one of our lifestyle products companies that was in financial distress. Vince will detail some of that during the update on the financial results. We welcome six new customers in the fourth quarter, which brings us to a total of 40 new customers for fiscal 20, and completed subscription or license fee transactions in five countries during the fourth quarter. The momentum in late April carried into the current quarter with a number of contracts completed in May and then early June, which is typically a seasonally slow period for us. We continue to see pipelines grow and are ahead of where we were this time last year. So, we remain confident in our ability to achieve ATV growth in the new fiscal year. There's still some uncertainty regarding close rates over the summer months, however, we anticipate an upward trend in the second half of the fiscal year. What we've seen already is that managing the supply chain has risen to the executive agenda. There's an awareness that current systems and processes are insufficient for today's market where resiliency, speed, and agility go hand in hand and have become the norm. This speaks well to our comprehensive planning platform, prescriptive implementation approach, and having robust capabilities built in. These conditions bode well for our growth in fiscal 21 and beyond. Looking forward, we're continuing to see an uptick in transformational projects which leverage our digital supply chain solutions and take advantage of the optimization depth, advanced analytics, machine learning, and optimized simulation capabilities of our platform to dramatically improve the speed and quality of decision-making for our customers. In today's dynamic economic environment, customers are looking for supply chain agility to help them navigate the global trade uncertainty while simultaneously seeking to accelerate the introduction of new products. This new approach allows them to orchestrate these processes to mitigate risk and enhance resiliency. Our ability to put our customers on a journey to transform their supply chain to continuous and autonomous planning where that journey begins with tangible results within six months, gives us the competitive advantage in today's market. In summary, we're pleased by our progress as we strive for continued success to deliver exceptional value for our customers in this new digital world. We will continue to focus on making customers more successful as we look to expand our relationships and introduce new innovative services. We're confident that we can continue to grow both revenue and profitability in the years ahead and are proud to be delivering incremental benefits for our customers in a time when they need it most. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Vince, who will provide the details on our financial results. Thanks, Alan.