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spk09: Good afternoon, my name is Elliot and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Paycom's third quarter 2024 financial results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there'll be a question and answer session. If you'd like to register a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the number two. I'd now like to turn the call over to James Sanford, head of investor relations. You may begin.
spk08: Thank you. Welcome to Paycom's earnings conference call for the third quarter of 2024. Certain statements made on this call that are not historical facts, including those related to our future plans, objectives and expected performance, are forward looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act of 1995. These forward looking statements represent our outlook only as of the date of this conference call. While we believe any forward looking statements made on this call are reasonable, actual results may differ materially because the statements are based on our current expectations and subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on form 10 K. You should refer to and consider these factors when relying on such forward looking information. Any forward looking statement made speaks only as of the date on which it is made and we do not undertake and expressly disclaim any obligation to update or alter our forward looking statements, whether a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Also during today's call, we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income and certain adjusted expenses. We use these non-GAAP financial measures to review and assess our performance and for planning purposes. A reconciliation schedule showing GAAP versus non-GAAP results is included in the press release that we issued after the close of the market today and is available on our website at .paycom.com. I will now turn the call over to Chad Richardson, Paycom CEO and president. Chad.
spk11: Thanks, James, and thank you to everyone joining our call today. I'd like to discuss how Paycom's automation continues to transform our industry. Then I'll review some recent client wins and industry recognition before turning it over to Craig, who will review our financials and guidance before taking questions. We are investing in our highly differentiated automation platform that is delivering ROI for our clients. Twenty years ago, user buyers bought the Paycom system because they wanted to do more for themselves. And today, people buy Paycom because they wanted to do more for them without the need for -to-day involvement in the software. We already have the most automated system in the industry, and we are rapidly moving toward full solution automation, driving even more ROI for our clients. Our award-winning solution, GON, is just one example of how Paycom simplifies tasks through automation. GON was recently named a top HR product by HR executive magazine, and for good reason. GON is the industry's first fully automated time-off solution that decisions all time off requests. Before GON, nearly all time off decisions were unmanaged. A recent Forrester study found that GON can generate an ROI of up to 800 percent. By automating time off decisions, individual managers save nearly a week of unproductive hours annually. In addition, the study found that on average, companies using GON save nearly five weeks of unproductive time in the areas of HR, finance and accounting every year. Without GON, 10 percent of an organization's labor costs go substantially unmanaged, resulting in increased costs from overpayments, errors in scheduling, staffing shortages, and operational disruption. One example of a client utilizing GON is an auto dealership with nearly 500 employees spread across multiple locations. GON saved this client approximately 200 hours of unproductive time per week while ensuring a consistent time off request process and apology management across the organization. With GON, this client reports having reduced decision fatigue among managers and team leaders. Not only is GON automating mundane tasks, it is also having a positive impact on employees. Betty continues to be a differentiator, and clients using it are experiencing its benefits. We recently onboarded a 1,000 employee hospital organization with over 20 locations. Utilizing Betty, this bilingual workforce has already reduced their payroll processing by 85 percent. This organization also appreciates that their managers benefit greatly from Manager on the Go, which consolidated their managerial task into a single app, streamlining approvals, PAF management, applicant tracking, and more. This client currently boasts a 99.7 percent DDX score, reflecting the user-friendly power of Paycom software for the organization. Our development teams have been focused on automating tasks across the platform that are easily adopted by our client base. Because of this focus, both this quarter and throughout the year, we've launched more products and enhancements than any time in our company's history. There are several examples of automation we recently launched that are having a big impact on HR and recruiting departments. One such automation is our position management enhancement that automates reporting structure and hierarchy changes needed due to individual employee changes such as promotions and transfers, or large-scale organizational changes such as an acquisition or restructure. Another example of automation is how we enhanced our recruiting module. The advances in our recruiting product have dramatically increased the application completion rates and significantly reduced time to fill. What was already a very fast time to apply process has now been reduced by 50 percent. Internally, we developed and deployed an AI agent for our service team. This technology utilizes our own knowledge-based semantic search model and enables us to provide service to help our clients more quickly and consistently than ever before. The AI agent continually improves over time and is having an impact on helping our clients achieve even more value out of their relationship with Paycom. By utilizing our own AI agent, we were able to connect our clients to the right solution faster, improving our immediate response rates by 25 percent without any additional human interaction. As a result of our continued focus on solution automation, ROI achievement, world-class service, we also increased our net promoter score 24 points year over year. On the sales side, we are seeing continued momentum, particularly with our outside sales reps. System automation matters more to business than ever before, and our sales force is delivering on the market's needs, which is driving our goals. We still have less than five percent of the addressable market. We remain focused on executing strategies that will produce extremely high ROI and automation for our clients while continuing to differentiate our solution to automation. Finally, I'm pleased that Paycom was recognized as one of the best employers for tech workers by Forbes and one of the world's best companies overall by Time magazine. These testaments showcase our culture and the impact our technology is having on workforces all over the globe. We are executing on our 2024 plan, and I'm very pleased with the progress. Our success in 2024 will set the foundation for future growth. With that, let me turn it over to Craig. Craig,
spk10: thanks,
spk11: Chad.
spk10: Before I review our third quarter 2024 results in our outlook for the fourth quarter and full year 2024, I'd like to remind everyone that my comments related to certain financial measures will be on a non-GAAP basis. We delivered solid third quarter results with revenue and adjusted EBITDA coming in above expectations. Third quarter revenue of $452 million increased 11% over the comparable prior year period. Within total revenues, recurring revenue was $445 million for the third quarter of 2024, representing 98% of total revenues for the quarter and growing nearly 12% from the comparable prior year period. GAAP net income in the quarter was $73 million or $1.31 per diluted share based on approximately 56 million shares. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter was $93 million or $1.67 per diluted share. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $171 million or 38% margin was better than expected, primarily due to revenue upside and our continued focus on automation. We expanded our investments in the area of AI, automation, and international expansion, resulting in a 20% increase in adjusted R&D expense to $55 million in the third quarter of 2024. Adjusted total R&D costs, including the capitalized portion, were $84 million in the third quarter of 2024 compared to $69 million in the prior year period. Our tax rate in the third quarter came in higher than expected, largely due to one-time discrete items recorded in the quarter, primarily related to return to provision adjustments. For Q4 and the full year 2024, we anticipate our effective income tax rates to be approximately 28% and 24% respectively on a GAAP basis. We estimate Q4 and full year 2024 non-GAAP effective tax rate to be 27%. For the fourth quarter of 2024, we expect stock-based compensation expense to be approximately $27 million. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with a very strong balance sheet, including cash and cash equivalents of $326 million and no debt. The average daily balance of funds held on behalf of clients was approximately $2.3 billion in the third quarter of 2024, up approximately 10% year over year. During the third quarter, we repurchased approximately 300,000 shares for $44 million. Since July 1st of last year, we have repurchased approximately 2.3 million shares representing nearly 4% of total shares outstanding, and we have $1.49 billion remaining on our buyback authorization. During the third quarter of 2024, we paid approximately $21 million in cash dividends, and earlier this week, the board approved our next quarterly dividend of $0.375 per share payable in mid-December. Now, let me turn to guidance. Following solid Q3 results in our expectations for the fourth quarter, our revenue guidance range for fiscal 2024 increases to $1.866 million to $1.873 million, or approximately 10% year over year growth at the midpoint of the range. We're raising our expected adjusted EBITDA range to $745 million to $752 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 40% at the midpoint of the range. For the fourth quarter of 2024, we expect total revenues in the range of $477 million to $484 million, representing a growth rate over the comparable prior year period of approximately 11% at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter in the range of $184.5 million to $191.5 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 39% at the midpoint of the range. Overall, Q3 was a good quarter with better than expected revenue and significant adjusted EBITDA at its side. We have an attractive high margin recurring business model, a solid balance sheet with no debt, and strong cash flows. We will continue to focus on strengthening our competitive position through automation and delivering even more value to our clients through ROI achievement. With that, we will open the line for questions. Operator.
spk09: Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from the line of Ramo Lenchow with Barclays. Your line is open.
spk07: Perfect. Thank you. Congrats on a great solid quarter. Chet, if you think about like the reporting season so far for the payroll names, it does speak towards more of a stabilization or like a really stable market. And I think that everyone is still hoping for some sort of recovery. What are you seeing out there in terms of end demand, et cetera? How does the pipeline evolve? How are the sales conversation going at the moment? Do you have any kind of more color there, please? And then for Craig, any comments on float and how you think about float going into next year as well? Thank you.
spk11: Yeah. So, I mean, the demand is strong out there. I mean, we have an automated solution and more and more people are looking to automate. You know, we continue to get stronger. In fact, last month was our largest sales month, September, both for this year as well as over the history of our company. So we continue to get stronger in sales. And, you know, that's been important to us to continue to move the product into the market so that clients can experience the ROI that can be derived from the fully automated solution.
spk10: Yeah, I would say, Raman, on the float revenue, you know, for every 25 basis point cut, you know, it could impact us as much as $6 million on an annualized basis. And, you know, we've already seen two, you know, 50 basis point cut, maybe a couple more this year. So, you know, as we're looking into next year, you know, that's going to be something that's going to impact us. And then, you know, but we're starting to also look at layering in, you know, some more longer firm on that float balances.
spk07: Okay, thank you.
spk10: Thank
spk09: you. Your next question comes from the line of Samad Samana with Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk04: Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe first one, Chad, for you. Interesting to hear about using AI in the customer service organization. I'm curious if that's technology that Paycom has built or if you're using a third party and how you're thinking about that translating it to like the savings and the cost to serve side. And do you think that that can be something that can be monetized as a feature at some point as well? And then I have a follow up for Craig after.
spk11: Yeah, so that's internal, we built it ourselves. And we've been using it. And so, you know, it gets better and better, as we mentioned on the call, it sped up our process by 25%, as far as being able to connect clients to the solution quicker, whether that be a configuration question, a tax question or what have you. And so that's really been helpful to us. And it continues to do more and more from that perspective. And I'll let Craig answer.
spk04: Great. And then Craig, maybe just as a follow up, when I think about the acceleration, it was good to see that. Have we turned the corner on the CRR cross sell headwinds and any associated betty headwinds? And should we think about the fourth quarter guidance as a good starting point for 2025, now that we've started to see a re acceleration?
spk11: I mean, there's still benefits being gained by clients that utilize betty. I mean, even when you look at our tax resolutions this year versus last year, you know, they're down a third. So, you know, betty is still driving efficiencies amongst those clients. As far as CRRs, they continue to help clients achieve the full value of the software and they're continuing to do well. You know, but in order to sell a client an additional product, you really have to make sure that they're utilizing and having success with the products that they've currently purchased. And so, you know, we have a lot of CRRs that have got their clients in the right solution and we have a lot of them well over plan in their quotas now.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Mark Markon with Baird. Your line is open.
spk01: Hey, good evening and really nice to see the acceleration with regards to recurring revenue. Chad, you mentioned, you know, several things, but I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about, you know, the drivers behind that acceleration. To what extent is it, you know, increased, you know, module uptake for things like GON relative to, you know, some of the improvements that have been made with regards to kind of the sales go to market and training that you've implemented recently. And then I've got a follow up.
spk11: Sure. I mean, I would say that, you know, GON definitely helps sales because of its automation. GON isn't priced separately, so it's included in one of the modules that most all of our clients already have. So GON is just a way to automate that module fully. And then, you know, that also is helping sales. Like I kind of said on the call, I mean, 20 years ago, people bought our system so that they could do more with it. Today, people buy our system so that it can do more for them without their involvement. I mean, 20 years ago, I'd go to a fantasy football draft and do the draft and then set my line up. You know, maybe one week I'm playing two kickers on accident. You know, today, people can go and have that draft set it on auto draft and set it on auto line up. They're usually ones that win the season. And so that's really the concept of our system. You know, if you set it up right, it's going to automate everything for you. And, you know, Paycom has the best case scenario for usage in our industry, and it's getting more and more clients to that. And we have a lot of success with that, obviously, in our go to market with new clients.
spk01: Great. Any comment with regards to just kind of the sales process and the sales training?
spk11: Yeah, sales is doing really well. I mean, unit counts, as I mentioned last time, continue to be elevated, go to market, they continue to sell, you know, more than we have in the past. And as I mentioned, yesterday or earlier last month, September was our largest sales month we've had to date and ever.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Schwartz with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
spk13: Yeah, hi, thanks for taking my questions this afternoon. Chad, I had a follow up on the AI agent or the AI technology that you're developing. Do you see an opportunity in the future to productize what you're developing internally, maybe like in your in future versions of your recruiting product or other products in your platform?
spk11: You know, we, I mean, I would say this isn't the only area in which we're using AI, we have it in several products that we both have released and will be releasing. And so there's definitely opportunities to monetize AI. As far as this particular solution, it's really helping us on the back end and helping our client as well. So I think we're going to see, you know, results and benefits from that in other areas of efficiency across the board within our within our own organization.
spk13: Thank you. And then one question for Craig, just in terms of the EBITDA upside in the quarter, you know, it was a much bigger beat than we've seen in previous quarters. Just wanted to ask you about the expense profile. Did any expenses slip into Q4? Or is that just primarily from from the upside in the top line? Thanks.
spk10: Yeah, I mean, it was primarily from the upside and in the top line. I mean, there were a couple of things that kind of impacted the the deed. I mean, some of the marketing, maybe a little bit of timing, but other than that, just efficiencies throughout.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Joshua Riley with Needham. Your line is open.
spk03: All right. Thanks for taking my questions. You mentioned the press release, you know, moving towards a full solution automation. How should investors think about this period right now where you've kind of been aggressively making some changes to the platform behind the scenes? Is this something that you think is largely complete at the end of twenty four or sometime in twenty five? And are the implications that we should be thinking about from our end is that the EBITDA margins, you know, can potentially move up as we move past that kind of elevated period of investment?
spk11: Well, I mean, automations do drive efficiencies. I mean, there's no doubt about that across the board. You know, we're also very ambitious because we only have five percent of the market. And so there's certain areas we want to capture. I mean, I would just say about automation, you know, since our founding, you know, we focused on innovating for our clients and differentiating ourselves from our competitors by delivering that maximum ROI, which is good for everyone. And and so, you know, we've doubled down on innovation to include the full automation. And, you know, the software is used in our industry will look different in a couple of years. And, you know, we're the ones who are building it.
spk03: Got it. And then just following back up on that client utilization of modules that have already been sold, it seemed like the last couple of quarters you've been monitoring that pretty carefully yourself. Are you seeing any change in terms of, you know, making the effort with the cross-sell team to get the utilization higher or is it still kind of consistent with what it's been the last few quarters? Thank you guys.
spk13: Yeah,
spk11: it's continuing to go up in a good way. You know, sometimes utilization isn't always reflected in time spent in a system. Oftentimes, the best way to utilize our system is to set it up and leave it alone so that it can actually do the work for you. And, you know, we're having a lot more of that where people trust the system. I mean, you can make 20 decisions today and help us configure something in a way that it'll fully automate, you know, 4,000 decisions you would otherwise be making every day. And so, so much of what we bring to market is about doing now.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Steve Enders with Citi. Your line is open.
spk06: Okay, great. Thanks for the questions here. I just wanted to start, just want to look a little bit on the on the 4Q guide and the outlook here. I mean, I think kind of, I think it could be here, but it doesn't look like the full amount kind of rolled through to the year. So can you help us maybe think about what's maybe happening in Q4 that leading to a little bit of the change in the guide or some of the puts and takes that we should be thinking about for Q4?
spk10: Yeah, so as we look to Q4 and then in the full year, you know, we narrowed the range, we increased the bottom end and narrowed the range some. You know, Q4 is the one that is the hardest to predict based on, you know, the number of bonus runs that you have and another type of off-cycle runs, as well as, you know, we had a 50 basis point cut in the interest rates and potentially a couple of more as we're looking towards the end of the year. But, you know, that's really what I would say as it relates to the, as we were thinking the guidance for Q4 and full year.
spk06: Okay, and so is it, are the factors going into it? It's primarily changes on the flood assumption side that there isn't, I guess, other changes being accounted for in the outlook?
spk10: Not that I would really call out. I mean, more interest rate cuts on that.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Kevin McVeigh with UBS. Your line is open.
spk05: Great, thanks so much. I wonder, in terms of the EBITDA B, Ted, I think you talked about revenue and some automation. Is there any way to think about, like, how much was the revenue upside as opposed to automation? And, you know, as you think about that automation initiative, how much of that is kind of through the organization array and how much more is there to go, I guess, in terms of maybe not necessarily numbers, but, you know, percentages, whether it's on the front end or back end. Is there any way to frame that a little bit?
spk11: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of automation to go. You know, I mean, in the perfect world, the system would just work for you as you look at it. You wouldn't even have to log in. So, you know, I mean, I think there's a lot of automation to go. We're a company that eats our own cooking. So, of course, you know, automation is going to impact us and our back office as well to the positive. So, you know, but yeah, I mean, automation, it's fun. It's fun to do. It's fun to actually watch a client enact it and be able to trust the system and watch what it can do for them because that's really what it's about is the return on investment that they're achieving and being able to do something that they couldn't do anywhere else.
spk05: That's helpful. And then with the commentary on that September, the largest sales month ever, if you're any way to how much of that is kind of white space as opposed to competitive takeaway? And, you know, what's driving is that kind of just incremental betty adoption or just because obviously it's a really, really nice data point?
spk11: Yeah, so that's going to be our bookings. So that's going to be, you know, pretty much new business, new logo ads. That's going to be the overwhelming majority of it. Of course, all those will have Betty as well. But that's that's that number.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Jason Salino with KeyPank. Your line is open.
spk15: Hi, this is actually Devon on for Jason today. Thanks for taking all questions. I just want to double click on the outperformance in the quarter on the new logo strength in a quarter. Was it stronger back to base motion or did you see maybe perhaps better or better retention among employees within your customers? Just more color there would be helpful.
spk10: Maybe it's primarily going to be just new logo ads. I mean, that's the overwhelming majority of our new revenue is going to be new logo ads.
spk15: Got it. That's helpful. And then just one more for me. Just curious how the new cohort of sales rep, I believe you guys added 60 plus new sales rep last quarter. Just curious how those have been ramping versus expectations. Thank you.
spk11: Yeah, very well. I mean, we have a very strong sales model, a very strong go to market. I would say that our sales reps are very fired up about the product that they're selling and what can be delivered to our clients. And they've been doing very well as reflected by both the starts number and unit numbers that we gave both last quarter and giving some comment on bookings this quarter.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Arvind Ramnani with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.
spk14: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to see if you would comment on Betty adoption, particularly with the cohort of customers who were kind of slow to adopt. I mean, you definitely had some customers who were slow to adopt Betty. Have they, has that adoption increased between that cohort of folks who were slow to adopt?
spk11: Yeah, so, you know, we definitely are still meeting clients where they live to help them achieve value through the products that they utilize from us, whether they have Betty or not. But you do continue to have clients that see the value of Betty and continue to implement it as well. And of course, all new clients have been coming on with Betty now for about three years.
spk14: Yeah, terrific. And then can you provide a bit of an update on some of the progress in the international markets? And I know it's much smaller, but any details around that would be helpful.
spk11: Yeah, so we're in four countries right now, native of us having developed payroll. But our global HCM, you know, actually encompasses all countries, and we continue to build that product out as well. So we're doing well in that. And I know we, Craig had a comment.
spk10: Yeah, I mean, we recently added a manufacturing company with locations all over the world, and they had native payroll in, you know, US, Canada, and Mexico. So, you know, we're seeing more and more companies, you know, primarily US with a multinational operations adopt that.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Babin Shah with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
spk02: Great, thanks for taking my questions. Just first, I guess for Chad, going back to earlier comments, just back to the CR team. Where are they in terms of helping clients achieve full value for that software? Like, what percentage of base have you gone through and have optimized their spend with Paycom?
spk11: Yeah, I mean, I would say CRRs is, you know, that's one of the groups that is helping clients achieve full value. But, you know, if I'm a CRR and I have a quota, and it's my job to go out there and help clients, you know, make sure they have all the products necessary to reach full ROI, there's certain products I want to sell them. But in order to sell them those products, you know, I have to make sure they're utilizing the current products that they have. And so where CRR is going to be involved in that is during that process. But whether a CRR is out there or not, you know, working with an individual client, we at Paycom continue to do that. We do have service individuals that focus on helping clients make sure they're configured the right way to get full usage and value for the systems that they purchased.
spk02: Got it. Craig, just on gross margins, they compressed this quarter at similar levels to what we saw last quarter, even when I take into consideration higher depreciation costs. Can you just give us a sense, like, what else might be impacting gross margins? How much of it is kind of industry pricing dynamics or needing to hire more customer support reps or anything else? And when should that stabilize going forward?
spk10: Yeah, so the some of the pressure on the gross margin was the new building we brought online, really at the end of second quarter. So we had a full quarter of the cost of that new building. And so it's not just an appreciation, but some of the other allocations of, you know, some headcounts and corporate headcount and things like that. So some of that went into the gross margins. And then, you know, some of it's also headcount as well, just a client service headcount as well. As the margins get too high, you know, we may be a little understaffed. And so we're in a good place staffing wise on that group.
spk09: Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Jester with BMO. Your line is open.
spk12: Good afternoon. This is Kyle Ibarastrian for Dan Jester. Thank you for taking our questions. Can you talk about the capital spending trends and how you expect that will evolve next year? And then secondly, on segment performance, was there anything to call out in terms of up market or down market performance during the quarter? Thank you.
spk10: Yeah, I mean, I'll cover the capital spending trends. I mean, obviously, we're going to spend for growth first, you know, and so definitely going to invest there either in sales and marketing and then also on the R&D front, where, you know, that's one of the line items is continuing to grow some. You know, after that, you know, we're looking at the stock buybacks, we've done some stock buybacks this quarter that you guys have seen as well as dividends.
spk11: And from, you know, segment performance, up or down market, no change on that. We're seeing, you know, strengthen both.
spk10: Yeah, one thing I would say also on the capital spend, you know, we finished that big building this year, so we would expect, you know, maybe capex next year to trend down a little bit, probably below 10%.
spk09: This concludes the question and answer session of today's call. I'll now turn the call back over to Mr. Chad Richeson for closing remarks.
spk11: All right, I want to thank everyone for joining our call today, and I want to thank our employees for all their hard work and commitment to Paycom's success. We look forward to seeing investors at several conferences this quarter, including the UBS Conference in Phoenix in early December and the Barclays Conference in San Francisco in mid December. Thank you, operator. You may disconnect.
spk09: This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
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