Q4 2026 Paychex Inc Earnings Call
Speaker #1: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Paycheck's Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings call. Participating on the call today are John Gifson and Bob Schrader. Following these speakers' prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period.
Speaker #1: If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press * then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press *2 on your telephone keypad.
Speaker #1: As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, and your participation implies consent to our recording of this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Bob Schrader, Paycheck's Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker #1: Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker #2: Thank you for joining us to discuss Paycheck's Q4 and Q4 fiscal 2026 results. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our investor relations website.
Speaker #1: Thank you for your continued patience. Your meeting will begin shortly. If you need assistance at any time, please press star zero, and a member of our team will be happy to help you.
Speaker #2: We plan to file our Form 10-K with the SEC before the end of July. This call is being webcast live and will be available for replay on our investor relations portal.
Speaker #2: Today's call includes forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from our current expectations.
Speaker #2: We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures, a description of these items, along with the reconciliation of non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release.
Speaker #2: I would now like to turn the call over to John Gifson, Paycheck's President and CEO.
Speaker #3: Thanks, Bob. I'll begin with our operational highlights for the quarter and the full year, and then Bob will discuss our financial performance and outlook before we open the calls for your questions.
Speaker #3: We finished the year with strong momentum. Delivering double-digit revenue and earnings growth in the Q4 and the full year, while also accelerating organic revenue growth in each quarter.
Speaker #3: Our team executed well against our strategic priorities. Expanding upmarket, strengthening our advisory differentiation, and advancing our AI capabilities to drive better client outcomes. Our mission is simple: help businesses succeed.
Speaker #3: Today, customers are managing more work and complexity than ever before, and want more than just the tool. They want a trusted partner, that can help them manage cost, attract and retain talent, and navigate a dynamic regulatory landscape.
Speaker #3: That trust is reflected in our strong client retention across our payroll clients, who rely on Paycheck for support and advice across a growing number of solutions.
Speaker #3: Our differentiated advisory and benefits solutions, including ASO, PO, and retirement, continue to resonate in the market and drive robust revenue growth. While other providers offer fragmented tools, or limited support models, we believe we stand apart by combining technology with trusted human expertise to help customers solve their most important workforce challenges.
Speaker #3: That differentiation is driving hiring engagement in our HR outsourcing. In ASO, engagements increased more than 60% this year alone. Reflecting growing demand for support, navigating, and increasingly complex HR landscape, we believe our investments in go-to-market and technology strengthened our value proposition and contributed to record worksite employee retention in ASO and PO this year.
Speaker #2: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Paychex's fourth quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. Participating on the call today are John Gibson and Bob Schrader. Following these speakers' prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period.
Speaker #2: If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then 2 on your telephone keypad.
Speaker #3: PO, in particular, remains a key growth driver. PO worksite employee growth continued to outpace the industry, with high single-digit growth in the quarter and full year.
Speaker #2: As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, and your participation implies consent to our recording of this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Bob Schrader, Paychex's Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker #3: The comprehensive solution helps businesses manage regulatory complexity and offer competitive benefits often with little or no in-house HR staff. We continue to see a long, secular runway for growth in this business.
Speaker #2: Please go ahead, sir.
Speaker #3: Thank you for joining us to discuss Paychex's fourth quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our investor relations website.
Speaker #3: We plan to file our Form 10-K with the SEC before the end of July. This call is being webcast live and will be available for replay on our investor relations portal.
Speaker #3: Building on our advisory strength, we launched WISE, also known as our Workforce Intelligence Strengthened by Expertise, which is our AI-powered intelligence engine. WISE extends our capability into agentic AI and is powering approximately 600 AI features and agents.
Speaker #3: Today's call includes forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from our current expectations.
Speaker #3: Embedded into the workflow, WISE moves beyond insights and assistance to autonomous execution. Helping scale our expertise enhance productivity and deliver better client outcomes, all with human-in-the-loop oversight, available on-demand support, and strong governance.
Speaker #3: We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures, a description of these items, along with the reconciliation of non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release.
Speaker #3: I would now like to turn the call over to John Gibson, Paychex President and CEO.
Speaker #4: Thanks, Bob. I'll begin with our operational highlights for the quarter and the full year, and then Bob will discuss our financial performance and outlook before we open the call for your questions.
Speaker #3: We believe differentiated access to large data sets will set will be a key driver of AI leadership, and that Paycheck is exceptionally well-positioned. For more than 50 years, we have been at the center of HR, payroll, and benefits.
Speaker #4: We finished the year with strong momentum. Delivering double-digit revenue and earnings growth in the fourth quarter and the full year, while also accelerating organic revenue growth in each quarter.
Speaker #3: Giving us access to a vast, proprietary, and growing amount of data. WISE now draws on more than 26 trillion data points. Helping make our solutions smarter, more relevant, and more proactive.
Speaker #4: Our team executed well against our strategic priorities. Expanding upmarket, strengthening our advisory differentiation, and advancing our AI capabilities to drive better client outcomes. Our mission is simple: help businesses succeed.
Speaker #3: What makes this unique is our patent-pending AI knowledge mesh technology, which helps unlock insights from unstructured data, including emails, calls, and other client interactions.
Speaker #4: Today, customers are managing more work and complexity than ever before, and want more than just the tool. They want a trusted partner that can help them manage costs, attract and retain talent, and navigate a dynamic regulatory landscape.
Speaker #3: And turns it into actionable intelligence. We believe that our unique technology, large data set, and deep HR and compliance expertise make our AI-enabled HR solutions truly unique in the market.
Speaker #4: That trust is reflected in our strong client retention across our payroll clients, who rely on Paychex for support and advice across a growing number of solutions.
Speaker #3: We're already seeing the benefits in practice. With meaningful reductions in administrative work, we can now automatically create and update client employee handbooks as regulations or business needs change in real time.
Speaker #4: Our differentiated advisory and benefits solutions, including ASO, PEO, and retirement, continue to resonate in the market and drive robust revenue growth. While other providers offer fragmented tools or limited support models, we believe we stand apart by combining technology with trusted human expertise to help customers solve their most important workforce challenges.
Speaker #3: Our workforce management solutions intelligently generate schedules and minutes instead of hours, and reduce timesheet approvals by more than 50%. Reflecting on our commitment to flexible service models, clients can submit payroll by phone or email through a service experience powered by WISE, in addition, our agentic payroll solutions have continued to scale, significantly reducing wait times, while maintaining the accuracy our clients expect.
Speaker #4: That differentiation is driving higher engagement in our HR outsourcing. In ASO, engagement has increased more than 60% this year alone. Reflecting growing demand for support navigating an increasingly complex HR landscape, we believe our investments in go-to-market and technology have strengthened our value proposition and contributed to record worksite employee retention in ASO and PEO this year.
Speaker #3: Over time, we see WISE as a meaningful driver of long-term value creation through direct monetization opportunities as well as indirect benefits, including stronger upsell, higher revenue per client, improved retention, and greater pricing power.
Speaker #4: PO, in particular, remains a key growth driver. PO worksite employee growth continued to outpace the industry, with high single-digit growth in the quarter and full year.
Speaker #3: As AI automates more routine tasks, we believe differentiation will increasingly come from compliance expertise, advisory capabilities, proprietary data, and trusted execution. Areas where we believe Paycheck is structurally advantaged.
Speaker #4: The comprehensive solution helps businesses manage regulatory complexity and offer competitive benefits, often with little or no in-house HR staff. We continue to see a long, secular runway for growth in this business.
Speaker #3: Those strengths, combined with continued investment in our innovation roadmap, will position us well for the long-term AI leadership in our category. Turning to our enterprise business, we continue to perform well up-market among clients with more than 100 employees.
Speaker #4: Building on our advisory strength, we launched WISE, also known as our Workforce Intelligence Strengthened by Expertise, which is our AI-powered intelligence engine. WISE extends our capability into a generative AI and is powering approximately 600 AI features and agents.
Speaker #3: We exceeded our fiscal year 26 synergy targets associated with the Pay Corps acquisition, contributing more than 50 basis points to revenue growth and generating over $100 million in cost synergies.
Speaker #4: Embedded into the workflow, WISE moves beyond insights and assistance to autonomous execution—helping scale our expertise, enhance productivity, and deliver better client outcomes, all with human-in-the-loop oversight, available on-demand support, and strong governance.
Speaker #3: We continue to make progress cross-selling advisory offerings such as ASO, retirement, and PO into the Pay Corps base, and are winning larger deals than originally anticipated.
Speaker #3: We also saw continued traction in the broker channel, including two new national partnerships this quarter alone reinforcing our position as a preferred choice for HCM referrals.
Speaker #4: We believe differentiated access to large data sets will be a key driver of AI leadership, and that Paychex is exceptionally well-positioned. For more than 50 years, we have been at the center of HR, payroll, and benefits.
Speaker #3: During fiscal year 26, we completed the organizational and sales territory realignments associated with moving the Pay Corps under 100 employee businesses into our SMB segment and integrating the Paycheck's 100-plus businesses into our enterprise segment.
Speaker #4: Giving us access to a vast, proprietary, and growing amount of data. WISE now draws on more than 26 trillion data points. Helping make our solutions smarter, more relevant, and more proactive.
Speaker #3: We enter fiscal year 27 with curly-aligned teams, brands, and platforms focused on the specific needs of each market segment. All of this is powered by our scaled, modernized, and modular infrastructure including our new modern tax engine, which we expect to further enhance through integration with our WISE intelligent engine.
Speaker #4: What makes this unique is our patent-pending AI knowledge mesh technology, which helps unlock insights from unstructured data, including emails, calls, and other client interactions.
Speaker #4: And turns it into actionable intelligence. We believe that our unique technology, large data set, and deep HR and compliance expertise make our AI-enabled HR solutions truly unique in the market.
Speaker #3: Beyond shifting up-market, two emerging growth areas for us are expanding employee-based revenue streams and growing beyond our payroll base. We introduced perks, our digital benefits marketplace, less than two years ago.
Speaker #4: We're already seeing the benefits in practice. With meaningful reductions in administrative work, we can now automatically create and update client employee handbooks as regulations or business needs change in real time.
Speaker #3: And today, more than 400,000 unique employees have already purchased affordable, transferable benefits through the marketplace. We are now expanding access to perks to employees on the Pay Corps platform, increasing our addressable market by more than 2.5 million employees.
Speaker #4: Our workforce management solutions intelligently generate schedules in minutes instead of hours, and reduce timesheet approvals by more than 50%. Reflecting on our commitment to flexible service models, clients can submit payroll by phone or email through a service experience powered by WISE. In addition, our agentic payroll solutions have continued to scale differently, reducing wait times while maintaining the accuracy our clients expect.
Speaker #3: More broadly, we now see meaningful opportunities to grow beyond our traditional payroll base. Historically, many of our solutions could only be sold in connections with a client being on our payroll platforms.
Speaker #3: With the modernization of our underlying infrastructure now complete we are developing more payroll agnostic and standalone AI-enabled solutions, which we believe will significantly expand our addressable market to help more businesses succeed.
Speaker #4: Over time, we see WISE as a meaningful driver of long-term value creation through direct monetization opportunities, as well as indirect benefits, including stronger upsell, higher revenue per client, improved retention, and greater pricing power.
Speaker #3: Our momentum this year is also being recognized externally. Timed and Paycheck's one of America's top WorkTech companies, and Newsweek recognized us as one of America's most trustworthy companies and greatest workplaces.
Speaker #4: As AI automates more routine tasks, we believe differentiation will increasingly come from compliance expertise, advisory capabilities, proprietary data, and trusted execution—areas where we believe Paychex is structurally advantaged.
Speaker #3: This underscores the strength of our brand, culture, and the trust we have built with clients and employees. Taken together, this progress reflects strong execution against our strategic priorities.
Speaker #4: Those strengths, combined with continued investment in our innovation roadmap, will position us well for long-term AI leadership in our category. Turning to our enterprise business, we continue to perform well up-market among clients with more than 100 employees.
Speaker #3: From integrating the largest acquisition in our history, to modernizing our infrastructure, and rolling out WISE across our HCM platforms and operations, we believe we enter fiscal year 27 well positioned for continued growth and long-term leadership in the AI era of HCM.
Speaker #4: We exceeded our fiscal year 2026 synergy targets associated with the Paycor acquisition, contributing more than 50 basis points to revenue growth and generating over $100 million in cost synergies.
Speaker #3: I will now turn the call over to Bob to discuss our financial performance and outlook. Bob?
Speaker #4: Good. Thank you, John. I'll begin with our fourth quarter and full year financial results, and then I'll share our outlook for fiscal 27. For the fourth quarter, total revenue increased 12% over the prior year to 1.6 billion.
Speaker #4: We continue to make progress cross-selling advisory offerings, such as ASO, retirement, and PO, into the Paychex base, and are winning larger deals than originally anticipated.
Speaker #4: Reflecting the mid-quarter anniversary of the Pay Corps acquisition, as John noted, we accelerated organic revenue growth in each quarter this fiscal year. Management solutions revenue grew 14% to 1.2 billion, driven by product penetration, price realization, and approximately 8 percentage points of growth from Pay Corps.
Speaker #4: We also saw continued traction in the broker channel, including two new national partnerships this quarter alone, reinforcing our position as a preferred choice for HCM referrals.
Speaker #4: During fiscal year 2026, we completed the organizational and sales territory realignments associated with moving the Paychex under-100-employee businesses into our SMB segment, and integrating the Paychex 100+ businesses into our Enterprise segment.
Speaker #4: PO and insurance solutions revenue increased 9% to 370 million, driven primarily by strong growth in PO worksite employees as well as an increase in PO insurance revenues.
Speaker #4: Interest on funds held for clients grew 15% to 52 million, total expenses for the quarter were relatively flat as higher compensation amortization and continued investments in our strategic priorities were offset by lower acquisition-related costs.
Speaker #4: We enter fiscal year ’27 with clearly-aligned teams, brands, and platforms focused on the specific needs of each market segment. All of this is powered by our scaled, modernized, and modular infrastructure, including our new modern tax engine, which we expect to further enhance through integration with our WISE Intelligence Engine.
Speaker #4: Operating income margin margins increased approximately 750 basis points to 37.7%, adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 170 basis points to 42.1% for the quarter this was driven by increased productivity and cost discipline while increasing our investments in AI.
Speaker #4: Beyond shifting up-market, two emerging growth areas for us are expanding employee-based revenue streams and growing beyond our payroll base. We introduced Perks, our digital benefits marketplace, less than two years ago.
Speaker #4: Diluted earnings per share increased 43% to $1.17 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $1.32 per share. Turning to the full year results.
Speaker #4: And today, more than 400,000 unique employees have already purchased affordable, transferable benefits through the marketplace. We are now expanding access to Perks to employees on the Paycor platform, increasing our addressable market by more than 2.5 million employees.
Speaker #4: For the full year, we delivered on our total revenue guidance, accelerated our organic growth in the back half of the year, and exceeded our earnings guidance after raising guidance after raising expectations twice during the year.
Speaker #4: Total revenue increased 17% over the prior year to 6.5 billion, management solutions revenue grew 20% to 4.9 billion, PO and insurance solutions revenue increased 7% to 1.4 billion, operating income margins for the year were 38.6%, and our adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 70 basis points to 43.2%.
Speaker #4: More broadly, we now see meaningful opportunities to grow beyond our traditional payroll base. Historically, many of our solutions could only be sold in connection with a client being on our payroll platforms.
Speaker #4: With the modernization of our underlying infrastructure now complete, we are developing more payroll-agnostic and standalone AI-enabled solutions, which we believe will significantly expand our addressable market to help more businesses succeed.
Speaker #4: Diluted earnings per share increased 7% to 4.89 a share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to financial position remains strong with cash, restricted cash, and total corporate investments of 1.2 billion and total borrowings of approximately 4.6 billion dollars at the end of the quarter.
Speaker #4: Our momentum this year is also being recognized externally. TIME and Paychex, one of America's top WorkTech companies, and Newsweek recognize us as one of America's most trustworthy companies and greatest workplaces.
Speaker #4: This underscores the strength of our brand, culture, and the trust we have built with clients and employees. Taken together, this progress reflects strong execution against our strategic priorities.
Speaker #4: Cash flow generation continues to be a key strength of our model. Our operating cash flows for the year increased 35% to 2.6 billion, and our free cash flows increased 36% to 2.3 billion dollars this fiscal year.
Speaker #4: From integrating the largest acquisition in our history, to modernizing our infrastructure and rolling out WISE across our HCM platforms and operations, we believe we enter fiscal year '27 well-positioned for continued growth and long-term leadership in the AI era of HCM.
Speaker #4: Our capital allocation strategy remains focused on delivering long-term shareholder value. This year, we returned 2.2 billion dollars to shareholders through 1.6 billion dollars in cash dividends and 600 million dollars in share repurchase.
Speaker #4: I will now turn the call over to Bob to discuss our financial performance and outlook. Bob?
Speaker #4: In addition to this, we reduced our leverage ratio a half a turn through the combination of our strong earnings growth and repaying the initial 400 million tranche of debt from the Oasis acquisition that matured in March.
Speaker #5: Yeah, thank you, John. I'll begin with our fourth quarter and full year financial results, and then I'll share our outlook for fiscal '27. For the fourth quarter, total revenue increased 12% over the prior year to $1.6 billion.
Speaker #4: We remain focused on the levers of long-term shareholder returns that are within our control, including strong EPS growth, sustained dividend growth, and disciplined capital deployment.
Speaker #5: Reflecting the mid-quarter anniversary of the Paycor acquisition, as John noted, we accelerated organic revenue growth in each quarter this fiscal year. Management Solutions revenue grew 14% to $1.2 billion, driven by product penetration, price realization, and approximately 8 percentage points of growth from Paycor.
Speaker #4: Our 12-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 45%. Turning to our guidance for fiscal 27, our outlook reflects the current macro environment as well as the assumptions that employment levels will continue to remain flat.
Speaker #5: PO and insurance solutions revenue increased 9% to $370 million, driven primarily by strong growth in PO worksite employees, as well as an increase in PO insurance revenues.
Speaker #4: For fiscal 27, we expect total revenue growth in the range of 5 to 6 percent. Management solutions revenue growth is also expected to be in the range of 5 to 6 percent.
Speaker #5: Interest on funds held for clients grew 15% to $52 million. Total expenses for the quarter were relatively flat, as higher compensation amortization and continued investments in our strategic priorities were offset by lower acquisition-related costs.
Speaker #4: PO and insurance solutions revenue growth will be in the range of 6 to 7 percent. Interest on funds held for clients is expected to be in the range of 195 to 205 million.
Speaker #5: Operating income margin increased approximately 750 basis points to 37.7%. Adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 170 basis points to 42.1% for the quarter. This was driven by increased productivity and cost discipline, while increasing our investments in AI.
Speaker #4: This year-over-year decline reflects the full year impact of the 75 basis points of cuts at the end of last calendar year, and the lapping of one-time gains associated with the strategic portfolio repositioning we executed in the second quarter.
Speaker #4: The outlook also assumes no further changes in the Fed funds rate. Adjuster adjusted operating income margins are expected to be approximately 44%, and our effective income tax rate is expected to be approximately 24%.
Speaker #5: Diluted earnings per share increased 43% to $1.17 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $1.32 per share. Turning to the full-year results.
Speaker #5: For the full year, we delivered on our total revenue guidance, accelerated our organic growth in the back half of the year, and exceeded our earnings guidance after raising expectations twice during the year.
Speaker #4: Adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to grow in the range of 7 to 9 percent. Now I'll provide a little bit of color on the first quarter expectations.
Speaker #5: Total revenue increased 17% over the prior year to $6.5 billion. Management solutions revenue grew 20% to $4.9 billion. PEO and insurance solutions revenue increased 7% to $1.4 billion. Operating income margins for the year were 38.6%, and our adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 70 basis points to 43.2%.
Speaker #4: We would expect total revenue growth to be consistent with our full year guidance, with an adjusted operating margin of 41 to 42 percent. And of course, this outlook is based on current assumptions, as I mentioned, and remains subject to change.
Speaker #4: Our business fundamentals remain strong as we enter fiscal 27. As John mentioned, I think we're exiting the back half of the year with strong momentum.
Speaker #4: We believe paychecks is exceptionally well positioned to succeed in the AI era of HCM. And continued delivering shareholder value. Our efficient operating model continues to generate industry-leading operating and free cash flow margins, with meaningful opportunity for further expansion over time.
Speaker #5: Diluted earnings per share increased 7% to $4.89 a share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $5.51 a share. Our financial position remains strong, with cash, restricted cash, and total corporate investments of $1.2 billion, and total borrowings of approximately $4.6 billion at the end of the quarter.
Speaker #4: The durability of our business, the strength of our cash generation, and our disciplined capital allocation support our confidence in continued revenue and earnings growth and sustained rule of 50 performance.
Speaker #5: Cash flow generation continues to be a key strength of our model. Our operating cash flows for the year increased 35% to $2.6 billion, and our free cash flows increased 36% to $2.3 billion this fiscal year.
Speaker #4: And I'll turn the call back over to John.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Bob. We will now open the call to your questions.
Speaker #4: Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions or comments, please press star one. As always, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two.
Speaker #5: Our capital allocation strategy remains focused on delivering long-term shareholder value. This year, we returned $2.2 billion to shareholders through $1.6 billion in cash dividends and $600 million in share repurchases.
Speaker #4: Additionally, we do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll go first this morning to Brian Keene with Citi.
Speaker #5: In addition to this, we reduced our leverage ratio by half a turn through the combination of our strong earnings growth and repaying the initial $400 million tranche of debt from the Oasis acquisition that matured in March.
Speaker #5: Hey, guys. Good morning. Solid results. Just hoping you guys could talk a little bit about the trend in organic growth that you saw in the second half of the year.
Speaker #5: What do you guys calculating it as, and as we jump off here into fiscal year 27 with the range of 5 to 6 percent, what gets us to the low end, and what gets us to the high end for that as we think about organic growth, booking strengths, all that that adds up to the numbers?
Speaker #5: We remain focused on the levers of long-term shareholder returns that are within our control, including strong EPS growth, sustained dividend growth, and disciplined capital deployment.
Speaker #5: Our 12-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 45%. Turning to our guidance for fiscal '27, our outlook reflects the current macro environment, as well as the assumption that employment levels will continue to remain flat.
Speaker #5: Thanks. Yeah, Brian. I mean, I'll start, and John can add some color. I mean, as you mentioned, in your report last week or a couple of weeks ago, I mean, we've definitely continued to see a sequential improvement in the organic growth of the business.
Speaker #5: For fiscal ’27, we expect total revenue growth in the range of 5% to 6%. Management Solutions revenue growth is also expected to be in the range of 5% to 6%.
Speaker #5: I think if you go back to this time last year, we were exiting last fiscal year at around 3 percent. We've nearly doubled the organic growth of the business with improvement each quarter as we move through the year.
Speaker #5: PO and insurance solutions revenue growth will be in the range of 6% to 7%. Interest on funds held for clients is expected to be in the range of $195 million to $205 million.
Speaker #5: And so I think if you look at the Q4 numbers, the Q4 exit rate from our organic growth standpoint, I would say is largely in line with the guide that we provided.
Speaker #5: This year-over-year decline reflects the full-year impact of the 75 basis points of cuts at the end of last calendar year, and the lapping of one-time gains associated with the strategic portfolio repositioning we executed in the second quarter.
Speaker #5: And I think if you look at the midpoint of the management solutions and the PO guide, I think you'll get to a service revenue growth rate that pretty much is in line with the organic growth that we're exiting the year at.
Speaker #5: The outlook also assumes no further changes in the Fed funds rate. Adjusted operating income margins are expected to be approximately 44%, and our effective income tax rate is expected to be approximately 24%.
Speaker #5: Obviously, next year, there's a little bit of a headwind. We had a tailwind this year from flow with the Pay Corps balances and some other things.
Speaker #5: Next year, there's a little bit of a headwind expecting interest on funds to be down about 4 to 5 percent. You got the full year impact of the cuts that happened last year as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, and then we had some gains this year from some repositioning that we did earlier in the year.
Speaker #5: Adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to grow in the range of 7% to 9%. Now I'll provide a little bit of color on the first quarter expectations.
Speaker #5: But I think those things added up together, I think, get you to a guide next year that pretty much is in line with a strong organic growth improvement this year in where we're exiting the year.
Speaker #5: We would expect total revenue growth to be consistent with our full-year guidance, with an adjusted operating margin of 41% to 42%. And of course, this outlook is based on current assumptions, as I mentioned, and remains subject to change.
Speaker #5: Obviously, it's early on, so better performance would drive higher-end we're assuming a stable macro environment. We're not expecting that to change, but the typical things that you're aware of that could move the needle in one direction or another, I'd say the other thing really strong momentum in bookings.
Speaker #5: Our business fundamentals remain strong as we enter fiscal '27. And as John mentioned, I think we're exiting the back half of the year with strong momentum.
Speaker #5: We believe Paychex is exceptionally well positioned to succeed in the AI era of HCM and continue delivering shareholder value. Our efficient operating model continues to generate industry-leading operating and free cash flow margins, with meaningful opportunity for further expansion over time.
Speaker #5: We talked about this last quarter. I think you highlighted it in your report. Probably one of the stronger selling seasons that we had in Q3, and I think we followed that up.
Speaker #5: The durability of our business, the strength of our cash generation, and our disciplined capital allocation support our confidence in continued revenue and earnings growth and sustained Rule of 50 performance.
Speaker #5: John can provide some more color on it, but we followed that up in Q4 with a really another strong performance in bookings. And it was really broad-based across many categories.
Speaker #5: Certainly, we're benefiting from the Pay Corps acquisition. When you look at ASO, PEO, retirement, that's really driving a lot of the growth both of what you see in the P&L as well in bookings and a lot of that is coming from the ability to go into Pay Corps base and upsell them those high-value solutions.
Speaker #5: And now, I'll turn the call back over to John.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Bob. We will now open the call to your questions.
Speaker #5: Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions or comments, please press star one. As always, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two.
Speaker #5: So I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that, John. Yeah, no, I think we'd go back a year on this call.
Speaker #5: Additionally, we do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll go first this morning to Brian Keene with Citi.
Speaker #5: We kind of laid out we'd went through a pretty significant integration of our enterprise business together, and we said our view was, as we execute the integration plan that we had, we believe that we were going to continue to build momentum each of the quarters.
Speaker #4: Hey, guys. Good morning. Solid results. I was just hoping you could talk a little bit about the trend in organic growth that you saw in the second half of the year.
Speaker #4: What are you guys calculating it as, and as we jump off here into fiscal year '27 with the range of 5% to 6%, what gets us to the low end, and what gets us to the high end for that as we think about organic growth, booking strengths, all that that adds up to the numbers?
Speaker #5: And I think there are probably some skeptics about the back half, and I'm very pleased and proud of the team for what they delivered.
Speaker #5: Every quarter bookings got better and better. Fourth quarter was better than the third quarter, and the third quarter, as I said on our last call, was the best I've seen in 13 years here.
Speaker #4: Thanks.
Speaker #5: So I feel good about the momentum we have going into this, certainly having all the disruptions behind us is going to be a positive going into this.
Speaker #2: Yeah, Brian. I mean, I'll start, and John can add some color. I mean, as you mentioned in your report last week or a couple of weeks ago, we've definitely continued to see a sequential improvement in the organic growth of the business.
Speaker #5: I would say the macro environment, despite all the potential challenges that we have going on globally, around us, has been stable. No signs of recession.
Speaker #2: I think if you go back to this time last year, we were exiting last fiscal year at around 3%. We've nearly doubled the organic growth of the business, with improvement each quarter as we moved through the year.
Speaker #5: And in fact, if you look at our index, the last several reports have actually shown an increase in the index under 50. We continue to see good I'd say solid growth, not good growth, but solid growth in the 50-plus.
Speaker #2: And so I think if you look at the Q4 numbers, the Q4 exit rate from our organic growth standpoint, I would say, is largely in line with the guide that we provided.
Speaker #5: And we'll be announcing our index next week, and again, I'm just amazed at the resiliency. So I think we're going into this year with all the disruptions behind us, with better focus, our product roadmap, our integration roadmap is just really accelerating.
Speaker #2: And I think if you look at the midpoint of the Management Solutions and the PEO guide, I think you'll get to a service revenue growth rate that pretty much is in line with the organic growth that we're exiting the year at.
Speaker #5: AI is helping us accelerate that even more. In terms of the development roadmap and so, I'm very encouraged about what the setup is going into this fiscal year.
Speaker #2: Obviously, next year there's a little bit of a headwind. We had a tailwind this year from float with the Paycor balances and some other things.
Speaker #2: Great. And just as a follow-up, just thinking about the launch of Wise and AI in general, how do we think about the potential revenue opportunities that AI could bring paychecks, and how long will it take maybe to start developing some of those?
Speaker #2: Next year, there's a little bit of a headwind; we're expecting interest on funds to be down about 4% to 5%. You've got the full-year impact of the cuts that happened last year, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks. Then, we had some gains this year from some repositioning that we did earlier in the year.
Speaker #5: Well, I would say we're already generating some revenue from that. We've launched several components of Wise. Some of that is in the reporting area.
Speaker #2: But I think those things added up together, I think, get you to a guide next year that pretty much is in line with a strong organic growth improvement this year and where we're exiting the year.
Speaker #5: So what I would say enhancements to our current reporting capabilities. And we've launched that into the database into our client base. We've gotten good success there.
Speaker #2: Obviously, it's early on, so better performance would drive higher-end. We're assuming a stable macro environment—we're not expecting that to change—but the typical things that you're aware of could move the needle in one direction or another.
Speaker #5: When you look at it at this point in time, we also did our we are intelligence timekeeping in Flex. We currently have about 10,000 customers that are in our soft launch of that.
Speaker #2: I'd say the other thing is you have really strong momentum in bookings. We talked about this last quarter, and I think you highlighted it in your report.
Speaker #5: And again, we think that's going to be another opportunity. What we're seeing there in terms of just time savings, but more importantly, error prediction.
Speaker #2: Probably one of the stronger selling seasons that we had in Q3, and I think we followed that up—John can provide some more color on it—but we followed that up in Q4 with really another strong performance in bookings.
Speaker #5: So we're actually cutting errors down like 70% upfront. And so what I see, that's going to be a good value upsell opportunity for us as we go into the year.
Speaker #5: So I think we're early in figuring out the monetization. I would say a lot of what we're getting right now from Wise has been turned internally.
Speaker #2: And it was really broad-based across many categories. Certainly, we're benefiting from the Pay Corps acquisition. When you look at ASO, PEO, retirement, that's really driving a lot of the growth both of what you see in the P&L as well in bookings and a lot of that is coming from the ability to go into Pay Corps base and upsell them those high-value solutions.
Speaker #5: So our service concierge, we're now all of our service individuals have access to all of our knowledge systems across all of our products and services instantaneously, and then also what we're calling the sales guru which is a Wise-based product which again gives access to all of our data sets across all of our platforms and all of our service and sales interactions to our salespeople in real time to be able to both plan their calls appropriately and offer the right solution for the client.
Speaker #2: So, I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that, John. Yeah, no, I think we'd go back a year on this call.
Speaker #2: We kind of laid out—we'd gone through a pretty significant integration of our enterprise business together. And we said our view was, as we execute the integration plan that we had, we believe that we were going to continue to build momentum each of the quarters.
Speaker #5: So a lot of it right now is internally. We're starting the product roadmap. We've launched the first kind of AI-based product. We launched was in 2022 with retention insights and now what we'll do is we're going back and looking at refreshing those legacy AI products with the Wise platform.
Speaker #2: And I think there are probably some skeptics about the back half, and I am very pleased and proud of the team for what they delivered. Every quarter, bookings got better and better.
Speaker #2: The fourth quarter was better than the third quarter, and the third quarter, as I said on our last call, was the best I've seen in 13 years here.
Speaker #2: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the questions.
Speaker #2: So I feel good about the momentum we have going into this. Certainly, having all the disruptions behind us is going to be a positive going into this.
Speaker #5: Thanks, Brian.
Speaker #3: We'll go next now to Mark, Mark Hahn with Baird.
Speaker #6: Hey, good morning. John and Bob, and thanks for taking my questions. John, I wanted to ask you about a couple of strategic elements. First of all, you mentioned that you're developing payroll agnostic solutions in order to help businesses to a greater extent.
Speaker #2: I would say the macro environment, despite all the potential challenges that we have going on globally around us, has been stable. No signs of recession.
Speaker #2: And in fact, if you look at our index, the last several reports have actually shown an increase in the index under 50. We continue to see, I'd say, solid growth—not good growth, but solid growth—in the 50-plus.
Speaker #6: Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of what your outlook is for that? When should investors expect the launches? What areas do you think you can go into?
Speaker #2: And we'll be announcing our index next week. And again, I'm just amazed at the resiliency. So, I think we're going into this year with all the disruptions behind us, with better focus. Our product roadmap, our integration roadmap, is just really accelerating.
Speaker #6: And with the AI tools in terms of coding, how quickly do you think you can do that?
Speaker #5: Well, I think we have been doing so this has been a long-term project. Let me step back, Mark. We have been investing really since kind of the COVID ERTC era, when we had the opportunity to take some of the cash flow that was being generated during that time and we looked across the platform and said, "Well, how do we want to modernize our back office and our operating layer?" And as you all know, our operating layer of our business is best in class.
Speaker #2: AI is helping us accelerate that even more in terms of the development roadmap, so I'm very encouraged about what the setup is going into this fiscal year.
Speaker #4: Great. And just as a follow-up, just thinking about the launch of Wise and AI in general, how do we think about the potential revenue opportunities that AI could bring Paychex, and how long will it take, maybe, to start developing some of those?
Speaker #5: That's how we get the margins we do. We wanted to modernize it. We wanted to modulize it. And really allow us to begin to offer more products and services on a standalone basis because most of our products and services that we've built at paychecks, we really didn't have the means to bill a client, to engage a client, separately outside of being part of our HCM payroll infrastructure.
Speaker #2: Well, I would say we're already generating some revenue from that. We've launched several components of Wise; some of that is in the reporting area.
Speaker #2: So, what I would say are enhancements to our current reporting capabilities. And we've launched that into the database, into our client base, and we've seen good success there.
Speaker #2: When you look at it at this point in time, we also did our intelligent timekeeping in Flex. We currently have about 10,000 customers that are in our soft launch of that.
Speaker #5: And so one of the key things we wanted to do was break that apart, break our tax engine apart. Break all the payments orchestration that we do apart.
Speaker #5: So all of that has been done and finally completed over the past fiscal year. So what we have today is the capability that if a customer would leave our HCM platform, but enjoy our insurance agency, they can now stay with our insurance agency.
Speaker #2: And again, we think that's going to be another opportunity. What we're seeing there, in terms of just time savings, but more importantly, error prediction.
Speaker #2: So we're actually cutting errors down by about 70% upfront. And so, what I see is that this is going to be a good value upsell opportunity for us as we go into the year.
Speaker #5: That's something a lot of times it did not happen in the past. So one leaves our HCM platform and they like our 401(k) product, we could do that.
Speaker #2: So I think we're early in figuring out the monetization. I would say a lot of what we're getting right now from Wise has been turned internally.
Speaker #5: It also gives us the potential to partner with those separate products separately as well, something we've historically not done. So we look at it as a big opportunity for us.
Speaker #2: So our service concierge, now all of our service individuals have access to all of our knowledge systems across all of our products and services instantaneously.
Speaker #5: That investment that we've made in that back office infrastructure is what allowed us to launch perks because it also allows us to teach to treat every one of our clients' employees as potential standalone customers and again, they can continue to be a customer of paychecks even if they leave their current employer and even if they're not on one of our HCM platforms.
Speaker #2: And then also, what we're calling the Sales Guru, which is a Wise-based product, which again gives access to all of our data sets across all of our platforms and all of our service and sales interactions to our salespeople in real time, to be able to both plan their calls appropriately and offer the right solution for the client.
Speaker #5: So this is in the early innings of really getting this put together. Of course, we're going to look at the economics both in terms of go-to-market and capability.
Speaker #2: So, a lot of it right now is internal. We're starting the product roadmap. We launched the first in 2022 with retention insights, and now what we'll do is go back and look at refreshing those legacy AI products with the Wise platform.
Speaker #5: But what I would tell you, it enhances our ability to retain customers in some way across multiple products. It gives us new go-to-market opportunities and it gives us new customer segments that we could potentially go after.
Speaker #5: I also believe particularly as it pertains to Wise, and what we're putting together in terms of HR compliance and real-time advisory solutions that can be digitally enabled with our HR people in the background.
Speaker #4: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the questions.
Speaker #2: Thanks, Brian.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Mark. Mark Hahn with Baird.
Speaker #5: Hey, good morning, John and Bob, and thanks for taking my couple of strategic elements. First of all, you mentioned that you're developing payroll-agnostic solutions in order to help businesses to a greater extent.
Speaker #5: I think that could be valuable for customers, small and mid-sized customers, or HR professionals whether or not they're on one of our platforms or not.
Speaker #5: And so certainly one of the things I think is a great potential for us to help businesses succeed is to be able to turn our 50-plus years of HR advisory and HR and payroll and tax compliance capabilities and monetize that for the benefit for a broader market.
Speaker #5: Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of what your outlook is for that? When should investors expect the launches? What areas do you think you can go into?
Speaker #5: And with the AI tools in terms of coding, how quickly do you think you can do that?
Speaker #5: And those are things we're considering as well.
Speaker #6: Could you also get into more of the office of the CFO or the office of the CTO from a longer-term perspective?
Speaker #2: Well, I think we have been doing so—this has been a long-term project. Let me step back, Mark. We have been investing, really, since kind of the COVID ERTC era, when we had the opportunity to take some of the cash flow that was being generated during that time. We looked across the platform and said, "How do we want to modernize our back office and our operating layer?" And, as you all know, our operating layer of our business is best in class.
Speaker #5: I think, Mark, at this point in time, we see the opportunity within HR, particularly in the segment we serve, to be the best place for our investment in time.
Speaker #5: We still have a lot of opportunity. I think, and particularly most of our clients don't have an HR department. HR is becoming more complex.
Speaker #5: I think at this point in time, what we're focused on is continuing to do that. And also try to put into our marketplace for their employees a set of benefit solutions that allows a small employer to mimic a large employer in terms of what benefits they can offer an employee without having to contribute to that from a financial perspective.
Speaker #2: That's how we get the margins we do. We wanted to modernize it. We wanted to modulize it and really allow us to begin to offer more products and services on a standalone basis, because most of our products and services that we've built at Paychex, we really didn't have the means to bill a client, to engage a client separately outside of being part of our HCM payroll infrastructure.
Speaker #5: Because those are the things that we hear from our small clients all the time that there's more important to them than us helping help be their CFO at this point in time.
Speaker #2: And so, one of the key things we wanted to do was break that apart—break our tax engine apart, break all the payments orchestration that we do apart.
Speaker #6: That's great. Thank you so much.
Speaker #5: Yep. Thanks, Mark.
Speaker #3: We'll go next now to Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.
Speaker #2: So all of that has been done, and finally completed over the past fiscal year. So, what we have today is the capability that if a customer leaves our HCM platform but enjoys our insurance agency, they can now stay with our insurance agency.
Speaker #7: Hi. Good morning. Appreciate you taking my question. You've hit on a few of the reasons, but I was just hoping you could expand on kind of what drives your conviction in the HRMS acceleration next year on an organic basis.
Speaker #2: That's something that, a lot of times, did not happen in the past. So, if one leaves our HCM platform and they like our 401(k) product, we could do that.
Speaker #7: And any color you could provide on kind of expected growth by market segment would be helpful, like between mid-market and enterprise.
Speaker #2: It also gives us the potential to partner with those separate products individually as well, something we've historically not done. So, we look at it as a big opportunity for us.
Speaker #5: Yeah. Well, look, I think that we feel very confident across the portfolio. Again, as we see, we've had continued momentum across the portfolio throughout the year.
Speaker #2: That investment that we've made in that back office infrastructure is what allowed us to launch Perks, because it also allows us to treat every one of our clients' employees as potential standalone customers. And again, they can continue to be a customer of Paychex even if they leave their current employer and even if they're not on one of our HCM platforms.
Speaker #5: When you look at the enterprise side, continue to see good growth there as we combine the groups together. You go back and look at our enterprise bookings.
Speaker #5: In the fourth quarter, we had the highest booking dollar volume we've had all year. And I think as we told you before, that had continued to build through the third quarter.
Speaker #2: So this is in the early innings of really getting this put together. Of course, we're going to look at the economics, both in terms of go-to-market and capability.
Speaker #5: We've continued to add partners there. And I just think with the integration behind us and all the disruption that caused and having the focus, I think we're entering the year very well-focused with a good set of products and services to go in the market.
Speaker #2: But what I would tell you is that it enhances our ability to retain customers in some way across our multiple products. It gives us new go-to-market opportunities, and it gives us new customer segments that we could potentially go after.
Speaker #5: Then when you look across HR solutions and benefits, retirement, the acceleration there has just been phenomenal. It just really has. And not stopped. Our bookings have continued to grow in those areas.
Speaker #2: I also believe, particularly as it pertains to Wise and what we're putting together in terms of HR compliance and real-time advisory solutions, that these can be digitally enabled with our HR people in the background.
Speaker #5: Continue to show strong retention. Continue to see strong cross-sell across the various teams. I think that cross-sell motion has really getting going, particularly in the legacy pay core, sales teams.
Speaker #2: I think that could be valuable for customers, small and mid-sized customers, or HR professionals, whether or not they're on one of our platforms.
Speaker #5: I think they're trying to finally figuring out how they can leverage the full power of paychecks to drive not only meetings, but also to drive deals coming to closure.
Speaker #2: And so, certainly, one of the things I think is a great potential for us to help businesses succeed is to be able to turn our 50-plus years of HR advisory and HR and payroll and tax compliance capabilities and monetize that for the benefit of a broader market.
Speaker #5: So I feel good about where we are. Again, heading into this fiscal year just with everything behind us. And I think all the things are in place.
Speaker #5: The organizational components are in place. The technology components and all the focus we've been having on what I would say, and you guys don't see it, what we see, all the inside work we've had to do in finishing the transformation of our operating layer, dealing with all the integration issues with the largest integration we've had, all the internal things we've needed to do organizationally around that from a sales and sales territory perspective.
Speaker #2: And those are things we're considering as well.
Speaker #5: Could you also get into more of the office of the CFO or the office of the CTO from a longer-term perspective?
Speaker #2: I think, Mark, at this point in time, we see the opportunity within HR, particularly in the segment we serve, to be the best place for our investment in time.
Speaker #2: We still have a lot of opportunity, I think, and particularly, most of our clients don't have an HR department. HR is becoming more complex.
Speaker #5: You guys don't see that. We've been seeing that. And now to not have to be focused on that and to be able to totally focus on execution and then the tailwinds that I'm seeing in product development, from AI utilization there, that's going to accelerate our ability to execute the roadmap faster.
Speaker #2: I think at this point in time, what we're focused on is continuing to do that. And also try to put into our marketplace for their employees a set of benefit solutions that allows a small employer to mimic a large employer in terms of what benefits they can offer an employee without having to contribute to that from a financial perspective.
Speaker #5: And the benefit that I'm seeing both our sales and service teams are having in leveraging these tools, these Wise tools that we've launched to them over the last quarter and the benefits we're seeing in their productivity really makes me encouraged about how we're setting up for this year.
Speaker #2: Because those are the things that we hear from our small clients all the time that there's more important to them than us helping help be their CFO at this point in time.
Speaker #5: Yeah. Just the other thing I would just add from a conviction standpoint, Andrew, I think this next fiscal year sets up a lot differently than last fiscal year for all the reasons that John highlighted.
Speaker #5: That's great. Thank you so much.
Speaker #2: Yep. Thanks, Mark.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.
Speaker #5: But in addition, to hit last year's guide, the '26 guide, there was an acceleration that was required in the back half. There was reasons for that.
Speaker #6: Hi, good morning. I appreciate you taking my question. You've touched on a few of the reasons, but I was just hoping you could expand on what drives your conviction in the HRMS acceleration next year on an organic basis.
Speaker #5: Some of it was on the comparis. But we certainly delivered that. But now I think as we go into next fiscal year, John talked about all the momentum that we have exiting this year and really what we've set up next year from a guide standpoint is pretty much in line with what we're delivering and what we're exiting the year.
Speaker #6: And any color you could provide on kind of expected growth by market segment would be helpful, like between mid-market and enterprise.
Speaker #5: So certainly from a conviction standpoint, the year sets up much differently than last year did. We don't have this big ramp in the second half.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Well, look, I think that we feel very confident across the portfolio. Again, as we see, we've had continued momentum across the portfolio throughout the year.
Speaker #5: We delivered it. Like we mentioned, but it certainly gives us a lot more confidence just given the momentum that we have exiting this year and not having to deliver a significant step up as we move through the year.
Speaker #2: When you look at the enterprise side, we continue to see good growth there as we combine the groups together. You can go back and look at our enterprise bookings.
Speaker #2: In the fourth quarter, we had the highest booking dollar volume we've had all year. And I think as we told you before, that had continued to build through the third quarter.
Speaker #7: Helpful. Thank you. And then maybe I just switch over to PO and insurance services. That was a result that was quite a bit better than what we had expected.
Speaker #2: We've continued to add partners there. And I just think, with the integration behind us and all the disruption that caused, and having the focus, I think we're entering the year very well-focused, with a good set of products and services to go in the market.
Speaker #7: Can you walk through kind of what PEO revenue looks like compared to insurance services in the quarter and kind of level set where we're at heading into '27 from in terms of healthcare plan and those dynamics that you were kind of fighting against at the beginning of '26?
Speaker #2: Then, when you look across HR solutions and benefits—retirement—the acceleration there has just been phenomenal. It really has, and it hasn’t stopped. Our bookings have continued to grow in those areas.
Speaker #7: Thank you.
Speaker #5: Yeah. I mean, the underlying operating performance for the PO business has been strong for a number of quarters and a number of years. We know we had some challenges last year with some of the optics with the MPP enrollment.
Speaker #2: We continue to show strong retention and continue to see strong cross-sell across the various teams. I think that cross-sell motion has really gotten going, particularly in the legacy Paychex core sales teams.
Speaker #5: And you and I, we have talked about this. You're very familiar with the PO industry. To me, it's all about driving work site employee growth.
Speaker #2: I think they're trying to finally figuring out how they can leverage the full power of paychecks to drive not only meetings, but also to drive deals coming to closure.
Speaker #5: And we continue to do that. And as John mentioned in the prepared remarks, continue to outpace kind of the industry there. And it's really coming from strong demand and we saw another quarter of double-digit demand in the PEO business as well as record work site employee retention.
Speaker #2: So I feel good about where we are. Again, heading into this fiscal year just with everything behind us. And I think all the things are in place.
Speaker #2: The organizational components are in place. The technology components and all the focus we've been having on what I would say—and you guys don't see it—what we see, all the inside work we've had to do in finishing the transformation of our operating layer, dealing with all the integration issues with the largest integration we've had, all the internal things we've needed to do organizationally around that from a sales and sales territory perspective.
Speaker #5: And so we know the strength of that business model, the value proposition, is very strong. And that business group double-digits in the quarter. Obviously, the category was a little bit below that.
Speaker #5: The agency continues to be a drag on the overall growth of that quarter. We are seeing some positive trends, certainly in the back half of this year as it relates to the agency, both from a demand and retention standpoint.
Speaker #2: You guys don't see that. We've been seeing that. And now, to not have to be focused on that and to be able to totally focus on execution—and then the tailwinds that I'm seeing in product development from AI utilization there—that's going to accelerate our ability to execute the roadmap faster.
Speaker #5: So we would expect prospectively that headwind from the agency side to subside somewhat, but continue to expect the momentum that we've seen in the PO.
Speaker #5: And the other thing too, I would just say from an enrollment standpoint, as you know, we had the MPP challenges last year. We anniversary those, which helped with the compare, but we've also seen the enrollment growth not only overall in medical attachment across the PO within Florida where we have that at-risk plan.
Speaker #2: The benefit that I'm seeing both our sales and service teams having in leveraging these tools—these Wise tools that we've launched to them over the last quarter—and the benefits we're seeing in their productivity really make me encouraged about how we're setting up for this year.
Speaker #3: Yeah. Just the other thing I would just add from a conviction standpoint, Andrew, I think this next fiscal year sets up a lot differently than last fiscal year for all the reasons that John highlighted.
Speaker #5: We actually drew that this year. And so we're seeing good enrollment. We had a good annual renewals in those books of business as well as we're seeing, I would say, better attachment of medical upfront, which really helps drive that work site employee retention that we talked about because it just really makes those clients much more stickier when they attach their health with us.
Speaker #3: But in addition, to hit last year's guide, the '26 guide, there was an acceleration that was required in the back half. There were reasons for that.
Speaker #3: Some of it was on the comparis. But we certainly delivered that. But now I think as we go into next fiscal year, John talked about all the momentum that we have exiting this year in really what we've set up next year from a guide standpoint is pretty much in line with what we're delivering and what we're exiting the year.
Speaker #5: So a lot of positive trends as we move forward in the PO.
Speaker #7: Thank you very much.
Speaker #5: Yep.
Speaker #3: So certainly from a conviction standpoint, the year sets up much differently than last year did. We don't have this big ramp in the second half.
Speaker #1: Thank you. We'll go next now to Kevin McVeigh with UBS.
Speaker #3: Great. Thanks so much. Commentary on the first quarter was helpful in terms of the revenue growth. And Bob, if I heard you right, I think you said the first quarter should be similar to the full year and maybe just help us the pacing over the course of quarters two through four.
Speaker #3: We delivered it, like we mentioned, but it certainly gives us a lot more confidence just given the momentum that we have exiting this year, and not having to deliver a significant step up as we move through the year.
Speaker #3: And as you start to comp tougher comps, where's the offset to that? Is it just the way the bookings come in or maybe just help us dimensionalize that a little bit?
Speaker #6: Helpful, thank you. And then maybe I'll just switch over to PEO and insurance services. That was a result that was quite a bit better than what we had expected.
Speaker #5: Yeah. I think, listen, I think the year sets up, as I mentioned earlier, the gating is fairly consistent. When you talk about comps, I mean, we certainly had easier comps in the back half of this year relative to the PEO.
Speaker #6: Can you walk through kind of what PEO revenue looks like compared to insurance services in the quarter and kind of level set where we're at heading into '27 from in terms of healthcare plan and those dynamics?
Speaker #6: That you were kind of fighting against at the beginning of '26. Thank you.
Speaker #5: So you're not going to have we're comparing the back half of this year to last year when we were actually down in enrollment. Now we're going to be up in enrollment.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I mean, the underlying operating performance for the PEO business has been strong for a number of quarters and a number of years. We know we had some challenges last year with some of the optics with the MPP enrollment.
Speaker #5: So the comps get a little bit tougher, Kevin, on the PO business as we move into the back half. Obviously, we continue to expect improved performance from a bookings and retention and all the things within our control.
Speaker #2: And you and I, we have talked about this. You're very familiar with the PO industry. To me, it's all about driving work site employee growth.
Speaker #5: But when you look at the quarters, the gating is relatively consistent. Quarter to quarter, there's always puts and takes. So I don't see it as much risks maybe as was perceived with this fiscal year.
Speaker #2: And we continue to do that. And as John mentioned in the prepared remarks, continue to outpace kind of the industry there. And it's really coming from strong demand and we saw another quarter of double-digit demand in the PEO business as well as record work site employee retention.
Speaker #3: Got it. And with Paycor in the base now, is there anything from a seasonality perspective that we should consider just as the year kind of shapes up?
Speaker #2: And so we know the strength of that business model—the value proposition—is very strong. And that business grew double digits in the quarter.
Speaker #5: I mean, nothing that comes to mind. I mean, similar to our business, there's obviously a lot of year-end processing revenue that hits the third quarter.
Speaker #2: Obviously, the category was a little bit below that. The agency continues to be a drag on the overall growth of that quarter. We are seeing some positive trends, certainly in the back half of this year as it relates to the agency, both from a demand and retention standpoint.
Speaker #5: And obviously, that drives a lot of it's high margin, so it drives a lot of profitability in Q3. But outside of that, I can't think of anything offhand that would give you some differences quarter to quarter.
Speaker #3: Thank you.
Speaker #2: I would add. I think anytime you have the larger deals, larger deals, a lot of times we'll wait until the end of the year so that's one of the things we constantly look is the bookings.
Speaker #2: So, we would expect, prospectively, that the headwind from the agency side will subside somewhat, but we continue to expect the momentum that we've seen in the PEO.
Speaker #2: There's building and building and building. In the larger segments, in the larger segments, a lot of times you'll either wait for a quarter or a lot of times they want to wait until the end of a calendar year.
Speaker #2: And the other thing too, I would just say from a enrollment standpoint, as you know, we had the MPP challenges last year. We anniversary those, which helped with the compare, but we've also seen the enrollment growth not only overall in medical attachment across the PO within Florida where we have that at-risk plan.
Speaker #2: So again, nothing that I would say is meaningful. Remember, we had a very large enterprise business before we bought Paycor, so we're familiar with it.
Speaker #2: But certainly, as we focus there, we're watching how the bookings develop because the bookings may be building, but then the implementation date isn't for nine months away.
Speaker #2: We actually drew that this year. And so we're seeing good enrollment. We had a good annual renewals in those books of business as well as we're seeing, I would say, better attachment of medical upfront, which really helps drive that work site employee retention that we talked about because it just really makes those clients much more stickier when they attach their health with us.
Speaker #2: So we're looking at that as well, but we're not seeing anything that's meaningful to change substantially the gating we've seen historically in our business.
Speaker #3: And John, just on that point, that would impact your Q3 more, right, in terms of as they go live January 1st?
Speaker #2: That's correct. That's correct. But again, that's something we're very typical in our business. But again, because we're putting more resources against the enterprise area, we're also again, we're doing ASO and we're doing PO at the point of sale as well.
Speaker #2: So a lot of positive trends as we move forward in the PO.
Speaker #6: Thank you very much.
Speaker #3: Yep.
Speaker #1: Thank you. We'll go next now to Kevin McVeigh with UBS.
Speaker #2: And again, as we do larger deals, any larger deal, a lot of times those clients are going to want to do something on a clean quarter.
Speaker #7: Great. Thanks so much. Commentary on the first quarter was helpful in terms of the revenue growth. And Bob, if I heard you right, I think you said the first quarter should be similar to the full year and maybe just help us the pacing over the course of quarters two through four.
Speaker #2: Whereas in the small business, we'll do it during the middle of the week if we need to, so.
Speaker #1: Good.
Speaker #3: Thank you.
Speaker #5: Yep.
Speaker #1: Thank you. We'll go next now to Jared Levine with TD Cowan.
Speaker #7: And as you start to comp tougher comps, where's the offset to that? Is it just the way the bookings come in, or maybe just help us dimensionalize that a little bit?
Speaker #6: Thank you. I wanted to dig in in terms of the implied Paycor Xflow growth right around 4% based on my math here in 4Q.
Speaker #6: I guess any way to size how much of that deceleration and growth is more so cross-sales of the ASO and PEO, thinking about kind of revenue shifting out of Paycor to Paychecks more so than kind of revenue churn or even weaker than expected bookings here?
Speaker #2: Yeah. I think, listen, I think the year sets up, as I mentioned earlier, the gating is fairly consistent. When you talk about comps, I mean, we certainly had easier comps in the back half of this year relative to the PEO.
Speaker #5: Yeah. Jared, I'll talk the way we talked last quarter as it relates to that. I think it's somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison, just given the way we're managing the business this year versus the way it was managed last year with revenue and resources moving around between the two.
Speaker #2: So you're not going to have—we're comparing the back half of this year to last year, when we were actually down in enrollment. Now, we're going to be up in enrollment.
Speaker #2: So the comps get a little bit tougher, Kevin, on the PO business as we move in the back half. Obviously, we continue to expect improved performance from a bookings and retention and all the things within our control.
Speaker #5: I think the way we've been looking at that business is our enterprise business, which is kind of 100 plus, loosely defined. And when we kind of look at that, the growth of that business, I think, was fairly strong in Q3, and we saw similar trends in Q4 where our enterprise business across both platforms.
Speaker #2: But when you look at the quarters, the gating is relatively consistent. Quarter to quarter, there are always puts and takes. I don't see as much risk, maybe, as was perceived with this fiscal year.
Speaker #7: Got it. And with Paycore in the base now, is there anything from a seasonality perspective that we should consider just as the year kind of shapes up?
Speaker #5: So it really doesn't matter where the client was last year and where they are this year. We saw high single-digit growth in our enterprise business during the quarter.
Speaker #2: I mean, nothing comes to mind. I mean, similar to our business, there's obviously a lot of year-end processing revenue that hits the third quarter.
Speaker #5: And again, I think we've talked about that. That's our expectation prospectively. When you look at the other assets, in that space, that growth rate is not too dissimilar to what the other pays are producing and we would expect at minimum to continue to keep pace with that growth in that segment of the market.
Speaker #2: And obviously, that drives a lot of it's high margin, so it drives a lot of profitability in Q3. But outside of that, I can't think of anything offhand that would give you some differences quarter to quarter.
Speaker #7: Thank you.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I want to add on to this because the first thing I'm always cautious of because I don't want to come off as being defensive about this topic.
Speaker #2: I would add, I think anytime you have the larger deals—a lot of times, we'll wait until the end of the year. So that's one of the things we constantly look at—is the bookings.
Speaker #2: But it's been challenging as we launched the integration. And I think what's probably not known is you look at the Paycor business, and one of the things that attracted us to is strategically is this was a legacy business that had a rather sizable under 100 client base.
Speaker #2: There's building and building and building. In the larger segments, in the larger segments, a lot of times you'll either they'll wait for a quarter or a lot of times they want to wait until the end of a calendar year.
Speaker #2: So again, nothing that I would say is meaningful. Remember, we had a very large enterprise business before we bought Paycor, so we're familiar with it.
Speaker #2: And probably the brand was known as something larger than that. But when we looked under there was and there was a motion in that business to keep that client base at least stable.
Speaker #2: But certainly, as we focus there, we're watching how the bookings develop, because the bookings may be building, but then the implementation date isn't for nine months away.
Speaker #2: And we made it so when you're looking at comps about what growth was three years ago, you're looking at a growth of both a under 100 and an over 100 business.
Speaker #2: So we're looking at that as well, but we're not seeing anything that's meaningful to change substantially the gating we've seen historically in our business.
Speaker #2: Stop right there. We made a conscious decision, which I think is the best decision for the company, was we wanted to focus that technology and brand where it was resonating most and where it was getting the most both the best traction.
Speaker #7: And John, just on that point, that would impact your Q3 more, right, in terms of as they go live January 1st?
Speaker #2: That's correct, that's correct. But again, that's something that's very typical in our business. But again, because we're putting more resources into the enterprise area, we're also doing ASO, and we're doing PO at the point of sale as well.
Speaker #2: So when we separated the two, we took all the under 100 and moved that to our small business segment and vice versa. So look, on an aggregate basis, it's aggregate basis.
Speaker #2: But in terms of Paycor is now a brand for our enterprise segment that we define as 100 employees and more. And we're selling complete solutions there.
Speaker #2: And again, as we do larger deals—any larger deal—a lot of times those clients are going to want to do something on a clean quarter.
Speaker #2: Whereas in the small business, we'll do it during the middle of the week if we need to, so.
Speaker #2: We're selling at the point of sale, a PO, an ASO, and those are going into different parts of our business segment. So it's very complicated to do that.
Speaker #1: Good.
Speaker #7: Thank you.
Speaker #3: Yep.
Speaker #1: Thank you. We'll go next now to Jared Levine with TD Cowen.
Speaker #2: You know what I'm looking at is the enterprise. Here's what I can tell you. Our enterprise business at Paychecks is growing faster than it's grown number one.
Speaker #8: Thank you. I wanted to dig in in terms of the implied Paycore exflow growth right around 4% based on my math here in 4Q.
Speaker #8: I guess, is there any way to size how much of that deceleration in growth is more so due to cross-sales of ASO and PEO? I'm thinking about revenue shifting out of Paycor to Paychex, more so than revenue churn, or even weaker than expected bookings here?
Speaker #2: And number two, our 100 plus retention is the highest it's been since I've been here in 13 years. So again, the combination of having the right technology, the right capabilities focused on these upper-end enterprise segments I think is benefiting us not only from accelerating our historical organic growth there, but also in retaining clients.
Speaker #2: Yeah, Jared, I'll talk the way we talked last quarter as it relates to that. I think it's somewhat of an apples-to-oranges comparison, just given the way we're managing the business this year versus the way it was managed last year, with revenue and resources moving around between the two.
Speaker #2: So I certainly think we're better together. We're totally together now. We're totally integrated. And I think as we move forward, what we're going to be focused on is continuing to grow and serve that enterprise segment and making sure we're maximizing the product penetration both PO, ASO, and HCM in the 100 plus segment in the marketplace.
Speaker #2: I think the way we've been looking at that business is our enterprise business, which is kind of 100-plus, loosely defined. And when we kind of look at that, the growth of that business, I think, was fairly strong in Q3, and we saw similar trends in Q4, where our enterprise business was strong across both platforms.
Speaker #2: I hope that helps.
Speaker #6: No, that was helpful. And then as my follow-up here, in terms of the roughly flat client count growth this year, I guess anything to call out in terms of notable differences, whether it came to call it the core paychecks versus Paycor, and when might this potentially inflect and return back to growth?
Speaker #2: So it really doesn't matter where the client was last year and where they are this year. We saw high single-digit growth in our enterprise business during the quarter.
Speaker #2: And again, I think we've talked about that. That's our expectation prospectively. When you look at the other assets, in that space, that growth rate is not too dissimilar to what the other pays are producing and we would expect at minimum to continue to keep pace with that growth in that segment of the market.
Speaker #2: No. I think when you look at it from a retention perspective, across the board, our client retention was record in our ASO/PO business. We're site employee basis.
Speaker #2: Our 100 plus, as I said, was record level as well. When you look at client losses, client losses tend to be in the lower end of the market and tend to be out of business.
Speaker #3: Yeah. I want to add on to this because the first thing I'm always cautious of because I don't want to come off as being defensive about this topic.
Speaker #2: And that's. That's just really where the year has gone. And as I said repeatedly, we constantly are selective in clients that we're going to bring in to the business.
Speaker #3: But it's been challenging as we launched the integration. And I think what's probably not known is you look at the Paycore business, and one of the things that attracted us to us strategically is this was a legacy business that had a rather sizable under 100 client base.
Speaker #2: We know what a good client's going to be, a client that we can attach, a client we're going to get lifetime value on. We understand the cost of acquisition very, very well.
Speaker #2: And we're not going to do irrational things just to add clients. That are not going to be profitable clients. You cannot achieve the margin profile that we do and have a lot of unprofitable clients.
Speaker #3: And probably the brand was known as something larger than that. But when we looked under there was and there was emotion in that business to keep that client base at least stable.
Speaker #2: So that's going to continue to be our strategy. And we think that's going to continue to not only grow revenue for us, but I think it's also going to make sure that we have the right underlying financial performance in terms of margins and margin expansion going forward.
Speaker #3: And we made it so that when you're looking at comps—about what growth was three years ago—you're looking at the growth of both an under-$100 million and an over-$100 million business.
Speaker #3: Stop right there. We made a conscious decision, which I think is the best decision for the company. We wanted to focus that technology and brand where it was resonating most and where it was getting both the best traction.
Speaker #6: Got it. Thank you.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Daniel Jester with BMO Capital Markets.
Speaker #3: So, when we separated the two, we took all the under 100 and moved that to our small business segment, and vice versa. So, look, on an aggregate basis, it's aggregate basis.
Speaker #4: Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. On the revenue synergies, the outperformance that you had this fiscal year, more than 50 basis points, it sounded like from some of the comments on the questions that maybe the Paycor sales force wasn't sort of fully engaged the whole fiscal year.
Speaker #3: But in terms of Paycore is now a brand for our enterprise segment that we define as 100 employees and more. And we're selling complete solutions there.
Speaker #3: We're selling, at the point of sale, a PEO, an ASO, and those are going into different parts of our business segment. So it's very complicated to do that.
Speaker #4: And so is there any way to think about how that cross-sell could progress next year or the opportunity? Could it actually contribute more to growth next fiscal year than this past one?
Speaker #3: What I'm looking at is the enterprise. Here's what I can tell you: Our enterprise business at Paychex is growing faster than it's grown, number one.
Speaker #4: Thank you.
Speaker #5: Yeah. I mean, I'll start.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Go ahead. Well, first thing, I don't want to categorize it as they weren't engaged. We were very engaged and we had good success.
Speaker #3: And number two, our 100-plus retention is the highest it's been since I've been here in 13 years. So again, the combination of having the right technology, the right capabilities focused on these upper-end enterprise segments I think is benefiting us not only from accelerating our historical organic growth there, but also in retaining clients.
Speaker #2: You look at ASO and retirement penetration really exceeded our expectations. PO, which is a longer sales cycle, we got several large deals and that's accelerated as the years went on.
Speaker #2: Look, I'd go back and remind you we did change territories. We changed management. We changed leadership structure. And we retrained them on the various products and services and all that didn't start until June a year ago.
Speaker #3: So I certainly think we're better together. We're totally together now. We're totally integrated. And I think as we move forward, what we're going to be focused on is continuing to grow and serve that enterprise segment and making sure we're maximizing the product penetration both PO, ASO, and HCM in the 100-plus segment in the marketplace.
Speaker #2: So what I would not characterize it wasn't a lack of engagement. It's really just that point of kind of learning and then getting accustomed to, okay, how do I put this into my sales motion?
Speaker #2: How do I put these talk tracks in? And how do I engage my paychecks partners in the sales process? So as you can imagine, you just get better with that over time.
Speaker #3: I hope that helps.
Speaker #2: And we're constantly learning on that. So I don't want to characterize it as we weren't having engagement, but there's no question as we do it more frequently and we have success doing it, that success breeds more success and more people are doing it.
Speaker #8: No, that was helpful. And then that's my follow-up here. In terms of the roughly flat client count growth this year, is there anything to call out in terms of notable differences, whether it came to—call it—the core Paychex versus Paycor, and when might this potentially inflect and return back to growth?
Speaker #2: And that's what we're seeing in our bookings and our referrals this year across all the platform was stellar. It really drove a lot of the booking success that we had this year.
Speaker #2: No. I think when you look at it from a retention perspective, across the board, our client retention was record in our ASO/PO business. We're site employee basis.
Speaker #1: Okay.
Speaker #5: I mean, the only thing I would just add to it is that, I mean, it's the reason why we did the deal, right? I mean, it was one of the main reasons why we did the deal is the opportunity to go after those revenue synergies because we knew how successful that we had been in going in monetizing our client base, particularly with these higher value solutions.
Speaker #2: Our 100-plus, as I said, was a record level as well. When you look at client losses, client losses tend to be in the lower end of the market and tend to be out of business.
Speaker #2: And that's just really where the year has gone. And, as I said repeatedly, we constantly are selective in the clients that we're going to bring into the business.
Speaker #5: And so we're already having a ton of success with the Paycor client base that I think when we did the deal, we highlighted that that wasn't one-and-done type of thing that we would continue to build momentum there over time as we went after that opportunity.
Speaker #2: We know what a good client's going to be. A client that we can attach, a client we're going to get lifetime value on. We understand the cost of acquisition very, very well.
Speaker #2: And we're not going to do irrational things just to add clients. That are not going to be profitable clients. You cannot achieve the margin profile that we do and have a lot of unprofitable clients.
Speaker #5: We exceeded this year's number and now we got to grow over that, right? And we would expect probably even stronger contribution next year and beyond to growth.
Speaker #2: So that's going to continue to be our strategy. And we think that's going to continue to not only grow revenue for us, but I think it's also going to make sure that we have the right underlying financial performance in terms of margins and margin expansion going forward.
Speaker #5: And I do think it is what's fueling a lot of the improvement in the organic revenue growth that we've talked about as we've moved through the year.
Speaker #4: That's really helpful context. Thank you. And then maybe to go back to a question earlier on AI monetization and whys, as you sort of roll this out to customers, is this something that you think is going to be more for SMBs?
Speaker #8: Got it. Thank you.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Daniel Jester with BMO Capital Markets.
Speaker #4: Is this more enterprise? Who do you think is going to be able to engage with these tools kind of out of the gate? How do you see that ramping?
Speaker #5: Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. On the revenue synergies, the outperformance that you had this fiscal year, more than 50 basis points, it sounded like from some of the comments on the questions that maybe the Paycore Salesforce wasn't sort of fully engaged the whole fiscal year.
Speaker #4: Thank you.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Look, I think that this product is going to resonate with clients of all sizes. And the reason why I say that, let's just talk about the HR compliance capabilities that we now have.
Speaker #5: And so is there any way to think about how that cross-sell could progress next year or the opportunity? Could it actually contribute more to growth next fiscal year than this past one?
Speaker #2: Based upon our 50-year history, for a client that does not have an HR department, this enables them to, in real time, make sure that they're always in compliance.
Speaker #5: Thank you.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I mean, I'll start.
Speaker #3: Yeah. Go ahead. Well, first thing, I don't want to categorize it as they weren't engaged. We were very engaged and we had good success.
Speaker #2: So when you're hitting thresholds in a certain state, either because you now hired your fifth employee and now you've got certain state stipulations that you've got to do certain things.
Speaker #3: You look at ASO and retirement penetration really exceeded our expectations. PO, which is a longer sales cycle, we got several large deals and that's accelerated as the years went on.
Speaker #2: Instead of you needing to wait or remembering it's five or for us reminding you you just hired your fifth, the systems automatically doing that and automatically taking the action to enroll you in a workers' comp program or unemployment insurance.
Speaker #3: Look, I’d go back and remind you, we did change territories. We changed management, we changed leadership structure, and we retrained them on the various products and services. All that didn’t start until June a year ago.
Speaker #2: So I think in the small end, I think this is going to give them greater peace of mind. I think we're going to have less errors on tax and tax ID issues that we have, which I think is going to be beneficial for retention perspective.
Speaker #3: So what I would not characterize it wasn't a lack of engagement. It's really just that point of kind of learning and then getting accustomed to, okay, how do I put this into my sales motion?
Speaker #2: And then I think as you go upmarket, I think this tool in the hands of an HR professional is going to give them far more confidence and capability to be able to focus on strategic HR initiatives.
Speaker #3: How do I put these talk tracks in? And how do I engage my Paychex partners in the sales process? So, as you can imagine, you just get better with that over time.
Speaker #2: And have our AI models and agents actually do the work for them. Stop this. Our whys AI compliance tool some of which we did through acquisition integrates with most of the large HCM platforms that are in the market today.
Speaker #3: And we're constantly learning on that. So I don't want to characterize it as we weren't having engagement, but there's no question, as we do it more frequently and we have success doing it, that success breeds more success, and more people are doing it.
Speaker #3: And that's what we're seeing in our bookings and our referrals this year across all the platforms was stellar. It really drove a lot of the booking success that we had this year.
Speaker #2: So again, as I said, you can have the compliance AI agentic AI patent pending paycheck compliance capability regardless of the platform that you're on.
Speaker #1: Okay. Hopefully.
Speaker #2: I mean, the only thing I would just add to it is that I mean, it's the reason why we did the deal, right? I mean, it was one of the main reasons why we did the deal is the opportunity to go after those revenue synergies because we knew how successful that we had been in going in monetizing our client base, particularly with these higher value solutions.
Speaker #2: And we will integrate with your platform to help you have a digital HR agent keep you compliant.
Speaker #4: Great. Thank you very much.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Jacob Smith with Guggenheim Securities.
Speaker #2: And so, we're already having a ton of success with the Paycor client base. I think, when we did the deal, we highlighted that that wasn't a one-and-done type of thing—that we would continue to build momentum there over time as we went after that opportunity.
Speaker #6: Hey. Thanks for taking my question. How did Paycor broker referrals trend during the quarter? Did you continue to see acceleration in bookings? Like you called out last quarter.
Speaker #6: And then on the hub international partnership, you announced back in May. Curious what's actually different in that arrangement versus how you and Paycor worked with the broker channel before.
Speaker #2: We exceeded this year's number, and now we've got to grow over that, right? And we would expect probably even stronger contribution next year and beyond to growth.
Speaker #6: You've also had several quarters now to gather feedback from partners on what they want to see. I'm wondering if this is an evolution of the partner plus program and whether this model is something you're looking to take to other national brokerages to drive new business referrals going forward.
Speaker #2: And I do think it is what's fueling a lot of the improvement in the organic revenue growth that we've talked about as we've moved through the year.
Speaker #2: Yeah. No. Our bookings holistically through the Paycor, again, our enterprise, through our enterprise reps, has grown every quarter since the acquisition. And the broker pipeline has continued to grow with it, including the fourth quarter being higher.
Speaker #5: That's really helpful context, so thank you. And then, maybe to go back to a question earlier on AI monetization and whys: as you sort of roll this out to customers, is this something that you think is going to be more for SMBs?
Speaker #5: Is this more enterprise? Who do you think is going to be able to engage with these tools kind of out of the gate? How do you see that ramping?
Speaker #2: Then the third quarter. So again, even with even if you strip out seasonality, which there is in that business in terms of timing, we're seeing and we're now back to what I would say is pre-acquisition levels in that area.
Speaker #5: Thank you.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Look, I think that this product is going to resonate with clients of all sizes. And the reason why I say that, let's just talk about the HR compliance capabilities that we now have.
Speaker #2: We did sign actually two one is named Hub, you mentioned one. There's another one. Unnamed that we have already signed. And it is part of our partner plus.
Speaker #2: Based upon our 50-year history, for a client that does not have an HR department, this enables them to, in real time, make sure that they're always in compliance.
Speaker #2: The thing that is different about the partner plus program that we're going to market with is it is holistic. They are able to represent all of our products and services, any product and services that we have.
Speaker #2: And the paychecks portfolio, we're also partnering with them. On some of the HR compliance and some of the HR capabilities that I just mentioned to you.
Speaker #2: So when you're hitting thresholds in a certain state—either because you now hired your fifth employee and now you've got certain state stipulations, that you've got to do certain things—instead of you needing to wait or remember it's five, or for us reminding you just hired your fifth, the system's automatically doing that and automatically taking the action to enroll you in a workers' comp program or unemployment insurance.
Speaker #2: So I really think when you begin to look at the holistic both advisory solutions, compliance tools, and then the breadth of the capabilities we have from a technology perspective, we're bringing all that to bear in our partner plus program for brokers.
Speaker #2: And so we actually are getting good feedback from those loyal brokers that have been there. And as we're adding new brokers, they like the approach that we're bringing, that it's a holistic approach.
Speaker #2: So I think in the small end, I think this is going to give them greater peace of mind. I think we're going to have less errors on tax and tax ID issues that we have, which I think is going to be beneficial for retention perspective.
Speaker #6: Great. Thanks. And a quick follow-up as well. Just on Paycor sales headcount, last quarter you mentioned intention to expand there. Maybe just an update there.
Speaker #2: And then I think as you go upmarket, I think this tool in the hands of an HR professional is going to give them far more confidence and capability to be able to focus on strategic HR initiatives and have our AI models and agents actually do the work for them.
Speaker #6: Should we expect that's a help FY27 bookings or maybe a little bit further out since there's a ramp period?
Speaker #2: Yes. I mean, we have we're committed as we said when we did the acquisition to continue to add sales headcount. That is in our plan and we are actively building sales headcount as we speak.
Speaker #2: Stop this. Our Wise AI compliance tool, some of which we developed through acquisition, integrates with most of the large HCM platforms that are in the market today.
Speaker #2: So we have openings. So if you know anybody, you can refer.
Speaker #2: So again, as I said, you can have the compliance AI, agentic AI, patent-pending Paychex compliance capability regardless of the platform that you're on.
Speaker #6: Great. Thank you.
Speaker #1: Thank you. We'll go next now to Samad Samana at Jefferies.
Speaker #7: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just unpacking the fiscal 27 guidance a little bit. If I think about kind of the assumptions around unit growth versus pricing contribution versus new bookings.
Speaker #2: And we will integrate with your platform to help you have a digital HR agent keep you compliant.
Speaker #5: Great. Thank you very much.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Jacob Smith with Guggenheim Securities.
Speaker #7: I know you guys don't guide to those components specifically, but just as we think about the fiscal 26 contribution, how are you tilting those variables?
Speaker #6: Hey, thanks for taking my question. How did Paycore broker referrals trend during the quarter? Did you continue to see acceleration in bookings, like you called out last quarter?
Speaker #7: What are you assuming? Are you assuming retention's flat up or down? How are you thinking about the amount of price you can take in fiscal 27 versus 26?
Speaker #6: And then on the Hub International partnership you announced back in May, I'm curious—what's actually different in that arrangement versus how you and Paycor worked with the broker channel before?
Speaker #7: Just help us understand the growth algorithm given all the changes that have occurred over the last 18 months.
Speaker #6: You've also had several quarters now to gather feedback from partners on what they want to see. I'm wondering if this is an evolution of the Partner Plus program and whether this model is something you're looking to take to other national brokerages to drive new business referrals going forward.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I mean, we always put together a plan where we're trying to sell more and lose less. So retention has improved significantly over the last five years, particularly when you look at the ASO and PO.
Speaker #2: It's pretty remarkable how much retention has improved. But the teams always challenge themselves. And we're always trying to get better and improve retention. Obviously, trying to look to grow sales as John mentioned, look for opportunities to add headcount.
Speaker #2: Yeah, no. Our bookings holistically, through Paycor—again, our enterprise, through our enterprise reps—have grown every quarter since the acquisition. And the broker pipeline has continued to grow with it, including the fourth quarter being higher.
Speaker #2: And so when you look at our client base, Samad and our assumptions, listen, our client base has been relatively flat. We're not getting a ton of growth from that.
Speaker #2: Then the third quarter. So again, even with even if you strip out seasonality, which there is in that business in terms of timing, we're seeing and we're now back to what I would say is pre-acquisition levels in that area.
Speaker #2: Really, we don't need to get a ton of growth out of that. We're trying to be thoughtful and make the right investments and really trying to attract the right client.
Speaker #2: And so overall, we're trying to outsell our losses and grow our client base a little bit, but really trying to grow our client base in the right client sizes.
Speaker #2: We did sign, actually, two. One is named Hub—you mentioned that one. There's another one, unnamed, that we have already signed, and it is part of our Partner Plus.
Speaker #2: I mean, that was one of the reasons why we pulled the trigger on the Paycor acquisition, trying to get larger clients in the door because we know where we've gotten all of our growth from ASO and PO retirement services.
Speaker #2: The thing that is different about the Partner Plus program that we're going to market with is it is holistic. They are able to represent all of our products and services—any product and service that we have.
Speaker #2: And the Paychex portfolio, we're also partnering with them on some of the HR compliance and some of the HR capabilities that I just mentioned to you.
Speaker #2: A lot of those solutions meet the needs of larger customers. But our assumption is not that we're going to have generate a ton of client base growth that we would continue to maintain our client base, but maybe improve in the right client sizes to really execute on our model, which I think you and I have talked about this is really a revenue per client model really our ability to go in, get a larger share of wallet, out of our client base.
Speaker #2: So, I really think, when you begin to look at the holistic—both advisory solutions, compliance tools, and then the breadth of the capabilities we have from a technology perspective—we're bringing all that to bear in our Partner Plus program for brokers.
Speaker #2: And so we actually are getting good feedback from those loyal brokers that have been there. And as we're adding new brokers, they like the approach that we're bringing, that it's a holistic approach.
Speaker #2: When we look at the penetration rates of the key solutions, within the paychecks flex client base, there's still relatively low. So we see lots of opportunities there.
Speaker #2: And then obviously, there's the huge opportunity in front of us that we've been executing on with the Paycor client base. And so when you look at the plan next year, it's that.
Speaker #6: Great, thanks. And a quick follow-up as well—just on Paycor sales headcount. Last quarter, you mentioned an intention to expand there. Maybe just an update on that?
Speaker #2: It's assuming that client base will be relatively flat, but maybe improving a little bit and in the right client sizes. And then it's really going to be an increase in revenue per client, which is really our model roughly half of that is coming from pricing and half of it is coming from share of wallet.
Speaker #6: Should we expect that to help FY27 bookings, or maybe a little bit further out since there's a ramp period?
Speaker #2: Yes. I mean, we have we're committed as we said when we did the acquisition to continue to add sales headcount that is in our plan and we are actively building sales headcount as we speak.
Speaker #2: And as I mentioned, there's a bit of a headwind on float this year, just given what happened with short-term rates at the end of last calendar year.
Speaker #2: So, we have openings. So if you know anybody, you can refer them.
Speaker #2: So that's kind of how we're thinking about the year.
Speaker #6: Great. And then I just want to ask one follow-up on the especially since you just mentioned kind of revenue per client. I thought the discussion around, I guess, being able to have products and not while not having the payroll or core payroll module, is a good strategy for the retention component.
Speaker #6: Great. Thank you.
Speaker #1: Thank you. We'll go next, now, to Samad Samana at Jefferies.
Speaker #7: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just unpacking the fiscal 27 guidance a little bit. If I think about kind of the assumptions around unit growth versus pricing contribution versus new bookings.
Speaker #6: But how is that impacting maybe the initial land? Are you seeing the funnel either broaden to where you're getting a greater mix of non-payroll customers at the outset of joining the paychecks journey?
Speaker #7: I know you guys don't guide to those components specifically, but just as we think about the fiscal 26 contribution, how are you tilting those variables?
Speaker #6: And is that changing maybe what the average revenue per new customer added looks like? And how should we think about that maybe in your guidance as well?
Speaker #7: What are you assuming? Are you assuming retention is flat, up, or down? How are you thinking about the amount of price you can take in fiscal '27 versus '26?
Speaker #2: No. I think Samad, what you should think about is as we've now had now that we have this capability and we've been using this capability to let's say just somewhat defensively.
Speaker #7: Just help us understand the growth algorithm given all the changes that have occurred over the last 18 months.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I mean, we always put together a plan where we're trying to sell more and lose less. So retention has improved significantly over the last five years, particularly when you look at the ASO and PO.
Speaker #2: Let's don't lose everything. Let's if there's opportunities for us to add a client on a standalone basis that is non-standalone payroll, let's go and do that.
Speaker #2: It's pretty remarkable how much retention has improved. But the teams always challenge themselves and we're always trying to get better and improve retention. Obviously, trying to look to grow sales as John mentioned, look for opportunities to add headcount.
Speaker #2: I think what you're going to see is now that we have this capability, we will try to begin to integrate that into our sales motion so that if it's not the right time, for a client to transition their payroll provider, their HCM provider, it may be the right time for them to leverage our compliance tool or it may be the right time for them to use another one of our products or services like one of our benefits.
Speaker #2: And so when you look at our client base, Samad, and our assumptions—listen, our client base has been relatively flat. We're not getting a ton of growth from that.
Speaker #2: Really, we don't need to get a ton of growth out of that. We're trying to be thoughtful and make the right investments and really trying to attract the right client.
Speaker #2: So retirement or etc. So I think one of the things that is probably different in the motion that we now have the capability to do that we just have to figure out the economics, the go-to-market strategy around is, okay, when I'm in that deal and I'm trying to sell the entire bundle, which is typically what we're trying to do.
Speaker #2: And so overall, we're trying to outsell our losses and grow our client base a little bit, but really trying to grow our client base in the right client sizes.
Speaker #2: I mean, that was one of the reasons why we pulled the trigger on the Paycor acquisition—trying to get larger clients in the door, because we know where we’ve gotten all of our growth from: ASO and PEO retirement services.
Speaker #2: We're trying to convince someone to move to our HCM and payroll platform. And then we're bringing our 401(k) partner in at the same time.
Speaker #2: Those things are generally or insurance or ASO, those things were generally done as a integrated bundle. If you did it when the HCM payroll, you didn't win anything.
Speaker #2: A lot of those solutions meet the needs of larger customers. But our assumption is not that we're going to have generate a ton of client base growth that we would continue to maintain our client base, but maybe improve in the right client sizes to really execute on our model, which I think you and I have talked about this is really a revenue per client model, really our ability to go in, get a larger share of wallet, out of our client base.
Speaker #2: And now what we're in what we have an enablement to do technologically, that's the start, right, is that we can actually bill it and we can actually collect it and we can actually service it.
Speaker #2: That's the breakthrough here. And I think now we're just really to the point of saying, okay, can you do that profitably? What are the economics of that?
Speaker #2: But certainly the capability is what I'm excited about because I do think it gives us an opportunity to be able to impact more customers in the marketplace and then build a relationship with them.
Speaker #2: When we look at the penetration rates of the key solutions within the Paychex Flex client base, they're still relatively low. So, we see lots of opportunities there.
Speaker #2: And then obviously, there's the huge opportunity in front of us that we've been executing on with the Paycore client base. And so when you look at the plan next year, it's that.
Speaker #2: And I think over the long term, what we've proven is that over the long term, if we build a relationship with a client, they're going to buy more from us and they're getting value.
Speaker #2: I look at our retention this year for example, our price value losses were down significantly. Again, that's a it's a very competitive environment. And I think it just indicates that customers are seeing the value that we're providing.
Speaker #2: It's assuming that the client base will be relatively flat, but maybe improving a little bit and in the right client sizes. And then it's really going to be an increase in revenue per client, which is really our model. Roughly half of that is coming from pricing and half of it is coming from share of wallet.
Speaker #2: And I think as long as we continue to do that, and now that we have more products and services that we can serve those clients with, I think it gives us more opportunities to get hooks into a client.
Speaker #2: And as I mentioned, there's a bit of a headwind on float this year, just given what happened with short-term rates at the end of last calendar year.
Speaker #2: So that's kind of how we're thinking about the year.
Speaker #2: And then I think if we get a hook into a client, I think we know how to monetize that relationship over the long term.
Speaker #6: Great. And then I just want to ask one follow-up on the especially since you just mentioned kind of revenue per client. I thought the discussion around, I guess, being able to have products and not while not having the payroll or core payroll module, is a good strategy for the retention component.
Speaker #6: Great. Thank you so much.
Speaker #7: Thanks, Samad.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Ashish Shabadra at RBC Capital Markets.
Speaker #8: Hey. Good morning, guys. This is Bill Chi for Ashish Shabadra. Appreciate you guys taking our question. Maybe just on the fiscal year '27 margin guidance, 44% I think came in a little bit above our expectations.
Speaker #6: But how is that impacting maybe the initial land? Are you seeing the funnel either broaden to where you're getting a greater mix of non-payroll customers at the outset of joining the Paychex journey?
Speaker #8: I think you alluded to some of the factors with the better client selection, but just wondering if you could break out the drivers there as we kind of rationalize increased resources towards Salesforce, but also general kind of cost management and optimization across the rest of the fund.
Speaker #6: And is that changing maybe what the average revenue per new customer added looks like? And how should we think about that, maybe in your guidance as well?
Speaker #2: No. I think Samad, what you should think about is as we've now had now that we have this capability and we've been using this capability to let's say just somewhat defensively, let's don't lose everything.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Well, let me start by saying I said approximately 44%. So you can leave that to interpretation. So listen, I think we typically are looking for ways to in a normal year, we're looking at 25 to 50 basis points of margin expansion.
Speaker #2: Let's if there's opportunities for us to add a client on a standalone basis that is non-standalone payroll, let's go and do that. I think what you're going to see is now that we have this capability, we will try to begin to integrate that into our sales motion so that if it's not the right time, for a client to transition their payroll provider, their HCM provider, it may be the right time for them to leverage our compliance tool or it may be the right time for them to use another one of our products or services like one of our benefits.
Speaker #2: This is probably on the guide probably assumes the higher end of that. And I think we've talked a lot about this. I think the investments in technology and what we're seeing from a productivity standpoint, if you asked us a few years ago, whether we'd be able to get to 44% margins, we probably would have had a different answer, but we continue to look for ways to be more productive, more efficient, one of the metrics that John and I are holding ourselves in the team accountable to is really trying to drive higher service revenue per employee.
Speaker #2: So, retirement or etcetera. So, I think one of the things that is probably different in the motion that we now have the capability to do, that we just have to figure out the economics and the go-to-market strategy around, is—okay, when I'm in that deal and I'm trying to sell the entire bundle, which is typically what we're trying to do.
Speaker #2: And that's growing at a rate higher than our revenue growth rate. And so that certainly helps with driving margin expansion. And then I'd say the other thing that think about there too is we bought a business that had structurally significantly lower operating margins than what we had.
Speaker #2: We're trying to convince someone to move to our HCM and payroll platform. And then we're bringing our 401(k) partner in at the same time.
Speaker #2: Those things are generally or insurance or ASO, those things were generally done as an integrated bundle. If you did it when the HCM payroll, you didn't win anything.
Speaker #2: And we came in and we applied our operating model to it. Got a lot of synergies associated with that. And you're going to see the full year a lot of that was realized this year.
Speaker #2: And now what we're in what we have an enablement to do technologically, that's the start, right, is that we can actually bill it and we can actually collect it and we can actually service it.
Speaker #2: But you're also going to get the full year impact of that next year, which helps from a margin standpoint. And we're not done. I'm not sure we'll talk further about expense synergies as we go forward.
Speaker #2: That's the breakthrough here. And I think now we're just really to the point of saying, okay, can you do that profitably? What are the economics of that?
Speaker #2: It'll be BAU, but we see further opportunities there. Certainly from a procurement standpoint, as contracts come up for renewal and those types of things.
Speaker #2: But certainly, the capabilities are what I'm excited about because I do think it gives us an opportunity to impact more customers in the marketplace, and then build a relationship with them.
Speaker #2: But I would say those are probably the things that contributed to maybe being a bit on the high end of a normal year, but not too dissimilar than what we've been able to deliver I think it was 70 basis points this year.
Speaker #2: And I think, over the long term, what we've proven is that, if we build a relationship with a client, they're going to buy more from us and they're getting value.
Speaker #2: It's in that range next year. Yeah. I don't again, I'm going to I'm going to harp on this a little bit because this is something that doesn't get exposure.
Speaker #2: I look at our retention this year for example, our price value losses were down significantly. Again, that's a it's a very competitive environment. And I think it just indicates that customers are seeing the value that we're providing.
Speaker #2: You can't go to HR tech. And look at our back office systems. You go to HR tech and you look at all the client-facing components.
Speaker #2: And so I know for some people, it's a mystery how we can have the margins we have, 42, 44%. And it really has to do with the heritage of us being a payroll service company that invested a lot of technology and having a very tight operating model and system internally.
Speaker #2: And I think as long as we continue to do that, and now that we have more products and services that we can serve those clients with, I think it gives us more opportunities to get hooks into a client.
Speaker #2: And then I think if we get a hook into a client, I think we know how to monetize that relationship over the long term.
Speaker #2: And so I always say that because this modelization that we've been able to unlock and do systematically across each portion of the back office component of what we do, I think has been one of the reasons why you've seen this constant progression.
Speaker #6: Great. Thank you so much.
Speaker #1: Thanks, Samad.
Speaker #7: We'll go next now to Ashish Shabadra at RBC Capital Markets.
Speaker #8: Hey. Good morning, guys. This is Bill Chi for Ashish Shabadra. Appreciate you guys taking our question. Maybe just on the fiscal year '27 margin guidance, 44% I think came in a little bit above our expectations.
Speaker #2: It's why when we went into an acquisition, even I remember in the Oasis days, when we did the Oasis acquisition and someone from their operations comes in and looks at our tax capability and go like, "Well, when can we get off of ours?" Right?
Speaker #8: I think you alluded to some of the factors with better client selection, but just wondering if you could break out the drivers there as we kind of rationalize increased resources towards Salesforce, but also general cost management and optimization across the rest of the firm.
Speaker #2: So it's those type of things you begin to have that because in our business, the most expensive most expense is generated by mistakes. And errors.
Speaker #2: Because if you have to clean up a tax error, then it takes a lot of manual work to do that with the government, etc.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Well, let me start by saying I said approximately 44%. So you can leave that to interpretation. So listen, I think we typically are looking for ways to in a normal year, we're looking at 25 to 50 basis points of margin expansion.
Speaker #2: So the capability now to prevent these errors upfront and now to be able to use agentic AI to actually proactively identify those issues and get in front of them and actually fix them on our behalf at the scale that we operate, that is a significant benefit.
Speaker #2: This is probably on the guide probably assumes the higher end of that. And I think we've talked a lot about this. I think the investments in technology and what we're seeing from a productivity standpoint, if you asked us a few years ago, whether we'd be able to get to 44% margins, we probably would have had a different answer, but we continue to look for ways to be more productive, more efficient, one of the metrics that John and I are holding ourselves and the team accountable to is really trying to drive higher service revenue per employee.
Speaker #2: And it really frees up resources for us to move more resources to an advisory and support capability so that we can be more responsive to our clients when they need us.
Speaker #2: And a lot of that benefit, we're going to be able to drive more value to customers and so I'm really excited. Again, as you guys know, I'm the old operator here.
Speaker #2: So these are the things that I was dreaming we would have someday. And now we have them. And I think there's a lot of potential and a lot of runway because literally, we just got this completed.
Speaker #2: And so more to come I think in the years ahead here.
Speaker #2: And that's growing at a rate higher than our revenue growth rate. And so that certainly helps with driving margin expansion. And then I think the other thing that think about there too is we bought a business that had structurally significantly lower operating margins than what we had.
Speaker #8: Thank you, guys.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Karthik Mehta at North Coast Research.
Speaker #9: Hey, good morning, John and Bob. Yeah. I wanted to go back to a comment you made or Bob made on client growth. And kind of just to understand your philosophy on client growth and looking at that.
Speaker #2: And we came in and we applied our operating model to it, got a lot of synergies associated with that. And you're going to see the full year a lot of that was realized this year.
Speaker #9: And I know you said it's going to be kind of flat to obsoletely. And how you're approaching that and do you think you can accelerate client growth or would that be bad and hurt margins?
Speaker #2: But you're also going to get the full-year impact of that next year, which helps from a margin standpoint. And we're not done. I'm sure we'll talk further about expense synergies as we go forward.
Speaker #9: I'm just interested to get your perspective on that.
Speaker #2: It'll be BAU, but we see further opportunities there. Certainly from a procurement standpoint, as contracts come up for renewal and those types of things.
Speaker #2: Well, Karthik, I think the first thing we want to do is we want to make sure we're driving retention at our highest lifetime value customer segments.
Speaker #2: But I would say those are probably the things that contributed to maybe being a bit on the high end of a normal year, but not too dissimilar than what we've been able to deliver I think it was 70 basis points this year.
Speaker #2: So we already said record PO, ASO, and 100-plus. And let's start there. When you look at where we have client attrition, again, you go back and let's look holistically at payroll.
Speaker #2: It's in that range next year. Yeah. I don't again, I'm going to I'm going to harp on this a little bit because this is something that doesn't get exposure.
Speaker #2: Our payroll retention is at pre-pandemic levels, which I would remind you was record levels at the time. For paychecks. So at the end of the day, from retention perspective, I think we're holding our own.
Speaker #2: You can't go to HR Tech and look at our back office systems. You go to HR Tech and you look at all the client-facing components.
Speaker #2: In the marketplace, where we are putting our go-to-market motions are in our higher value segments. And what we're trying to do, as you look in the lower end of the market, is we're trying to make sure that we are not overpaying from a cost of acquisition for a client that we know we will not make a long-term return on or monetize.
Speaker #2: And so I know for some people, it's a mystery how we can have the margins we have, 42, 44%, and it really has to do with the heritage of us being a payroll service company that invested a lot of technology and having a very tight operating model and system internally.
Speaker #2: And so I always say that because this modelization that we've been able to unlock and do systematically across each portion of the back office component of what we do, I think has been one of the reasons why you've seen this constant progression.
Speaker #2: And again, that's been our philosophy. I think is that's how we get the margins. We do. That's how we focus on driving more value over the long term.
Speaker #2: It's why when we went into an acquisition, even I remember in the Oasis days, when we did the Oasis acquisition and someone from their operations comes in and looks at our tax capability and go like, "Well, when can we get off of ours?" Right?
Speaker #2: And so that is our that's our operating model as Bob says. It's not been a big part of our growth story. Over the past several years, and really that's been our strategy at this point in time.
Speaker #2: So, it's those types of things—you begin to have that—because in our business, the most expense is generated by mistakes and errors.
Speaker #9: Perfect job. And just a follow-up just to your perspective on competition. Obviously, based on the bookings growth you've talked about, it looks like Paychex is holding its own better than holding its own.
Speaker #2: Because if you have to clean up a tax error, then it takes a lot of manual work to do that with the government, etc.
Speaker #9: So curious as to what the competitive environment looks like.
Speaker #2: I don't look. I think the competitive environment remains exactly the same. I think it's a very competitive market. I think that we have a broad suite of products and services.
Speaker #2: I think obviously our value proposition is resonating well with our existing clients given the retention we've had. And I think when you look at the bookings accelerating, we're doing very well.
Speaker #2: We're certainly doing extremely well in the PO business. And I would say the HR advisory side just given the growth rates that we're seeing in comparison to the other benchmarks I've seen in the industry.
Speaker #2: So I feel good about the way we're positioned. We have a competitive product. And I've not seen any major shifts in the competitors or in competitive behaviors as well.
Speaker #9: Perfect. Thank you very much. As always, appreciate it.
Speaker #1: Thanks, Karthik.
Speaker #2: Thanks, Karthik.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to David Grossman with Stifel.
Speaker #10: Hi. Good morning. Thank you. So healthcare costs have been fairly elevated this year, actually quite elevated. And then just curious, what impact if any did the changes in healthcare inflation have on the growth of the PEO?
Speaker #10: And if you could just remind us on whether the PEO renewals are skewed to any particular quarter or quarters like it is for some of your peers.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I mean, I'll start and then John can add on. I think in general, medical inflation, which is high and we would expect to continue to be high, I think that is a tailwind for the PEO business.
Speaker #2: I think it's helping drive our growth. Certainly, I think we have a long history of trying to help small businesses punch above their weight.
Speaker #2: And I think that's one of the strengths of that PEO business model that we can typically leverage our scale and being able to offer rates and benefits to small businesses that cheaper than what they'd be able to offer on their own.
Speaker #2: And so I see that as contributing to the strength of that business model that we're currently seeing and we would expect that to continue in the future.
Speaker #2: As it relates to our renewals, David, I think there's two. There's one that happens just based on acquisitions and so forth. We haven't fully aligned those.
Speaker #2: There's one that happens in the fall timeframe and then there's one that happens at the beginning of the calendar year. We went through both of those this year with successful renewals.
Speaker #2: And when I look at across the PEO, whether it's our Florida at-risk medical plans, whether it's maybe attachment within our agency, and the open market, or whether it's outside of Florida on our other master plans, our medical enrollment was up really across the board.
Speaker #2: And again, I think that just speaks to the value of that business model and really helping small businesses deal with a pretty big challenge for them, not only inflation, but the cost of medical inflation.
Speaker #2: Yeah. Look, I think this is one of the top three issues that I think our market segment faces is in order to compete for labor, which is very difficult for small, medium-sized businesses to compete with, you've got to be able to have a competitive benefit packages against larger companies.
Speaker #2: Okay? So I've got to do it to be competitive for labor. And then when you look at the cost, the cost is in many ways unsustainable for both the employer and the employee.
Speaker #2: So it's a double-edged sword. While you get the tailwind of a rising cost of your insurance that may show up in your revenue, the problem is that rising cost also scares people away from being able to afford it.
Speaker #2: So it kind of balances itself out. And I think to Bob's point, that's why we've had a multitude of different ways in which we can procure and provide health insurance both in our PO and more generally across our business.
Speaker #2: And I think it's the other thing that we continue to try to do is come up with innovative approaches to be able to assist small businesses.
Speaker #2: You look at our perks product. So again, we offer these types of health and dental and other traditional big company benefits. And our perks marketplace, we're an employer can say, "I offer these benefits, but they don't pay into it." And then we're providing a discounted and a better user experience just like in an open enrollment for one of their employees to be able to buy it à la carte.
Speaker #2: We have over 400,000 unique employees buying from that marketplace today. And as we mentioned, we're now rolling that out to the Paycor 2.5 million employees.
Speaker #2: We also have a health reimbursement arrangement solution that we've brought to market and will continue to bring to market to try to help businesses.
Speaker #2: So look, I think this healthcare inflation issue is real. It's a real squeeze for small and medium-sized businesses that want to compete for labor.
Speaker #2: And they're at a disadvantage. And we're providing a ton of different options and that's why they're gravitating towards our PO because it's not one size fits all.
Speaker #2: We can give you a multitude of different solutions and your employees will have a very similar experiences if they were on a master plan.
Speaker #2: So I do think that's another differentiator for us in the marketplace there.
Speaker #9: Great. Thank you very much for that. And just one other quick one. Bob, I know you said the cadence of growth should be relatively consistent across the year.
Speaker #9: However, given we all over-indexed a very small variations in growth quarter to quarter, just based on the comps, is it reasonable to expect that we'd be closer to the high end of the range in the first half or the higher the upper half of the range in the first half of the year and maybe the lower half in the second half of the year just based on your tick and the comparisons?
Speaker #2: Yeah. David, I'm not sure I want to get into trying to parse the quarters at this point in time. There's puts and takes as we go through the year.
Speaker #2: We'll kind of update you guys and try to provide more color on at least the next quarter. Again, I'm kind of looking at it in front of me and there's not really a lot of variation quarter to quarter.
Speaker #2: So we'll provide more color on the splits as we move through the year, but just kind of given we're at the beginning of the year.
Speaker #2: And it's fairly consistent as we move through the year. I'm not going to kind of get into the puts and takes between the different quarters at this point in time.
Speaker #9: Great. Fair enough. Thank you very much.
Speaker #2: Yep. Thank you.
Speaker #1: We'll go next now to Scott Wurzel with Wolf Research.
Speaker #10: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just one from me. Just thinking about the potential cross-sell opportunities with the PEO. Have you given any thought to sort of bringing the PEO platform and functionality over to the Paycor side?
Speaker #10: Or is it going to continue to just remain on the paychecks platform? Thanks.
Speaker #2: Oh, so Scott, I think the complexities of PO tax and unemployment insurance are a pretty heavy lift. We feel like we have a very solid platform.
Speaker #2: We've worked a lot on managing that migration because remember we did that would say that we continually to look, particularly with the advances we're seeing from product development perspective with the use of AI.
Speaker #2: And as I talked about before, as we now have completed the modularization of our various back office components, that's certainly something that we'll continue to look at.
Speaker #2: What we are committed to is offering a client a seamless migration path across our platforms and across our solutions. And whether that's done from moving them to one platform to another platform and doing that in a very seamless and effortless way, or whether that's empowering each one of our platforms to offer the full suite of capabilities is really going to be a cost-benefit do.
Speaker #10: Thanks, guys.
Speaker #2: Yep. Scott.
Speaker #1: And we'll go next now to Jason Cooperberg with Wells Fargo.
Speaker #11: Hey, thank you guys. Good morning. So just reflecting on your midterm target for upper single-digit revenue growth. I mean, this year obviously we're guiding five to six, very consistent with what you had previewed last quarter.
Speaker #11: But just conceptually, as we think about that medium-term, does upper single digit still feel like the right range or is it possible we need some more M&A to get there?
Speaker #11: We'd love some perspective on that. Thanks.
Speaker #2: Yeah. I mean, I think if you look at kind of historically, the business, I mean, we updated the slides in the investor slides. So when you look at the revenue carrier, it's obviously much higher.
Speaker #2: I think it's a no, it's actually a 13, I think, on the top line over the last five years. Obviously, big contribution from Paycor.
Speaker #2: But if you strip that out, Jason, we've typically been in that seven to eight percent range historically. And when you look at the growth formula, whatever you want to call it, it typically we're driving 1 to 2 percent from M&A.
Speaker #2: And that continues to be an area of interest to us to look for opportunities. I don't expect us to do anything at least in the near term that we just did with the Paycor acquisition.
Speaker #2: But there's certainly opportunities out there and we would expect to leverage M&A prospectively like we have in the past to drive growth in our business where we see opportunities.
Speaker #2: And so I think if you look at the organic growth of the business coupled with what we've historically contributed over a longer period of time, 1 to 2 percent from M&A, you can clearly see where it's in that upper single-digit range.
Speaker #11: Okay. That color is helpful. And just coming back to the conversation earlier about some of the recategorization between paychecks and Paycor. I know you took the sub-100 employee client from Paycor, put them in paychecks, and then the 100-plus obviously going to Paycor and that's making some of the comparability in the apples to apples harder to really discuss.
Speaker #11: But sitting here today, if we look at management solutions, revenue, based on all this recategorization, what percent of MS revenue is now enterprise i.e. the 100-plus?
Speaker #2: I don't have that breakdown in front of me to be fair and I don't really want to try to guess. I mean, when we look at that enterprise segment, we're not just talking management solutions.
Speaker #2: We're looking at the entire business. So certainly in the PEO, we have larger clients as well. So I just maybe that's something that we can add to just based on your feedback.
Speaker #2: We can add to a future IR deck. But I don't have that breakdown in front of me.
Speaker #11: Okay. That would be great. Thanks, Bob.
Speaker #2: Yep. Thank you.
Speaker #1: Thank you. And gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions this morning. Mr. Gibson, I'd like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.
Speaker #1: Empowering each one of our platforms to offer the full suite of capabilities is really going to be a cost-benefit analysis that our product team is going to have to do.
Speaker #2: All right. Thank you, Beau. Well, listen, thanks, everybody, for your questions. And for joining us today and your interest in paychecks. We're entering the fiscal year 2027.
Speaker #2: Thanks, guys.
Speaker #2: Positioned better than ever. I really feel we've had strong momentum as we went through fiscal year '26. We've made meaningful progress across our strategic priorities, including our up-market expansion and the integration of Paycore.
Speaker #3: Yep, thanks, Kat.
Speaker #4: And we'll move next now to Jason Cooperberg with Wells Fargo.
Speaker #2: The work that we've done to drive advisory differentiation and the AI innovation that we've done in a very short period of time very proud of all the work that teams have done across the board.
Speaker #2: It's just really been if you think back what this team and this organization has been through the last year since we just all came together, just one short year ago, and the amount of work that needed to be done and the back office the amount of work that needed to be done and the integration front and the progress we've made, I'm just so proud of the company and to deliver these results that we delivered.
Hey, thank you guys. Good morning. Um, so just reflecting on your your midterm Target for uh, upper single digit, Revenue growth. I mean, this year, obviously regarding 56 very consistent with what you had previewed last quarter but just conceptually as we think about that medium-term, those upper single digits, still feel like the right range or is it possible? We need some more m&a to get there. We'd love some perspective on that. Thanks.
Speaker #2: Again, to hit the original guidance that I think probably were some skeptics about a year ago on the back half, but to be able to land that and to be able to raise guidance twice on earnings per share as we went through the year because we demonstrated our best operator capabilities and we're able to exceed the expense synergies in the acquisition.
Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at kind of historically the the the business, um I mean, we updated the slides in the investor slide. So when you look at the revenue, kegger it it's it's it's obviously much higher. I think it's a no, it's actually a third 13. I think on the top line over the Last 5 Years, obviously big contribution from from payor, but if, if you strip that out, you know, Jason, we've typically been in that 7 to 8%
Speaker #2: So look, I think we sit here today with the teams in place, with the technology and platforms that are built for purpose for the markets that they serve.
Speaker #2: And now an AI-enabled organization that I really think is just really going to continue the momentum that we've seen build over fiscal year '26.
Speaker #2: So we believe this enhances our competitive position. As I said, we're stronger together. And I think it really supports the growth and value creation for paychecks not only in 2027, but I think well beyond.
Uh, range, a historically. Um, and when you look at the growth, you know, growth formula whatever you want to call it. It, it typically, we're driving 1 to 2%, um, from from m&a, um, and and that Kant continues to be an area of interest to us to look, look for opportunities. I don't expect us to do anything, you know, at least in the near term that that we like, we just did with the poor acquisition. But there's certainly opportunities out there and we would expect to to leverage m&a, um, prospectively, like, we have, um, in the past to drive growth in our business where we see opportunities. And so, I think, if you look at the organic growth of the business, coupled with what we've historically, contributed over a longer period of Time, 1 to 2% from m&a, you can clearly see where it's in in in in that upper single digit range.
Okay.
Speaker #2: So again, thank you for your support. And we'll talk to you next quarter.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Mr. Gibson. And thank you, Mr. Schrader. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the paychecks fourth quarter. Fiscal 2026 earnings call. We'd like to thank you all so much for joining us today and wish you all a great remainder of your day.
Is helpful and um, just coming back to the conversation earlier about some of the the recategorization between paychecks and pay for. I know you took the sub hundred employee uh clients uh, from payor, put them in paychecks and then the 100 plus obviously going to to payor and and that's making some of the comparability and the Apple sap was harder to to Really discuss. But sitting here today, if we look at Management Solutions Revenue, um, based on all this recategorization, like what percent of Ms revenue is now, uh, enterprise.ie, the the 100 plus
You know, I I don't, I don't have that breakdown. Um, in in front of me, um, to, to be fair and and I don't really want to try to guess. I mean, when we look at that Enterprise segment, we're not just talking Management Solutions. We're, we're looking at the entire business. So certainly in the, in the peo we have larger clients is, is, is well. So I, I just, you know, maybe that's something that we can add to just based on your feedback, we can add to a future IR deck. Um, but but I don't have that breakdown in front of me.
Okay, that would be great. Thanks Bob. Yep, thank you.
Thank you and gentlemen, it appears. We have no further questions this morning. Mr. Gibson, I'd like to turn things back to you sir for any closing comments.
Thank you Bo. Well listen, thanks everybody uh for your questions and and for joining us today and your interests uh in paychecks. Um you you know we're entering the fiscal year 2027 um, position better than ever. Um, I really feel our we've had strong momentum as we went through fiscal year 26. We've made meaningful progress across our strategic priorities, including our uh, up Market expansion and the integration of peor. Um, the work that we've done to drive advisory differentiation and, and the AI Innovation, uh, that we've done in a very short period of time, very proud of all the work teams have done across the board. It's just really been if, if you think back uh what this team and this organization's been through the last year
Since we just all came together just one short year ago, and considering the amount of work that needed to be done in the back office, as well as the work that needed to be done on the integration front.
Operator 1: Thank you for your continued patience. Your meeting will begin shortly. If you need assistance at any time, please press star zero and a member of our team will be happy to help you. Thank you for your continued patience. Your meeting will begin shortly. If you need assistance at any time, please press star zero and a member of our team will be happy to help you. Thank you for your continued patience. Your meeting will begin shortly. If you need assistance at any time, please press star zero and a member of our team will be happy to help you.
Built for purpose for the markets that they serve. Um, and now an AI enabled organization. Um, that I that I really think is is just really going to continue the momentum that we've seen, uh, build over fiscal year 26. So, uh, we believe this, that it enhances our competitive position. Um, as I said, we are, we're stronger together and I think it really supports the growth, uh, and value creation, uh, for paychecks. Uh, not only in 2027, but I think, uh, well beyond. So again, thank you for your support and uh we'll talk to you next quarter.
Thank you, Mr. Gibson, and thank you, Mr. Schrader. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the Paychex fourth quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. We'd like to thank you all so much for joining us today and wish you all a great remainder of your day. Goodbye.
Operator 2: Good morning, everyone, welcome to Paychex's Q4 fiscal 2026 Earnings Call. Participating on the call today are John Gibson and Bob Schrader. Following the speakers' prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, your participation implies consent to our recording of this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Bob Schrader, Paychex's Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Operator: Good morning, everyone, welcome to Paychex's Q4 fiscal 2026 Earnings Call. Participating on the call today are John Gibson and Bob Schrader. Following the speakers' prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad.
Operator: If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, your participation implies consent to our recording of this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Bob Schrader, Paychex's Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Robert Schrader: Thank you for joining us to discuss Paychex Q4 and full-year fiscal 2026 results. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our investor relations website. We plan to file our Form 10-K with the SEC before the end of July. This call is being webcast live, will be available for replay on our investor relations portal. Today's call includes forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from our current expectations. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures. A description of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release. I would now like to turn the call over to John Gibson, Paychex President and CEO.
Bob Schrader: Thank you for joining us to discuss Paychex Q4 and full-year fiscal 2026 results. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our investor relations website. We plan to file our Form 10-K with the SEC before the end of July. This call is being webcast live, will be available for replay on our investor relations portal. Today's call includes forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from our current expectations. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures. A description of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release. I would now like to turn the call over to John Gibson, Paychex President and CEO.
John Gibson: Thanks, Bob. I'll begin with our operational highlights for the quarter and the full-year, then Bob will discuss our financial performance and outlook before we open the calls for your questions. We finished the year with strong momentum, delivering double-digit revenue and earnings growth in Q4 and the full-year, while also accelerating organic revenue growth in each quarter. Our team executed well against our strategic priorities, expanding upmarket, strengthening our advisory differentiation, and advancing our AI capabilities to drive better client outcomes. Our mission is simple: help businesses succeed. Today, customers are managing more work and complexity than ever before, want more than just a tool. They want a trusted partner that can help them manage cost, attract and retain talent, and navigate a dynamic regulatory landscape.
John Gibson: Thanks, Bob. I'll begin with our operational highlights for the quarter and the full-year, then Bob will discuss our financial performance and outlook before we open the calls for your questions. We finished the year with strong momentum, delivering double-digit revenue and earnings growth in Q4 and the full-year, while also accelerating organic revenue growth in each quarter. Our team executed well against our strategic priorities, expanding upmarket, strengthening our advisory differentiation, and advancing our AI capabilities to drive better client outcomes. Our mission is simple: help businesses succeed. Today, customers are managing more work and complexity than ever before, want more than just a tool. They want a trusted partner that can help them manage cost, attract and retain talent, and navigate a dynamic regulatory landscape.
John Gibson: That trust is reflected in our strong client retention across our payroll clients who rely on Paychex for support and advice across a growing number of solutions. Our differentiated advisory and benefits solutions, including ASO, PEO, and retirement, continue to resonate in the market and drive robust revenue growth. While other providers offer fragmented tools or limited support models, we believe we stand apart by combining technology with trusted human expertise to help customers solve their most important workforce challenges. That differentiation is driving higher engagement in our HR outsourcing. In ASO, engagements increased more than 60% this year alone, reflecting growing demand for support navigating an increasingly complex HR landscape. We believe our investments in go-to-market and technology strengthened our value proposition and contributed to record worksite employee retention in ASO and PEO this year. PEO, in particular, remains a key growth driver.
John Gibson: That trust is reflected in our strong client retention across our payroll clients who rely on Paychex for support and advice across a growing number of solutions. Our differentiated advisory and benefits solutions, including ASO, PEO, and retirement, continue to resonate in the market and drive robust revenue growth. While other providers offer fragmented tools or limited support models, we believe we stand apart by combining technology with trusted human expertise to help customers solve their most important workforce challenges. That differentiation is driving higher engagement in our HR outsourcing. In ASO, engagements increased more than 60% this year alone, reflecting growing demand for support navigating an increasingly complex HR landscape. We believe our investments in go-to-market and technology strengthened our value proposition and contributed to record worksite employee retention in ASO and PEO this year. PEO, in particular, remains a key growth driver.
John Gibson: PEO worksite employee growth continued to outpace the industry, with high single-digit growth in the quarter and full year. The comprehensive solution helps businesses manage regulatory complexity and offer competitive benefits, often with little or no in-house HR staff. We continue to see a long secular runway for growth in this business. Building on our advisory strength, we launched WISE, also known as our Workforce Intelligence Strengthened by Expertise, which is our AI-powered intelligence engine. WISE extends our capability into agentic AI and is powering approximately 600 AI features and agents. Embedded into the workflow, WISE moves beyond insights and assistance to autonomous execution, helping scale our expertise, enhance productivity, and deliver better client outcomes, all with human-in-the-loop oversight, available on-demand support, and strong governance. We believe differentiated access to large data sets will be a key driver of AI leadership and that Paychex is exceptionally well-positioned.
John Gibson: PEO worksite employee growth continued to outpace the industry, with high single-digit growth in the quarter and full year. The comprehensive solution helps businesses manage regulatory complexity and offer competitive benefits, often with little or no in-house HR staff. We continue to see a long secular runway for growth in this business. Building on our advisory strength, we launched WISE, also known as our Workforce Intelligence Strengthened by Expertise, which is our AI-powered intelligence engine. WISE extends our capability into agentic AI and is powering approximately 600 AI features and agents. Embedded into the workflow, WISE moves beyond insights and assistance to autonomous execution, helping scale our expertise, enhance productivity, and deliver better client outcomes, all with human-in-the-loop oversight, available on-demand support, and strong governance. We believe differentiated access to large data sets will be a key driver of AI leadership and that Paychex is exceptionally well-positioned.
good morning everyone and welcome to paychecks is fourth quarter, fiscal 2026 earnings call participating on the call today are John Gibson and Bob Shrader
Following these speakers prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad,
If you would like to withdraw your question, please press *2 on your telephone keypad.
As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and your participation implies consent to our recording of this call.
I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Bob Shrader paychecks is Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead sir.
Thank you for joining us to discuss Paychex's fourth quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our investor relations website. We plan to file our Form 10-K with the SEC before the end of July. This call is being webcast live and will be available for replay on our investor relations portal.
John Gibson: For more than 50 years, we have been at the center of HR, payroll, and benefits, giving us access to a vast proprietary and growing amount of data. WISE now draws on more than 26 trillion data points, helping make our solutions smarter, more relevant, and more proactive. What makes this unique is our patent-pending AI knowledge mesh technology, which helps unlock insights from unstructured data, including emails, calls, and other client interactions, and turns it into actionable intelligence. We believe that our unique technology, large data set, and deep HR and compliance expertise make our AI-enabled HR solutions truly unique in the market. We're already seeing the benefits in practice with meaningful reductions in administrative work. We can now automatically create and update client employee handbooks as regulations or business needs change in real time.
John Gibson: For more than 50 years, we have been at the center of HR, payroll, and benefits, giving us access to a vast proprietary and growing amount of data. WISE now draws on more than 26 trillion data points, helping make our solutions smarter, more relevant, and more proactive. What makes this unique is our patent-pending AI knowledge mesh technology, which helps unlock insights from unstructured data, including emails, calls, and other client interactions, and turns it into actionable intelligence. We believe that our unique technology, large data set, and deep HR and compliance expertise make our AI-enabled HR solutions truly unique in the market. We're already seeing the benefits in practice with meaningful reductions in administrative work. We can now automatically create and update client employee handbooks as regulations or business needs change in real time.
Today's call includes forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from our current expectations. We will also reference non-gaap Financial measures a description of these items along with the reconciliation of non-gaap measures can be found in our earnings release.
I would now like to turn the call over to John Gibson paychecks president and CEO.
Thanks, Bob. Um, I'll begin with our operational highlights for the quarter and the full year and then Bob will discuss our financial performance and outlook before we open the calls for your questions
We finished the year with strong momentum, delivering double-digit revenue, and earnings growth in the fourth quarter and the full year, while also accelerating organic Revenue growth in each quarter.
Our team executed well against our strategic priorities, expanding upmarket, strengthening our advisory differentiation, and advancing our AI capabilities to drive better client outcomes.
Our mission is simple: help businesses succeed.
John Gibson: Our workforce management solutions intelligently generate schedules in minutes instead of hours and reduce timesheet approvals by more than 50%. Reflecting on our commitment to flexible service models, clients can submit payroll by phone or email through a service experience powered by WISE. In addition, our agentic payroll solutions have continued to scale, significantly reducing wait times while maintaining the accuracy our clients expect. Over time, we see WISE as a meaningful driver of long-term value creation through direct monetization opportunities as well as indirect benefits, including stronger upsell, higher revenue per client, improved retention, and greater pricing power. As AI automates more routine tasks, we believe differentiation will increasingly come from compliance expertise, advisory capabilities, proprietary data, and trusted execution, areas where we believe Paychex is structurally advantaged.
John Gibson: Our workforce management solutions intelligently generate schedules in minutes instead of hours and reduce timesheet approvals by more than 50%. Reflecting on our commitment to flexible service models, clients can submit payroll by phone or email through a service experience powered by WISE. In addition, our agentic payroll solutions have continued to scale, significantly reducing wait times while maintaining the accuracy our clients expect. Over time, we see WISE as a meaningful driver of long-term value creation through direct monetization opportunities as well as indirect benefits, including stronger upsell, higher revenue per client, improved retention, and greater pricing power. As AI automates more routine tasks, we believe differentiation will increasingly come from compliance expertise, advisory capabilities, proprietary data, and trusted execution, areas where we believe Paychex is structurally advantaged.
Today, customers are managing more work and complexity than ever before and want more than just the tool.
They want to trusted partner that can help them manage cost attract and retain talent and navigate a dynamic regulatory landscape.
That trust is reflected in our strong client retention of our payroll clients who rely on paychecks for support and advice of a growing number of solutions.
Our differentiated advisory and benefits solutions, including ASO, PEO, and retirement, continue to resonate in the market and drive robust revenue growth.
While other providers offer fragmented tools or limited support models. We believe we stand apart apart by combining technology with trusted human expertise to help customers solve their most important, Workforce challenges.
John Gibson: Those strengths, combined with continued investment in our innovation roadmap, will position us well for the long-term AI leadership in our category. Turning to our Enterprise business, we continue to perform well upmarket among clients with more than 100 employees. We exceeded our fiscal year 2026 synergy targets associated with the Paycor acquisition, contributing more than 50 basis points to revenue growth and generating over $100 million in cost synergies. We continue to make progress cross-selling advisory offerings such as ASO, Retirement, and PEO into the Paycor base and are winning larger deals than originally anticipated. We also saw continued traction in the broker channel, including two new national partnerships this quarter alone, reinforcing our position as the preferred choice for HCM referrals.
John Gibson: Those strengths, combined with continued investment in our innovation roadmap, will position us well for the long-term AI leadership in our category. Turning to our Enterprise business, we continue to perform well upmarket among clients with more than 100 employees. We exceeded our fiscal year 2026 synergy targets associated with the Paycor acquisition, contributing more than 50 basis points to revenue growth and generating over $100 million in cost synergies. We continue to make progress cross-selling advisory offerings such as ASO, Retirement, and PEO into the Paycor base and are winning larger deals than originally anticipated. We also saw continued traction in the broker channel, including two new national partnerships this quarter alone, reinforcing our position as the preferred choice for HCM referrals.
That differentiation is driving higher engagement in our HR, Outsourcing in ASO engagements increased more than 60% this year. Alone reflecting growing demand for support and advocating and increasingly complex HR landscape. We believe our investments in go to market and Technology, strengthened our value proposition and contributed to record work site employee retention, and ASO and P this year.
Poo in particular remains a key, growth driver poo, worksite employee growth continued to outpace the industry with high single-digit growth in the quarter and full year. The comprehensive solution, helps businesses manage regulatory complexity and offer competitive benefits often with little or no in-house HR staff.
We continue to see a long secular runway for growth in this business.
Intelligence strengthened by expertise, which is our AI powered intelligence engine.
John Gibson: During fiscal year 2026, we completed the organizational and sales territory realignments associated with moving the Paycor under 100 employee businesses into our SMB segment and integrating the Paychex 100-plus businesses into our Enterprise segment. We enter fiscal year 2027 with clearly aligned teams, brands, and platforms focused on the specific needs of each market segment. All of this is powered by our scaled, modernized, and modular infrastructure, including our new modern tax engine, which we expect to further enhance through integration with our WISE intelligent engine. Beyond shifting upmarket, two emerging growth areas for us are expanding employee-based revenue streams and growing beyond our payroll base. We introduced Perks, our digital benefits marketplace, less than two years ago, today, more than 400,000 unique employees have already purchased affordable, transferable benefits through the marketplace.
John Gibson: During fiscal year 2026, we completed the organizational and sales territory realignments associated with moving the Paycor under 100 employee businesses into our SMB segment and integrating the Paychex 100-plus businesses into our Enterprise segment. We enter fiscal year 2027 with clearly aligned teams, brands, and platforms focused on the specific needs of each market segment. All of this is powered by our scaled, modernized, and modular infrastructure, including our new modern tax engine, which we expect to further enhance through integration with our WISE intelligent engine. Beyond shifting upmarket, two emerging growth areas for us are expanding employee-based revenue streams and growing beyond our payroll base. We introduced Perks, our digital benefits marketplace, less than two years ago, today, more than 400,000 unique employees have already purchased affordable, transferable benefits through the marketplace.
Wise extends our capability into a generative AI and is powering approximately 600 AI features and agents.
Embedded into the workflow, WISE moves beyond insights and assistance to autonomous execution, helping scale our expertise, enhance productivity, and deliver better client outcomes—all with human-in-the-loop oversight, available on demand, with support and strong governance.
We believe differentiated access to large data sets will be a key driver of AI leadership, and that Paychex is exceptionally well positioned.
For more than 50 years, we have been at the center of HR, payroll and benefits giving us access to a vast proprietary and growing amount of data.
WISE now draws on more than 26 trillion data points, helping make our solutions smarter, more relevant, and more proactive.
John Gibson: We are now expanding access to Perks to employees on the Paycor platform, increasing our addressable market by more than 2.5 million employees. More broadly, we now see meaningful opportunities to grow beyond our traditional payroll base. Historically, many of our solutions could only be sold in connections with a client being on our payroll platforms. With the modernization of our underlying infrastructure now complete, we are developing more payroll-agnostic and standalone AI-enabled solutions, which we believe will significantly expand our addressable market to help more businesses succeed. Our momentum this year is also being recognized externally. TIME named Paychex one of America's top work tech companies, Newsweek recognized us as one of America's most trustworthy companies and greatest workplaces. This underscores the strength of our brand, culture, and the trust we have built with clients and employees.
John Gibson: We are now expanding access to Perks to employees on the Paycor platform, increasing our addressable market by more than 2.5 million employees. More broadly, we now see meaningful opportunities to grow beyond our traditional payroll base. Historically, many of our solutions could only be sold in connections with a client being on our payroll platforms. With the modernization of our underlying infrastructure now complete, we are developing more payroll-agnostic and standalone AI-enabled solutions, which we believe will significantly expand our addressable market to help more businesses succeed. Our momentum this year is also being recognized externally. TIME named Paychex one of America's top work tech companies, Newsweek recognized us as one of America's most trustworthy companies and greatest workplaces. This underscores the strength of our brand, culture, and the trust we have built with clients and employees.
What makes this unique is our patent, pending AI knowledge, mesh technology, which helps unlock insights, from unstructured data, including emails, calls, and other client interactions and turns it into actionable intelligence.
We believe that our unique technology.
Large data set and deep HR and compliance expertise make our AI-enabled HR solutions truly unique in the market.
We're already seeing the benefits and practice with meaningful. Reductions in administrative work. We can now automatically create an update client employee, handbooks as regulations or business needs to change in real time. Our Workforce Management Solutions intelligently, generate schedules in minutes instead of hours and reduce time sheet approvals by more than 50%.
Reflecting on our commitment to flexible service models, clients can submit payroll by phone or email through a service experience powered by Wise.
John Gibson: Taken together, this progress reflects strong execution against our strategic priorities, from integrating the largest acquisition in our history to modernizing our infrastructure and rolling out WISE across our HCM platforms and operations. We believe we enter fiscal year 2027 well-positioned for continued growth and long-term leadership in the AI era of HCM. I will now turn the call over to Bob to discuss our financial performance and outlook. Bob?
John Gibson: Taken together, this progress reflects strong execution against our strategic priorities, from integrating the largest acquisition in our history to modernizing our infrastructure and rolling out WISE across our HCM platforms and operations. We believe we enter fiscal year 2027 well-positioned for continued growth and long-term leadership in the AI era of HCM. I will now turn the call over to Bob to discuss our financial performance and outlook. Bob?
In addition, our agentic payroll solutions have continued to scale, significantly reducing wait times while maintaining the accuracy our clients expect.
Over time, we see WISE as a meaningful driver of long-term value creation, through direct monetization opportunities as well as indirect benefits, including stronger upsell.
Higher revenue per client, improved retention, and greater pricing power.
Robert Schrader: Thank you, John. I'll begin with our Q4 and full-year financial results, and then I'll share our outlook for fiscal 2027. For the Q4, total revenue increased 12% over the prior year to $1.6 billion, reflecting the mid-quarter anniversary of the Paycor acquisition. As John noted, we accelerated organic revenue growth in each quarter this fiscal year. Management Solutions revenue grew 14% to $1.2 billion, driven by product penetration, price realization, and approximately 8 percentage points of growth from Paycor. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue increased 9% to $370 million, driven primarily by strong growth in PEO worksite employees, as well as an increase in PEO insurance revenues. Interest on funds held for clients grew 15% to $52 million. Total expenses for the quarter were relatively flat as higher compensation, amortization, and continued investments in our strategic priorities were offset by lower acquisition-related costs.
Bob Schrader: Thank you, John. I'll begin with our Q4 and full-year financial results, and then I'll share our outlook for fiscal 2027. For the Q4, total revenue increased 12% over the prior year to $1.6 billion, reflecting the mid-quarter anniversary of the Paycor acquisition. As John noted, we accelerated organic revenue growth in each quarter this fiscal year. Management Solutions revenue grew 14% to $1.2 billion, driven by product penetration, price realization, and approximately 8 percentage points of growth from Paycor. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue increased 9% to $370 million, driven primarily by strong growth in PEO worksite employees, as well as an increase in PEO insurance revenues. Interest on funds held for clients grew 15% to $52 million. Total expenses for the quarter were relatively flat as higher compensation, amortization, and continued investments in our strategic priorities were offset by lower acquisition-related costs.
As AI automates more routine tasks. We Believe differentiation will increasingly come from compliance, expertise advisory capabilities, proprietary data and trusted execution.
areas where we believe paychecks is structurally, advantaged, those strengths combined with continued investment in our Innovation roadmap will position us well for the long term AI leadership in our category
Turning to our Enterprise business. We continue to perform well, up Market among clients with more than 100 employees. We exceeded our fiscal year. 26 Synergy targets associated with the payor acquisition contributing more than 50 basis points to revenue growth and generating over a hundred million dollars in cost synergies.
We continue to make progress across selling advisory offerings, such as ASO retirement, and Poe into the payor base and our winning larger deals that originally anticipated.
Robert Schrader: Operating income margins increased approximately 750 basis points to 37.7%. Adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 170 basis points to 42.1% for the quarter. This was driven by increased productivity and cost discipline while increasing our investments in AI. Diluted earnings per share increased 43% to $1.17 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $1.32 per share. Turning to the full-year results. For the full year, we delivered on our total revenue guidance, accelerated our organic growth in the H2, and exceeded our earnings guidance after raising expectations twice during the year. Total revenue increased 17% over the prior year to $6.5 billion. Management Solutions revenue grew 20% to $4.9 billion. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue increased 7% to $1.4 billion.
Bob Schrader: Operating income margins increased approximately 750 basis points to 37.7%. Adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 170 basis points to 42.1% for the quarter. This was driven by increased productivity and cost discipline while increasing our investments in AI. Diluted earnings per share increased 43% to $1.17 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $1.32 per share. Turning to the full-year results. For the full year, we delivered on our total revenue guidance, accelerated our organic growth in the H2, and exceeded our earnings guidance after raising expectations twice during the year. Total revenue increased 17% over the prior year to $6.5 billion. Management Solutions revenue grew 20% to $4.9 billion. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue increased 7% to $1.4 billion.
We also saw continued traction in the broker channel, including two new national partnerships this quarter alone, reinforcing our position as a preferred choice for HCM referrals.
During fiscal year 26, we completed the organizational and sales territory realignments associated with moving the payor under 100 employee businesses into our SMB segment and integrating the paychecks 100 plus businesses into our Enterprise segment.
Robert Schrader: Operating income margins for the year were 38.6%, and our adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 70 basis points to 43.2%. Diluted earnings per share increased 7% to $4.89 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $5.51 per share. Our financial position remains strong with cash, restricted cash, and total corporate investments of $1.2 billion, and total borrowings of approximately $4.6 billion at the end of the quarter. Cash flow generation continues to be a key strength of our model. Our operating cash flows for the year increased 35% to $2.6 billion, and our free cash flows increased 36% to $2.3 billion this fiscal year. Our capital allocation strategy remains focused on delivering long-term shareholder value. This year, we returned $2.2 billion to shareholders through $1.6 billion in cash dividends and $600 million in share repurchases.
Bob Schrader: Operating income margins for the year were 38.6%, and our adjusted operating income margins increased by approximately 70 basis points to 43.2%. Diluted earnings per share increased 7% to $4.89 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $5.51 per share. Our financial position remains strong with cash, restricted cash, and total corporate investments of $1.2 billion, and total borrowings of approximately $4.6 billion at the end of the quarter. Cash flow generation continues to be a key strength of our model. Our operating cash flows for the year increased 35% to $2.6 billion, and our free cash flows increased 36% to $2.3 billion this fiscal year. Our capital allocation strategy remains focused on delivering long-term shareholder value. This year, we returned $2.2 billion to shareholders through $1.6 billion in cash dividends and $600 million in share repurchases.
Robert Schrader: In addition to this, we reduced our leverage ratio a half a turn through the combination of our strong earnings growth and repaying the initial $400 million tranche of debt from the Oasis acquisition that matured in March. We remain focused on the levers of long-term shareholder returns that are within our control, including strong EPS growth, sustained dividend growth, and disciplined capital deployment. Our 12-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 45%. Turning to our guidance for fiscal 2027, our outlook reflects the current macro environment, as well as the assumptions that employment levels will continue to remain flat. For fiscal 2027, we expect total revenue growth in the range of 5% to 6%. Management Solutions revenue growth is also expected to be in the range of 5% to 6%. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue growth will be in the range of 6% to 7%.
Bob Schrader: In addition to this, we reduced our leverage ratio a half a turn through the combination of our strong earnings growth and repaying the initial $400 million tranche of debt from the Oasis acquisition that matured in March. We remain focused on the levers of long-term shareholder returns that are within our control, including strong EPS growth, sustained dividend growth, and disciplined capital deployment. Our 12-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 45%. Turning to our guidance for fiscal 2027, our outlook reflects the current macro environment, as well as the assumptions that employment levels will continue to remain flat. For fiscal 2027, we expect total revenue growth in the range of 5% to 6%. Management Solutions revenue growth is also expected to be in the range of 5% to 6%. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue growth will be in the range of 6% to 7%.
Robert Schrader: Interest on funds held for clients is expected to be in the range of $195 to 205 million. This year-over-year decline reflects the full-year impact of the 75 basis points of cuts at the end of last calendar year and the lapping of one-time gains associated with the strategic portfolio repositioning we executed in Q2. The outlook also assumes no further changes in the Fed funds rate. Adjusted operating income margins are expected to be approximately 44%, and our effective income tax rate is expected to be approximately 24%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to grow in the range of 7% to 9%. Now I'll provide a little bit of color on the Q1 expectations. We would expect total revenue growth to be consistent with our full-year guidance, with an adjusted operating margin of 41% to 42%.
Bob Schrader: Interest on funds held for clients is expected to be in the range of $195 to 205 million. This year-over-year decline reflects the full-year impact of the 75 basis points of cuts at the end of last calendar year and the lapping of one-time gains associated with the strategic portfolio repositioning we executed in Q2. The outlook also assumes no further changes in the Fed funds rate. Adjusted operating income margins are expected to be approximately 44%, and our effective income tax rate is expected to be approximately 24%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to grow in the range of 7% to 9%. Now I'll provide a little bit of color on the Q1 expectations. We would expect total revenue growth to be consistent with our full-year guidance, with an adjusted operating margin of 41% to 42%.
Robert Schrader: Of course, this outlook is based on current assumptions, as I mentioned, and remains subject to change. Our business fundamentals remain strong as we enter fiscal 2027. As John mentioned, I think we're exiting the back half of the year with strong momentum. We believe Paychex is exceptionally well-positioned to succeed in the AI era of HCM and continue delivering shareholder value. Our efficient operating model continues to generate industry-leading operating and free cash flow margins with meaningful opportunity for further expansion over time. The durability of our business, the strength of our cash generation, and our disciplined capital allocation support our confidence in continued revenue and earnings growth and sustained Rule of 50 performance. Now I'll turn the call back over to John.
Bob Schrader: Of course, this outlook is based on current assumptions, as I mentioned, and remains subject to change. Our business fundamentals remain strong as we enter fiscal 2027. As John mentioned, I think we're exiting the back half of the year with strong momentum. We believe Paychex is exceptionally well-positioned to succeed in the AI era of HCM and continue delivering shareholder value. Our efficient operating model continues to generate industry-leading operating and free cash flow margins with meaningful opportunity for further expansion over time. The durability of our business, the strength of our cash generation, and our disciplined capital allocation support our confidence in continued revenue and earnings growth and sustained Rule of 50 performance. Now I'll turn the call back over to John.
John Gibson: Thank you, Bob. We will now open the call to your questions.
John Gibson: Thank you, Bob. We will now open the call to your questions.
Operator 2: Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions or comments, please press star one. As always, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Additionally, we do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll go first this morning to Bryan Keane with Citi.
Operator: Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions or comments, please press star one. As always, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Additionally, we do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll go first this morning to Bryan Keane with Citi.
Bryan Keane: Hey, guys. Good morning. Solid results. Just hoping you guys could talk a little bit about the trend in organic growth that you saw in the second half of the year. What are you guys calculating it as? As we jump off here into fiscal year 2027 with the range of 5% to 6%, what gets us to the low end? What gets us to the high end for that as we think about organic growth, booking trends, all that that adds up to the numbers? Thanks.
Bryan Keane: Hey, guys. Good morning. Solid results. Just hoping you guys could talk a little bit about the trend in organic growth that you saw in the second half of the year. What are you guys calculating it as? As we jump off here into fiscal year 2027 with the range of 5% to 6%, what gets us to the low end? What gets us to the high end for that as we think about organic growth, booking trends, all that that adds up to the numbers? Thanks.
Robert Schrader: Yeah, Bryan. I'll start and John can add some color. As you mentioned in your report last week or a couple weeks ago, we've definitely continued to see a sequential improvement in the organic growth of the business. I think if you go back to this time last year, we were exiting last fiscal year at around 3%. We've nearly doubled the organic growth of the business, with improvement each quarter as we move through the year. I think if you look at the Q4 numbers, the Q4 exit rate from an organic growth standpoint, I would say is largely in line with the guide that we provided.
Bob Schrader: Yeah, Bryan. I'll start and John can add some color. As you mentioned in your report last week or a couple weeks ago, we've definitely continued to see a sequential improvement in the organic growth of the business. I think if you go back to this time last year, we were exiting last fiscal year at around 3%. We've nearly doubled the organic growth of the business, with improvement each quarter as we move through the year. I think if you look at the Q4 numbers, the Q4 exit rate from an organic growth standpoint, I would say is largely in line with the guide that we provided.
Robert Schrader: I think if you look at the midpoint of the management solutions and the PEO guide, I think you'll get to a service revenue growth rate that pretty much is in line with the organic growth that we're exiting the year at. Obviously, next year, there's a little bit of a headwind. We had a tailwind this year from flow with the Paycor balances and some other things. Next year, there's a little bit of a headwind. I'm expecting interest on funds to be down about 4% to 5%. You got the full year impact of the cuts that happened last year, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks. We had some gains this year from some repositioning that we did earlier in the year.
Bob Schrader: I think if you look at the midpoint of the management solutions and the PEO guide, I think you'll get to a service revenue growth rate that pretty much is in line with the organic growth that we're exiting the year at. Obviously, next year, there's a little bit of a headwind. We had a tailwind this year from flow with the Paycor balances and some other things. Next year, there's a little bit of a headwind. I'm expecting interest on funds to be down about 4% to 5%. You got the full year impact of the cuts that happened last year, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks. We had some gains this year from some repositioning that we did earlier in the year.
Robert Schrader: I think, those things added up together, I think get you to a guide next year that pretty much is in line with a strong organic growth improvement this year in where we're exiting the year. Obviously, it's early on, so better performance would drive higher end. We're assuming a stable macro environment. We're not expecting that to change. The typical things that you're aware of that could move the needle in one direction or another. I'd say the other thing, really strong momentum in bookings. We talked about this last quarter. I think you highlighted it in your report. Probably one of the stronger selling seasons that we had in Q3, and I think we followed that up. John can provide some more color on it, but we followed that up in Q4 with a really another strong performance in bookings.
Bob Schrader: I think, those things added up together, I think get you to a guide next year that pretty much is in line with a strong organic growth improvement this year in where we're exiting the year. Obviously, it's early on, so better performance would drive higher end. We're assuming a stable macro environment. We're not expecting that to change. The typical things that you're aware of that could move the needle in one direction or another. I'd say the other thing, really strong momentum in bookings. We talked about this last quarter. I think you highlighted it in your report. Probably one of the stronger selling seasons that we had in Q3, and I think we followed that up. John can provide some more color on it, but we followed that up in Q4 with a really another strong performance in bookings.
Robert Schrader: It was really broad-based across many categories. Certainly, we're benefiting from the Paycor acquisition. When you look at ASO, PEO, and retirement, that's really driving a lot of the growth, both of what you see in the P&L as well in bookings. A lot of that is coming from the ability to go into Paycor's base and upsell them those high-value solutions. I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that, John.
Bob Schrader: It was really broad-based across many categories. Certainly, we're benefiting from the Paycor acquisition. When you look at ASO, PEO, and retirement, that's really driving a lot of the growth, both of what you see in the P&L as well in bookings. A lot of that is coming from the ability to go into Paycor's base and upsell them those high-value solutions. I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that, John.
John Gibson: Yeah, no, I think we go back a year, on this call, we laid out, we went through a pretty significant integration of our enterprise business together. We said, our view was, as we execute the integration plan that we had, we believe that we were going to continue to build momentum, each of the quarters. I think there were probably some skeptics about the back half, and I'm very pleased and proud of the team for what they delivered. Every quarter, bookings got better and better. Q4 was better than Q3, and Q3, as I said on our last call, was the best I've seen in 13 years here. I feel good about the momentum we have going into this. Certainly, having all the disruptions behind us is going to be a positive going into this.
John Gibson: Yeah, no, I think we go back a year, on this call, we laid out, we went through a pretty significant integration of our enterprise business together. We said, our view was, as we execute the integration plan that we had, we believe that we were going to continue to build momentum, each of the quarters. I think there were probably some skeptics about the back half, and I'm very pleased and proud of the team for what they delivered. Every quarter, bookings got better and better. Q4 was better than Q3, and Q3, as I said on our last call, was the best I've seen in 13 years here. I feel good about the momentum we have going into this. Certainly, having all the disruptions behind us is going to be a positive going into this.
John Gibson: I would say the macro environment, despite all the potential challenges that we have going on globally around us, has been stable. No signs of recession. In fact, if you look at our index, the last several reports have actually shown an increase in index under 50. We continue to see good growth. I'd say solid growth, not good growth, but solid growth in the 50 plus. We'll be announcing our index next week. Again, I'm just amazed at the resiliency. I think we're going into this year, with all the disruptions behind us, with better focus. Our product roadmap, our integration roadmap is just really accelerating. AI is helping us accelerate that even more, in terms of the development roadmap. I'm very encouraged about what the setup is going into this fiscal year.
John Gibson: I would say the macro environment, despite all the potential challenges that we have going on globally around us, has been stable. No signs of recession. In fact, if you look at our index, the last several reports have actually shown an increase in index under 50. We continue to see good growth. I'd say solid growth, not good growth, but solid growth in the 50 plus. We'll be announcing our index next week. Again, I'm just amazed at the resiliency. I think we're going into this year, with all the disruptions behind us, with better focus. Our product roadmap, our integration roadmap is just really accelerating. AI is helping us accelerate that even more, in terms of the development roadmap. I'm very encouraged about what the setup is going into this fiscal year.
Bryan Keane: Great. Just as a follow-up, just thinking about the launch of WISE and AI in general, how do we think about the potential revenue opportunities that AI could bring Paychex, and how long will it take maybe to start developing some of those?
Bryan Keane: Great. Just as a follow-up, just thinking about the launch of WISE and AI in general, how do we think about the potential revenue opportunities that AI could bring Paychex, and how long will it take maybe to start developing some of those?
John Gibson: Well, I would say we're already generating some revenue from that. We've launched several components of WISE. Some of that is in the reporting area, so what I would say enhancements to our current reporting capabilities. We've launched that into our client base. We've gotten good success there. When you look at it at this point in time, we also did our intelligence, timekeeping in Flex. We currently have about 10,000 customers that are in our soft launch of that. Again, we think that's going to be another opportunity. What we're seeing there in terms of just time savings, but more importantly, error predictions. We're actually cutting errors down, like 70% up front. What I see, that's going to be a good value upsell opportunity for us as we go into the year. I think we're early in figuring out the monetization.
John Gibson: Well, I would say we're already generating some revenue from that. We've launched several components of WISE. Some of that is in the reporting area, so what I would say enhancements to our current reporting capabilities. We've launched that into our client base. We've gotten good success there. When you look at it at this point in time, we also did our intelligence, timekeeping in Flex. We currently have about 10,000 customers that are in our soft launch of that. Again, we think that's going to be another opportunity. What we're seeing there in terms of just time savings, but more importantly, error predictions. We're actually cutting errors down, like 70% up front. What I see, that's going to be a good value upsell opportunity for us as we go into the year. I think we're early in figuring out the monetization.
John Gibson: I would say a lot of what we're getting right now from WISE has been turned internally. Our service concierge, where now all of our service individuals have access to all of our knowledge systems across all of our products and services instantaneously. Also, what we're calling the Sales Guru, which is a WISE-based product. Again, gives access to all of our data sets across all of our platforms and all of our service and sales interactions to our salespeople in real time to be able to both plan their calls appropriately and offer the right solution for the client. A lot of it right now is internally. We're starting the product roadmap. The first AI-based product we launched was in 2022 with Retention Insights.
John Gibson: I would say a lot of what we're getting right now from WISE has been turned internally. Our service concierge, where now all of our service individuals have access to all of our knowledge systems across all of our products and services instantaneously. Also, what we're calling the Sales Guru, which is a WISE-based product. Again, gives access to all of our data sets across all of our platforms and all of our service and sales interactions to our salespeople in real time to be able to both plan their calls appropriately and offer the right solution for the client. A lot of it right now is internally. We're starting the product roadmap. The first AI-based product we launched was in 2022 with Retention Insights.
John Gibson: Now what we'll do is go back and look at refreshing those legacy AI products with the WISE platform.
John Gibson: Now what we'll do is we're going back and looking at refreshing those legacy AI products with the WISE platform.
Bryan Keane: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the questions.
Bryan Keane: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the questions.
Robert Schrader: Thanks, Bryan.
Bob Schrader: Thanks, Bryan.
Operator 2: We'll go next now to Mark Marcon with Baird.
Operator: We'll go next now to Mark Marcon with Baird.
Mark Marcon: Hey, good morning, John and Bob, and thanks for taking my questions. John, I wanted to ask you about a couple of strategic elements. First of all, you mentioned that you're developing payroll agnostic solutions in order to help businesses to a greater extent. Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of what your outlook is for that? When should investors expect the launches? What areas do you think you can go into? With the AI tools in terms of coding, how quickly do you think you can do that?
Mark Marcon: Hey, good morning, John and Bob, and thanks for taking my questions. John, I wanted to ask you about a couple of strategic elements. First of all, you mentioned that you're developing payroll agnostic solutions in order to help businesses to a greater extent. Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of what your outlook is for that? When should investors expect the launches? What areas do you think you can go into? With the AI tools in terms of coding, how quickly do you think you can do that?
John Gibson: Well, this has been a long-term project. Let me step back, Mark. We have been investing really since kind of the COVID ERTC era, when we had the opportunity to take some of the cash flow that was being generated during that time. We looked across the platform and said, How do we want to modernize our back office and our operating layer? As you well know, our operating layer of our business is best in class. That's how we get the margins we do. We wanted to modernize it, we wanted to modularize it, and really allow us to begin to offer more products and services on a standalone basis. Because most of our products and services that we built at Paychex, we really didn't have the means to bill a client, to engage a client separately outside of being part of our HCM payroll infrastructure.
John Gibson: Well, this has been a long-term project. Let me step back, Mark. We have been investing really since kind of the COVID ERTC era, when we had the opportunity to take some of the cash flow that was being generated during that time. We looked across the platform and said, How do we want to modernize our back office and our operating layer? As you well know, our operating layer of our business is best in class. That's how we get the margins we do. We wanted to modernize it, we wanted to modularize it, and really allow us to begin to offer more products and services on a standalone basis. Because most of our products and services that we built at Paychex, we really didn't have the means to bill a client, to engage a client separately outside of being part of our HCM payroll infrastructure.
John Gibson: One of the key things we wanted to do was break that apart—break our tax engine apart, break all the payments orchestration that we do apart. All of that has been done and finally completed over the past fiscal year. What we have today is the capability that, if a customer would leave our HCM platform but enjoy our insurance agency, they can now stay with our insurance agency. That's something a lot of times that did not happen in the past. Someone leaves our HCM platform and they like our 401(k) product—now we can do that. It also gives us the potential to partner with those separate products independently as well, which is something we've historically not done. We look at it as a big opportunity for us.
John Gibson: One of the key things we wanted to do was break that apart, break our tax engine apart, break all the payments orchestration that we do apart. All of that has been done and finally completed over the past fiscal year. What we have today is the capability that if a customer would leave our HCM platform but enjoy our insurance agency, they can now stay with our insurance agency. That's something a lot of times that did not happen in the past. Someone leaves our HCM platform and they like our 401 product, we could do that. It also gives us the potential to partner with those separate products separately as well, something we've historically not done. We look at it as a big opportunity for us.
John Gibson: That investment that we've made in that back-office infrastructure is what allowed us to launch Perks, because it also allows us to treat every one of our clients' employees as potential standalone customers. Again, they can continue to be a customer of Paychex, even if they leave their current employer and even if they're not on one of our HCM platforms. This is in the early innings of really getting this put together. Of course, we're going to look at the economics, both in terms of go-to-market and capability. What I would tell you, it enhances our ability to retain customers in some way across our multiple products. It gives us new go-to-market opportunities, and it gives us new customer segments that we could potentially go after.
John Gibson: That investment that we've made in that back-office infrastructure is what allowed us to launch Perks, because it also allows us to treat every one of our clients' employees as potential standalone customers. Again, they can continue to be a customer of Paychex, even if they leave their current employer and even if they're not on one of our HCM platforms. This is in the early innings of really getting this put together. Of course, we're going to look at the economics, both in terms of go-to-market and capability. What I would tell you, it enhances our ability to retain customers in some way across our multiple products. It gives us new go-to-market opportunities, and it gives us new customer segments that we could potentially go after.
John Gibson: I also believe, particularly as it pertains to WISE and what we're putting together in terms of HR compliance and real-time advisory solutions that can be digitally enabled with our HR people in the background, I think that could be valuable for customers, small and mid-size customers or HR professionals, whether or not they're on one of our platforms or not. Certainly one of the things I think is a great potential for us to help businesses succeed is to be able to turn our 50-plus years of HR advisory and HR and payroll and tax compliance capabilities and monetize that for the benefit for a broader market, and those are things we're considering as well.
John Gibson: I also believe, particularly as it pertains to WISE and what we're putting together in terms of HR compliance and real-time advisory solutions that can be digitally enabled with our HR people in the background, I think that could be valuable for customers, small and mid-size customers or HR professionals, whether or not they're on one of our platforms or not. Certainly one of the things I think is a great potential for us to help businesses succeed is to be able to turn our 50-plus years of HR advisory and HR and payroll and tax compliance capabilities and monetize that for the benefit for a broader market, and those are things we're considering as well.
Mark Marcon: Could you also get into more of the office of the CFO or the office of the CTO from a longer-term perspective?
Mark Marcon: Could you also get into more of the office of the CFO or the office of the CTO from a longer-term perspective?
John Gibson: I think, Mark, at this point in time, we see the opportunity within HR, particularly in the segment we serve, to be the best place for our investment and time. We still have a lot of opportunity, I think, and particularly most of our clients don't have an HR department. HR is becoming more complex. I think at this point in time, what we're focused on is continuing to do that, and also try to put into our marketplace for their employees a set of benefit solutions that allows a small employer to mimic a large employer in terms of what benefits they can offer an employee without having to contribute to that from a financial perspective. Because those are the things that we hear from our small clients all the time, that it's more important to them than us helping be their CFO at this point in time.
John Gibson: I think, Mark, at this point in time, we see the opportunity within HR, particularly in the segment we serve, to be the best place for our investment and time. We still have a lot of opportunity, I think, and particularly most of our clients don't have an HR department. HR is becoming more complex. I think at this point in time, what we're focused on is continuing to do that, and also try to put into our marketplace for their employees a set of benefit solutions that allows a small employer to mimic a large employer in terms of what benefits they can offer an employee without having to contribute to that from a financial perspective. Because those are the things that we hear from our small clients all the time, that it's more important to them than us helping be their CFO at this point in time.
Mark Marcon: That's great. Thank you so much.
Mark Marcon: That's great. Thank you so much.
John Gibson: Yep. Thanks, Mark.
John Gibson: Yep. Thanks, Mark.
Operator 2: We'll go next now to Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.
Operator: We'll go next now to Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.
Andrew Nicholas: Hi. Good morning. Appreciate you taking my question. You've hit on a few of the reasons, but I was just hoping you could expand on kind of what drives your conviction in the HRMS acceleration next year on an organic basis, and any color you could provide on kind of expected growth by market segment would be helpful, like between mid-market and enterprise.
Andrew Nicholas: Hi. Good morning. Appreciate you taking my question. You've hit on a few of the reasons, but I was just hoping you could expand on kind of what drives your conviction in the HRMS acceleration next year on an organic basis, and any color you could provide on kind of expected growth by market segment would be helpful, like between mid-market and enterprise.
John Gibson: Yeah. Well, look, I think that we feel very confident across the portfolio. Again, as we see, we've had continued momentum across the portfolio throughout the year. When you look at the enterprise side, continue to see good growth there as we combine the groups together. You go back and look at our enterprise bookings. In Q4, we had the highest booking dollar volume we've had all year. I think as we told you before, that it continued to build through Q3. We've continued to add partners there. I just think with the integration behind us, and all the disruption that caused and having the focus, I think we're entering the year very well-focused with a good set of products and services to go in the market. When you look across HR solutions and benefits retirement, the acceleration there has just been phenomenal.
John Gibson: Yeah. Well, look, I think that we feel very confident across the portfolio. Again, as we see, we've had continued momentum across the portfolio throughout the year. When you look at the enterprise side, continue to see good growth there as we combine the groups together. You go back and look at our enterprise bookings. In Q4, we had the highest booking dollar volume we've had all year. I think as we told you before, that it continued to build through Q3. We've continued to add partners there. I just think with the integration behind us, and all the disruption that caused and having the focus, I think we're entering the year very well-focused with a good set of products and services to go in the market. When you look across HR solutions and benefits retirement, the acceleration there has just been phenomenal.
John Gibson: It just really has, not stopped. Our bookings have continued to grow in those areas. Continue to show strong retention, continue to see strong cross-sell across the various teams. I think that cross-sell motion is really getting going, particularly in the legacy Paycor sales teams. I think they're finally figuring out how they can leverage the full power of Paychex, to drive not only meetings, but also to drive deals coming to closure. I feel good about where we are, again, heading into this fiscal year, just with everything behind us, and I think all the things are in place. The organizational components are in place, the technology components, and all the focus we've been having on what I would say, and you guys don't see it, what we see.
John Gibson: It just really has, not stopped. Our bookings have continued to grow in those areas. Continue to show strong retention, continue to see strong cross-sell across the various teams. I think that cross-sell motion is really getting going, particularly in the legacy Paycor sales teams. I think they're finally figuring out how they can leverage the full power of Paychex, to drive not only meetings, but also to drive deals coming to closure. I feel good about where we are, again, heading into this fiscal year, just with everything behind us, and I think all the things are in place. The organizational components are in place, the technology components, and all the focus we've been having on what I would say, and you guys don't see it, what we see.
John Gibson: All the inside work we've had to do in finishing the transformation of our operating layer, dealing with all the integration issues with the largest integration we've had, all the internal things we've needed to do organizationally around that from a sales and sales territory perspective. You guys don't see that. We've been seeing that. Now to not have to be focused on that and to be able to totally focus on execution, and then the tailwinds that I'm seeing in product development, from AI utilization there, that's going to accelerate our ability to execute the roadmap faster. The benefit that I'm seeing both our sales and service teams are having in leveraging these tools, these WISE tools that we've launched to them over the last quarter, and the benefits we're seeing in their productivity really makes me encouraged about how we're setting up for this year.
John Gibson: All the inside work we've had to do in finishing the transformation of our operating layer, dealing with all the integration issues with the largest integration we've had, all the internal things we've needed to do organizationally around that from a sales and sales territory perspective. You guys don't see that. We've been seeing that. Now to not have to be focused on that and to be able to totally focus on execution, and then the tailwinds that I'm seeing in product development, from AI utilization there, that's going to accelerate our ability to execute the roadmap faster. The benefit that I'm seeing both our sales and service teams are having in leveraging these tools, these WISE tools that we've launched to them over the last quarter, and the benefits we're seeing in their productivity really makes me encouraged about how we're setting up for this year.
Robert Schrader: The other thing I would just add from a conviction standpoint, Andrew, I think this next fiscal year sets up a lot differently than last fiscal year for all the reasons that John highlighted. In addition, to hit last year's guide, the 2026 guide, there was an acceleration that was required in the H2. There was reasons for that. Some of it was on the compares, but we certainly delivered that. Now I think as we go into next fiscal year, John talked about all the momentum that we have exiting this year. Really what we've set up next year, from a guide standpoint, is pretty much in line with what we're delivering and what we're exiting the year. Certainly from a conviction standpoint, the year sets up much differently than last year did. We don't have this big ramp in the H2.
Bob Schrader: The other thing I would just add from a conviction standpoint, Andrew, I think this next fiscal year sets up a lot differently than last fiscal year for all the reasons that John highlighted. In addition, to hit last year's guide, the 2026 guide, there was an acceleration that was required in the H2. There was reasons for that. Some of it was on the compares, but we certainly delivered that. Now I think as we go into next fiscal year, John talked about all the momentum that we have exiting this year. Really what we've set up next year, from a guide standpoint, is pretty much in line with what we're delivering and what we're exiting the year. Certainly from a conviction standpoint, the year sets up much differently than last year did. We don't have this big ramp in the H2.
Robert Schrader: We delivered it, like we mentioned, it certainly gives us a lot more confidence, just given the momentum that we have exiting this year and not having to deliver a significant step-up as we move through the year.
Bob Schrader: We delivered it, like we mentioned, it certainly gives us a lot more confidence, just given the momentum that we have exiting this year and not having to deliver a significant step-up as we move through the year.
Andrew Nicholas: Helpful. Thank you. Then maybe I just switch over to PEO and insurance services. That was a result that was quite a bit better than what we expected. Can you walk through kind of what PEO revenue looks like compared to insurance services in the quarter and kind of level set where we're at heading into 2027 in terms of the healthcare plan and those dynamics that you were kind of fighting against at the beginning of 2026? Thank you.
Andrew Nicholas: Helpful. Thank you. Then maybe I just switch over to PEO and insurance services. That was a result that was quite a bit better than what we expected. Can you walk through kind of what PEO revenue looks like compared to insurance services in the quarter and kind of level set where we're at heading into 2027 in terms of the healthcare plan and those dynamics that you were kind of fighting against at the beginning of 2026? Thank you.
Robert Schrader: Yeah. The underlying operating performance for the PEO business has been strong for a number of quarters and a number of years. We know we had some challenges last year with some of the optics with the MPP enrollment. You and I, we have talked about this. You're very familiar with the PEO industry. To me, it's all about driving worksite employee growth, and we continue to do that. As John mentioned in the prepared remarks, continue to outpace kind of the industry there, and it's really coming from strong demand. We saw another quarter of double-digit demand in the PEO business, as well as record worksite employee retention. We know the strength of that business model, the value proposition is very strong. That business grew double digits in the quarter. Obviously, the category was a little bit below that.
Bob Schrader: Yeah. The underlying operating performance for the PEO business has been strong for a number of quarters and a number of years. We know we had some challenges last year with some of the optics with the MPP enrollment. You and I, we have talked about this. You're very familiar with the PEO industry. To me, it's all about driving worksite employee growth, and we continue to do that. As John mentioned in the prepared remarks, continue to outpace kind of the industry there, and it's really coming from strong demand. We saw another quarter of double-digit demand in the PEO business, as well as record worksite employee retention. We know the strength of that business model, the value proposition is very strong. That business grew double digits in the quarter. Obviously, the category was a little bit below that.
Robert Schrader: The agency continues to be a drag on the overall growth of that quarter. We are seeing some positive trends, certainly in the back half of this year as it relates to the agency, both from a demand and retention standpoint. We would expect, prospectively, that headwind from the agency side to subside somewhat, but continue to expect the momentum that we've seen in the PEO. The other thing, too, I would just say from an enrollment standpoint, as you know, we had the MPP challenges last year. We anniversaried those, which helped with the compare, but we've also seen the enrollment growth, not only overall in medical attachment across the PEO within Florida, where we have that at-risk plan. We actually drew that this year. We're seeing good enrollment.
Bob Schrader: The agency continues to be a drag on the overall growth of that quarter. We are seeing some positive trends, certainly in the back half of this year as it relates to the agency, both from a demand and retention standpoint. We would expect, prospectively, that headwind from the agency side to subside somewhat, but continue to expect the momentum that we've seen in the PEO. The other thing, too, I would just say from an enrollment standpoint, as you know, we had the MPP challenges last year. We anniversaried those, which helped with the compare, but we've also seen the enrollment growth, not only overall in medical attachment across the PEO within Florida, where we have that at-risk plan. We actually drew that this year. We're seeing good enrollment.
Robert Schrader: We had good annual renewals in those books of business, as well as we're seeing, I would say, better attachment of medical upfront, which really helps drive that worksite employee retention that we talked about, because it just really makes those clients much more stickier when they attach their health with us. A lot of positive trends as we move forward in the PEO.
Bob Schrader: We had good annual renewals in those books of business, as well as we're seeing, I would say, better attachment of medical upfront, which really helps drive that worksite employee retention that we talked about, because it just really makes those clients much more stickier when they attach their health with us. A lot of positive trends as we move forward in the PEO.
Andrew Nicholas: Thank you very much.
Andrew Nicholas: Thank you very much.
Robert Schrader: Yep.
Bob Schrader: Yep.
Operator 2: Thank you. We'll go next now to Kevin McVeigh with UBS.
Operator: Thank you. We'll go next now to Kevin McVeigh with UBS.
Kevin McVeigh: Great. Thanks so much. Commentary on Q1 was helpful in terms of the revenue growth. Bob, if I heard you right, I think you said Q1 should be similar to the full year. Maybe just help us with the pacing over the course of Q2 through Q4, and as you start to comp tougher comps, where's the offset to that? Is it just the way the bookings come in? Or maybe just help us dimensionalize that a little bit.
Kevin McVeigh: Great. Thanks so much. Commentary on Q1 was helpful in terms of the revenue growth. Bob, if I heard you right, I think you said Q1 should be similar to the full year. Maybe just help us with the pacing over the course of Q2 through Q4, and as you start to comp tougher comps, where's the offset to that? Is it just the way the bookings come in? Or maybe just help us dimensionalize that a little bit.
Robert Schrader: Yeah. Listen, I think the year sets up, as I mentioned earlier, the gating is fairly consistent. When you talk about comps, we certainly had easier comps in the back half of this year relative to the PEO. We're comparing the back half of this year to last year when we were actually down in enrollment. Now we're going to be up in enrollment. The comps get a little bit tougher, Kevin, on the PEO business as we move in the back half. Obviously, we continue to expect improved performance from a bookings and retention and all the things within our control. When you look at the quarters, the gating is relatively consistent quarter to quarter. There's always puts and takes. I don't see as much risks maybe as was perceived with this fiscal year.
Bob Schrader: Yeah. Listen, I think the year sets up, as I mentioned earlier, the gating is fairly consistent. When you talk about comps, we certainly had easier comps in the back half of this year relative to the PEO. We're comparing the back half of this year to last year when we were actually down in enrollment. Now we're going to be up in enrollment. The comps get a little bit tougher, Kevin, on the PEO business as we move in the back half. Obviously, we continue to expect improved performance from a bookings and retention and all the things within our control. When you look at the quarters, the gating is relatively consistent quarter to quarter. There's always puts and takes. I don't see as much risks maybe as was perceived with this fiscal year.
Kevin McVeigh: Got it. With Paycor in the base now, is there anything from a seasonality perspective that we should consider just as the year kind of shapes up?
Kevin McVeigh: Got it. With Paycor in the base now, is there anything from a seasonality perspective that we should consider just as the year kind of shapes up?
Robert Schrader: Nothing that comes to mind. Similar to our business, there's obviously a lot of year-end processing revenue that hits Q3. Obviously, it's high margin. It drives a lot of profitability in Q3. Outside of that, I can't think of anything offhand that would give you some differences quarter to quarter.
Bob Schrader: Nothing that comes to mind. Similar to our business, there's obviously a lot of year-end processing revenue that hits Q3. Obviously, it's high margin. It drives a lot of profitability in Q3. Outside of that, I can't think of anything offhand that would give you some differences quarter to quarter.
Kevin McVeigh: Thank you.
Kevin McVeigh: Thank you.
John Gibson: I would add.
John Gibson: I would add.
Kevin McVeigh: Okay.
Kevin McVeigh: Okay.
John Gibson: I think, anytime you have the larger deals, a lot of times.
John Gibson: I think, anytime you have the larger deals, a lot of times.
Robert Schrader: Yes
Bob Schrader: Yes
John Gibson: We'll wait until the end of the year. That's one of the things we constantly look is the bookings is building. In the larger segments, a lot of times they'll wait for a quarter, or a lot of times they want to wait till the end of a calendar year. Again, nothing that I would say is meaningful. Remember, we had a very large enterprise business before we bought Paycor, so we're familiar with it. Certainly as we focus there, we're watching how the bookings develop because the bookings may be building, but then the implementation date isn't for 9 months away. We're looking at that as well, but we're not seeing anything that's meaningful to change substantially the gating we've seen historically in our business.
John Gibson: We'll wait until the end of the year. That's one of the things we constantly look is the bookings is building. In the larger segments, a lot of times they'll wait for a quarter, or a lot of times they want to wait till the end of a calendar year. Again, nothing that I would say is meaningful. Remember, we had a very large enterprise business before we bought Paycor, so we're familiar with it. Certainly as we focus there, we're watching how the bookings develop because the bookings may be building, but then the implementation date isn't for 9 months away. We're looking at that as well, but we're not seeing anything that's meaningful to change substantially the gating we've seen historically in our business.
Kevin McVeigh: John, just on that point, that would impact your Q3 more, right?
Kevin McVeigh: John, just on that point, that would impact your Q3 more, right?
John Gibson: Right. Correct.
John Gibson: Right. Correct.
Kevin McVeigh: As they go live 1 January?
Kevin McVeigh: As they go live 1 January?
John Gibson: That's correct.
John Gibson: That's correct.
Kevin McVeigh: Okay.
Kevin McVeigh: Okay.
John Gibson: Again, that's something.
John Gibson: Again, that's something.
Kevin McVeigh: Thank you.
Kevin McVeigh: Thank you.
John Gibson: It's very typical in our business. Again, because we're putting more resources against the enterprise area. Again, we're doing ASO and we're doing PEO at the point of sale as well. Again, as we do larger deals, any larger deal, a lot of times those clients are going to want to do something on a clean quarter. Whereas in the small business, we'll do it during the middle of the week if we need to.
John Gibson: It's very typical in our business. Again, because we're putting more resources against the enterprise area. Again, we're doing ASO and we're doing PEO at the point of sale as well. Again, as we do larger deals, any larger deal, a lot of times those clients are going to want to do something on a clean quarter. Whereas in the small business, we'll do it during the middle of the week if we need to.
Kevin McVeigh: Good. Thank you.
Kevin McVeigh: Good. Thank you.
John Gibson: Yep.
John Gibson: Yep.
Operator 2: Thank you. We'll go next now to Jared Levine with TD Cowen.
Operator: Thank you. We'll go next now to Jared Levine with TD Cowen.
Jared Levine: Thank you. I wanted to dig in in terms of the implied Paycor ex float growth right around 4%, based on my math there in Q4. I guess any way to size how much of that deceleration in growth is more so cross-sells of the ASO and PO, thinking about kind of revenue shifting out of Paycor to Paychex more so than kind of revenue churn or even weaker than expected bookings here?
Jared Levine: Thank you. I wanted to dig in in terms of the implied Paycor ex float growth right around 4%, based on my math there in Q4. I guess any way to size how much of that deceleration in growth is more so cross-sells of the ASO and PO, thinking about kind of revenue shifting out of Paycor to Paychex more so than kind of revenue churn or even weaker than expected bookings here?
Robert Schrader: Jared, I'll talk the way we talked last quarter as it relates to that. I think it's somewhat of an apples-to-oranges comparison, just given the way we're managing the business this year versus the way it was managed last year, with revenue and resources moving around between the two. I think the way we've been looking at that business is as our enterprise business, which is kind of 100+, loosely defined. When we look at that, the growth of that business, I think, was fairly strong in Q3, and we saw similar trends in Q4 with our enterprise business across both platforms. It really doesn't matter where the client was last year and where they are this year—we saw high single-digit growth in our enterprise business during the quarter. Again, I think we've talked about that—that's our expectation prospectively.
Bob Schrader: Jared, I'll talk the way we talked last quarter as it relates to that. I think it's somewhat of a apples to oranges comparison, just given the way we're managing the business this year versus the way it was managed last year with revenue and resources moving around between the two. I think the way we've been looking at that business as our enterprise business, which is kind of 100+, loosely defined. When we look at that, the growth of that business, I think was fairly strong in Q3, and we saw similar trends in Q4 where our enterprise business across both platforms. It really doesn't matter where the client was last year and where they are this year. We saw high single-digit growth in our enterprise business during the quarter. Again, I think we've talked about that. That's our expectation prospectively.
Robert Schrader: When you look at the other assets in that space, that growth rate is not too dissimilar to what the other pays are producing, and we would expect at minimum to continue to keep pace with that growth in that segment of the market.
Bob Schrader: When you look at the other assets in that space, that growth rate is not too dissimilar to what the other pays are producing, and we would expect at minimum to continue to keep pace with that growth in that segment of the market.
John Gibson: Yeah. I want to add on to this because the first thing I'm always cautious of, because I don't want to come off as being defensive about this topic. It's been challenging as we launched the integration. I think what's probably not known as you look at the Paycor business, and one of the things that attracted us to it strategically is this was a legacy business that had a rather sizable under 100 client base. Probably the brand was known as something larger than that. When we looked, there was a motion in that business to keep that client base at least stable. When you're looking at comps about what growth was three years ago, you're looking at a growth of both a under 100 and an over 100 business. Stop right there.
John Gibson: Yeah. I want to add on to this because the first thing I'm always cautious of, because I don't want to come off as being defensive about this topic. It's been challenging as we launched the integration. I think what's probably not known as you look at the Paycor business, and one of the things that attracted us to it strategically is this was a legacy business that had a rather sizable under 100 client base. Probably the brand was known as something larger than that. When we looked, there was a motion in that business to keep that client base at least stable. When you're looking at comps about what growth was three years ago, you're looking at a growth of both a under 100 and an over 100 business. Stop right there.
John Gibson: We made a conscious decision, which I think is the best decision for the company, was we wanted to focus that technology and brand where it was resonating most and where it was getting the best traction. When we separated the two, we took all the under 100 and moved that to our small business segment and vice versa. Look, on an aggregate basis, but in terms of Paycor is now a brand for our enterprise segment that we define as 100 employees and more. We're selling complete solutions there. We're selling at the point of sale, a PO, an ASO, and those are going into different parts of our business segments. It's very complicated to do that. What I'm looking at is the enterprise. Here's what I can tell you.
John Gibson: We made a conscious decision, which I think is the best decision for the company, was we wanted to focus that technology and brand where it was resonating most and where it was getting the best traction. When we separated the two, we took all the under 100 and moved that to our small business segment and vice versa. Look, on an aggregate basis, but in terms of Paycor is now a brand for our enterprise segment that we define as 100 employees and more. We're selling complete solutions there. We're selling at the point of sale, a PO, an ASO, and those are going into different parts of our business segments. It's very complicated to do that. What I'm looking at is the enterprise. Here's what I can tell you.
John Gibson: Our enterprise business at Paychex is growing faster than it's grown, number one. Number two, our 100-plus retention is the highest it's been since I've been here in 13 years. Again, the combination of having the right technology, the right capabilities focused on these upper-end enterprise segments, I think is benefiting us not only from accelerating our historical organic growth there, but also in retaining clients. I certainly think, we're better together. We're totally together now. We're totally integrated. I think as we move forward, what we're going to be focused on is continuing to grow and serve that enterprise segment and making sure we're maximizing the product penetration, both PO, ASO, and HCM in the 100-plus segment in the marketplace. Hope that helps.
John Gibson: Our enterprise business at Paychex is growing faster than it's grown, number one. Number two, our 100-plus retention is the highest it's been since I've been here in 13 years. Again, the combination of having the right technology, the right capabilities focused on these upper-end enterprise segments, I think is benefiting us not only from accelerating our historical organic growth there, but also in retaining clients. I certainly think, we're better together. We're totally together now. We're totally integrated. I think as we move forward, what we're going to be focused on is continuing to grow and serve that enterprise segment and making sure we're maximizing the product penetration, both PO, ASO, and HCM in the 100-plus segment in the marketplace. Hope that helps.
Jared Levine: No, that was helpful. As my follow-up here, in terms of the roughly flat client count growth this year, I guess anything to call out in terms of notable differences, whether it came to, call it the core Paychex versus Paycor, and when might this potentially inflect and return back to growth?
Jared Levine: No, that was helpful. As my follow-up here, in terms of the roughly flat client count growth this year, I guess anything to call out in terms of notable differences, whether it came to, call it the core Paychex versus Paycor, and when might this potentially inflect and return back to growth?
John Gibson: I think when you look at it from a retention perspective, across the board, our client retention was record in our ASO PEO business work site employee basis. Our 100-plus, as I said, was record level as well. When you look at client losses, client losses tend to be in the lower end of the market and tend to be out of business, that's just really where the year has gone. As I said repeatedly, we constantly are selective in clients that we're going to bring in to the business. We know what a good client's going to be, a client that we can attach, a client we're going to get lifetime value on. We understand the cost of acquisition very well. We're not going to do irrational things just to add clients that are not going to be profitable clients.
John Gibson: I think when you look at it from a retention perspective, across the board, our client retention was record in our ASO PEO business work site employee basis. Our 100-plus, as I said, was record level as well. When you look at client losses, client losses tend to be in the lower end of the market and tend to be out of business, that's just really where the year has gone. As I said repeatedly, we constantly are selective in clients that we're going to bring in to the business. We know what a good client's going to be, a client that we can attach, a client we're going to get lifetime value on. We understand the cost of acquisition very well. We're not going to do irrational things just to add clients that are not going to be profitable clients.
John Gibson: You cannot achieve the margin profile that we do and have a lot of unprofitable clients. That's going to continue to be our strategy. We think that's going to continue to not only grow revenue for us, but I think it's also going to make sure that we have the right underlying financial performance in terms of margins and margin expansion going forward.
John Gibson: You cannot achieve the margin profile that we do and have a lot of unprofitable clients. That's going to continue to be our strategy. We think that's going to continue to not only grow revenue for us, but I think it's also going to make sure that we have the right underlying financial performance in terms of margins and margin expansion going forward.
Jared Levine: Copy. Thank you.
Jared Levine: Copy. Thank you.
Operator 2: We'll go next now to Daniel Jester with BMO Capital Markets.
Operator: We'll go next now to Daniel Jester with BMO Capital Markets.
Daniel Jester: Great, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. On the revenue synergies, the outperformance that you had this fiscal year—more than 50 basis points—it sounded like from some of the comments on the questions that maybe the Paycor sales force wasn't sort of fully engaged the whole fiscal year. Is there any way to think about how that cross-sell could progress next year, or the opportunity? Could it actually contribute more to growth next fiscal year than the past one? Thank you.
Daniel Jester: Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. On the revenue synergies, the outperformance that you had this fiscal year, more than 50 basis points. It sounded like from some of the comments on the questions that maybe the Paycor sales force wasn't sort of fully engaged the whole fiscal year. Is there any way to think about how that cross-sell could progress next year or the opportunity? Could it actually contribute more to growth next fiscal year than the past one? Thank you.
John Gibson: Yeah, I mean, I'll start.
John Gibson: Yeah, I mean, I'll start.
Robert Schrader: Yeah, go ahead.
Bob Schrader: Yeah, go ahead.
John Gibson: Well, first thing, I don't want to categorize it as that they weren't engaged. We were very engaged, and we had good success. You look at ASO and retirement penetration really exceeded our expectations. PEO, which is a longer sales cycle, we got several large deals, and that's accelerated as the years went on. Look, I'd go back and remind you, we did change territories, we changed management, we changed leadership structure, and we retrained them on the various products and services, and all that didn't start until June, a year ago. What I would not characterize it wasn't a lack of engagement. It's really just that point of kind of learning and then getting accustomed to, okay, how do I put this into my sales motion? How do I put these talk tracks in, and how do I engage my Paychex partners in the sales process?
John Gibson: Well, first thing, I don't want to categorize it as that they weren't engaged. We were very engaged, and we had good success. You look at ASO and retirement penetration really exceeded our expectations. PEO, which is a longer sales cycle, we got several large deals, and that's accelerated as the years went on. Look, I'd go back and remind you, we did change territories, we changed management, we changed leadership structure, and we retrained them on the various products and services, and all that didn't start until June, a year ago. What I would not characterize it wasn't a lack of engagement. It's really just that point of kind of learning and then getting accustomed to, okay, how do I put this into my sales motion? How do I put these talk tracks in, and how do I engage my Paychex partners in the sales process?
John Gibson: As you can imagine, you just get better with that over time, and we're constantly learning on that. I don't want to characterize it as we weren't having engagement, but there's no question, as we do it more frequently and we have success doing it, that success breeds more success and more people are doing it. That's what we're seeing in our bookings. Our referrals this year across all the platform was stellar. It really drove a lot of the booking success that we had this year. Bob, you want to-
John Gibson: As you can imagine, you just get better with that over time, and we're constantly learning on that. I don't want to characterize it as we weren't having engagement, but there's no question, as we do it more frequently and we have success doing it, that success breeds more success and more people are doing it. That's what we're seeing in our bookings. Our referrals this year across all the platform was stellar. It really drove a lot of the booking success that we had this year. Bob, you want to-
Jared Levine: Okay.
Daniel Jester: Okay.
Robert Schrader: Yeah, the only thing I would just add to it is that, it's the reason why we did the deal, right? It was one of the main reasons why we did the deal was the opportunity to go after those revenue synergies, because we knew how successful that we had been in going in and monetizing our client base, particularly with these higher value solutions. We're already having a ton of success with the Paycor client base that I think when we did the deal, we highlighted that that wasn't a one and done type of thing, that we would continue to build momentum there over time as we went after that opportunity. We exceeded this year's number, and now we got to grow over that, right? We would expect probably even stronger contribution next year and beyond to growth.
Bob Schrader: Yeah, the only thing I would just add to it is that, it's the reason why we did the deal, right? It was one of the main reasons why we did the deal was the opportunity to go after those revenue synergies, because we knew how successful that we had been in going in and monetizing our client base, particularly with these higher value solutions. We're already having a ton of success with the Paycor client base that I think when we did the deal, we highlighted that that wasn't a one and done type of thing, that we would continue to build momentum there over time as we went after that opportunity. We exceeded this year's number, and now we got to grow over that, right? We would expect probably even stronger contribution next year and beyond to growth. I do think it is what's fueling a lot of the improvement in the organic revenue growth that we've talked about as we've moved through the year.
John Gibson: I do think it is what's fueling a lot of the improvement in the organic revenue growth that we've talked about as we've moved through the year.
Daniel Jester: That's really helpful context, thank you. Maybe to go back to a question earlier on AI monetization and WISE. As you sort of roll this out to customers, is this something that you think is going to be more for SMBs? Is this more enterprise? Who do you think is going to be able to engage with these tools kind of out of the gate? How do you see that ramping? Thank you.
Daniel Jester: That's really helpful context, thank you. Maybe to go back to a question earlier on AI monetization and WISE. As you sort of roll this out to customers, is this something that you think is going to be more for SMBs? Is this more enterprise? Who do you think is going to be able to engage with these tools kind of out of the gate? How do you see that ramping? Thank you.
John Gibson: Yeah, look, I think that this product is going to resonate with clients of all sizes. The reason why I say that, let's just talk about the HR compliance capabilities that we now have based upon our 50-year history. For a client that does not have an HR department, this enables them to, in real time, make sure that they're always in compliance. When you're hitting thresholds in a certain state, either because you've now hired your fifth employee and now you've got certain state stipulations that you've got to do certain things. Instead of you needing to wait or remembering it's five or for us reminding you just hired your fifth, the system's automatically doing that and automatically taking the action to enroll you in a workers' comp program or unemployment insurance.
John Gibson: Yeah, look, I think that this product is going to resonate with clients of all sizes. The reason why I say that, let's just talk about the HR compliance capabilities that we now have based upon our 50-year history. For a client that does not have an HR department, this enables them to, in real time, make sure that they're always in compliance. When you're hitting thresholds in a certain state, either because you've now hired your fifth employee and now you've got certain state stipulations that you've got to do certain things. Instead of you needing to wait or remembering it's five or for us reminding you just hired your fifth, the system's automatically doing that and automatically taking the action to enroll you in a workers' comp program or unemployment insurance.
John Gibson: I think in the small end, I think this is going to give them greater peace of mind. I think we're going to have less errors on tax and tax ID issues that we have, which I think is going to be beneficial from a retention perspective. Then I think as you go up market, I think this tool in the hands of an HR professional is going to give them far more confidence and capability to be able to focus on strategic HR initiatives and have our AI models and agents actually do the work for them. Our WISE AI compliance tool, some of which we did through acquisition, integrates with most of the large HCM platforms that are in the market today.
John Gibson: I think in the small end, I think this is going to give them greater peace of mind. I think we're going to have less errors on tax and tax ID issues that we have, which I think is going to be beneficial from a retention perspective. Then I think as you go up market, I think this tool in the hands of an HR professional is going to give them far more confidence and capability to be able to focus on strategic HR initiatives and have our AI models and agents actually do the work for them. Our WISE AI compliance tool, some of which we did through acquisition, integrates with most of the large HCM platforms that are in the market today.
John Gibson: Again, as I said, you can have the compliance AI, agentic AI, patent pending, Paychex compliance capability, regardless of the platform that you're on, and we will integrate with your platform to help you have a digital HR agent keep you compliant.
John Gibson: Again, as I said, you can have the compliance AI, agentic AI, patent pending, Paychex compliance capability, regardless of the platform that you're on, and we will integrate with your platform to help you have a digital HR agent keep you compliant.
Daniel Jester: Great. Thank you very much.
Daniel Jester: Great. Thank you very much.
Operator 2: We'll go next now to Jacob Smith with Guggenheim Securities.
Operator: We'll go next now to Jacob Smith with Guggenheim Securities.
Jacob Smith: Hey, thanks for taking my question. How did Paycor broker referrals trend during the quarter? Did you continue to see acceleration in bookings like you called out last quarter? On the Hub International partnership you announced back in May, curious what's actually different in that arrangement versus how you and Paycor worked with the broker channel before. You've also had several quarters now to gather feedback from partners on what they want to see. I'm wondering if this is an evolution of the Partner Plus program and whether this model is something you're looking to take to other national brokerages to drive new business referrals going forward.
Jacob Smith: Hey, thanks for taking my question. How did Paycor broker referrals trend during the quarter? Did you continue to see acceleration in bookings like you called out last quarter? On the Hub International partnership you announced back in May, curious what's actually different in that arrangement versus how you and Paycor worked with the broker channel before. You've also had several quarters now to gather feedback from partners on what they want to see. I'm wondering if this is an evolution of the Partner Plus program and whether this model is something you're looking to take to other national brokerages to drive new business referrals going forward.
John Gibson: Yeah, no, our bookings holistically through the Paycor, through our enterprise reps, has grown every quarter since the acquisition. The broker pipeline has continued to grow with it, including the Q4 being higher than the Q3. Again, even if you strip out seasonality, which there is in that business in terms of timing, we're seeing, and we're now back to what I would say is pre-acquisition levels in that area. We did sign actually two. One is named Hub. You mentioned one. There's another one, unnamed, that we have already signed, and it is part of our Partner Plus. The thing that is different about the Partner Plus program that we're going to market with is it is holistic. They are able to represent all of our products and services, any product and services that we have in the Paychex portfolio.
John Gibson: Yeah, no, our bookings holistically through the Paycor, through our enterprise reps, has grown every quarter since the acquisition. The broker pipeline has continued to grow with it, including the Q4 being higher than the Q3. Again, even if you strip out seasonality, which there is in that business in terms of timing, we're seeing, and we're now back to what I would say is pre-acquisition levels in that area. We did sign actually two. One is named Hub. You mentioned one. There's another one, unnamed, that we have already signed, and it is part of our Partner Plus. The thing that is different about the Partner Plus program that we're going to market with is it is holistic. They are able to represent all of our products and services, any product and services that we have in the Paychex portfolio.
John Gibson: We're also partnering with them on some of the HR compliance and some of the HR capabilities that I just mentioned to you. I really think when you begin to look at the holistic, both advisory solutions, compliance tools, and then the breadth of the capabilities we have from a technology perspective, we're bringing all that to bear in our Partner Plus program for brokers. We actually are getting good feedback from those loyal brokers that have been there. As we're adding new brokers, they like the approach that we're bringing, that it's a holistic approach.
John Gibson: We're also partnering with them on some of the HR compliance and some of the HR capabilities that I just mentioned to you. I really think when you begin to look at the holistic, both advisory solutions, compliance tools, and then the breadth of the capabilities we have from a technology perspective, we're bringing all that to bear in our Partner Plus program for brokers. We actually are getting good feedback from those loyal brokers that have been there. As we're adding new brokers, they like the approach that we're bringing, that it's a holistic approach.
Jacob Smith: Great, thanks. A quick follow-up as well. Just on Paycor sales headcount, last quarter, you mentioned intention to expand there. Maybe just an update there. Should we expect that to help FY 2027 bookings or maybe a little bit further out since there's a ramp period?
Jacob Smith: Great, thanks. A quick follow-up as well. Just on Paycor sales headcount, last quarter, you mentioned intention to expand there. Maybe just an update there. Should we expect that to help FY 2027 bookings or maybe a little bit further out since there's a ramp period?
John Gibson: Yes. We're committed, as we said when we did the acquisition, to continue to add a sales headcount. That is in our plan, we are actively building sales headcount as we speak. We have openings. If you know anybody, you can refer them.
John Gibson: Yes. We're committed, as we said when we did the acquisition, to continue to add a sales headcount. That is in our plan, we are actively building sales headcount as we speak. We have openings. If you know anybody, you can refer them.
Jacob Smith: Great. Thank you.
Jacob Smith: Great. Thank you.
Operator 2: Thank you. We'll go next now to Samad Samana at Jefferies.
Operator: Thank you. We'll go next now to Samad Samana at Jefferies.
Samad Samana: Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just unpacking the fiscal 2027 guidance a little bit—if I think about some of the assumptions around unit growth versus pricing contribution versus new bookings, I know you guys don't guide to those components specifically. But just as we think about the fiscal 2026 contribution, how are you tilting those variables? What are you assuming? Are you assuming retention's flat, up, or down? How are you thinking about the amount of price you can take in fiscal 2027 versus 2026? Just help us understand the growth algorithm, given all the changes that have occurred over the last 18 months.
Samad Samana: Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just unpacking the fiscal 2027 guidance a little bit. If I think about some of the assumptions around unit growth versus pricing contribution versus new bookings, I know you guys don't guide to those components specifically, but just as we think about the fiscal 2026 contribution, how are you tilting those variables? What are you assuming? Are you assuming retention's flat, up, or down? How are you thinking about the amount of price you can take in fiscal 2027 versus 2026? Just help us understand the growth algorithm, given all the changes that have occurred over the last 18 months.
Robert Schrader: Yeah, we always put together a plan where we're trying to sell more and lose less. Retention has improved significantly over the last five years, particularly when you look at the ASO and PEO. It's pretty remarkable how much retention has improved. The teams always challenge themselves, and we're always trying to get better, improve retention. Obviously, trying to look to grow sales, as John mentioned, look for opportunities to add headcount. When you look at our client base, Samad, and our assumptions there, listen, our client base has been relatively flat. We're not getting a ton of growth from that. Really, we don't need to get a ton of growth out of that. We're trying to be thoughtful and make the right investments in really trying to attract the right client.
Bob Schrader: Yeah, we always put together a plan where we're trying to sell more and lose less. Retention has improved significantly over the last five years, particularly when you look at the ASO and PEO. It's pretty remarkable how much retention has improved. The teams always challenge themselves, and we're always trying to get better, improve retention. Obviously, trying to look to grow sales, as John mentioned, look for opportunities to add headcount. When you look at our client base, Samad, and our assumptions there, listen, our client base has been relatively flat. We're not getting a ton of growth from that. Really, we don't need to get a ton of growth out of that. We're trying to be thoughtful and make the right investments in really trying to attract the right client.
Robert Schrader: Overall, we're trying to outsell our losses and grow our client base a little bit, but really trying to grow our client base in the right client sizes. That was one of the reasons why we pulled the trigger on the Paycor acquisition, trying to get larger clients in the door because we know where we've gotten all of our growth from ASO and PEO retirement services. A lot of those solutions meet the needs of larger customers. Our assumption is not that we're going to generate a ton of client base growth, that we would continue to maintain our client base, but maybe improve in the right client sizes to really execute on our model, which I think you and I have talked about this, is really a revenue per client model.
Bob Schrader: Overall, we're trying to outsell our losses and grow our client base a little bit, but really trying to grow our client base in the right client sizes. That was one of the reasons why we pulled the trigger on the Paycor acquisition, trying to get larger clients in the door because we know where we've gotten all of our growth from ASO and PEO retirement services. A lot of those solutions meet the needs of larger customers. Our assumption is not that we're going to generate a ton of client base growth, that we would continue to maintain our client base, but maybe improve in the right client sizes to really execute on our model, which I think you and I have talked about this, is really a revenue per client model.
Robert Schrader: Really our ability to go in, get a larger share of wallet out of our client base. When we look at the penetration rates of the key solutions within the Paychex Flex client base, they're still relatively low. We see lots of opportunities there. Obviously, there's the huge opportunity in front of us that we've been executing on with the Paycor client base. When you look at the plan next year, it's that. It's assuming that client base will be relatively flat, but maybe improving a little bit and in the right client sizes. It's really going to be an increase in revenue per client, which is really our model. Roughly half of that is coming from pricing and half of it's coming from share of wallet.
Bob Schrader: Really our ability to go in, get a larger share of wallet out of our client base. When we look at the penetration rates of the key solutions within the Paychex Flex client base, they're still relatively low. We see lots of opportunities there. Obviously, there's the huge opportunity in front of us that we've been executing on with the Paycor client base. When you look at the plan next year, it's that. It's assuming that client base will be relatively flat, but maybe improving a little bit and in the right client sizes. It's really going to be an increase in revenue per client, which is really our model. Roughly half of that is coming from pricing and half of it's coming from share of wallet. As I mentioned, there's a bit of a headwind on float this year, just given what happened with short-term rates at the end of last calendar year. That's how we're thinking about the year.
Robert Schrader: As I mentioned, there's a bit of a headwind on float this year, just given what happened with short-term rates at the end of last calendar year. That's how we're thinking about the year.
Samad Samana: Great. I just want to ask one follow-up on the, especially since you just mentioned revenue per client. I thought the discussion around, I guess, being able to have products while not having the payroll or core payroll module, is a good strategy for the retention component. How is that impacting maybe the initial land? Are you seeing the funnel either broaden to where you're getting a greater mix of non-payroll customers at the outset of joining the Paychex journey? Is that changing maybe what the average revenue per new customer added looks like? How should we think about that maybe in your guidance as well?
Samad Samana: Great. I just want to ask one follow-up on the, especially since you just mentioned revenue per client. I thought the discussion around, I guess, being able to have products while not having the payroll or core payroll module, is a good strategy for the retention component. How is that impacting maybe the initial land? Are you seeing the funnel either broaden to where you're getting a greater mix of non-payroll customers at the outset of joining the Paychex journey? Is that changing maybe what the average revenue per new customer added looks like? How should we think about that maybe in your guidance as well?
John Gibson: No, I think, Samad, what you should think about is now that we have this capability and we've been using this capability, let's say just somewhat defensively, let's don't lose everything. If there's opportunities for us to add a client on a standalone basis that is non-standalone payroll, let's go and do that. I think what you're going to see is now that we have this capability, we will try to begin to integrate that into our sales motion, so that if it's not the right time for a client to transition their payroll provider, their HCM provider, it may be the right time for them to leverage our compliance tool. It may be the right time for them to use another one of our products or services, like one of our benefits. Retirement or et cetera.
John Gibson: No, I think, Samad, what you should think about is now that we have this capability and we've been using this capability, let's say just somewhat defensively, let's don't lose everything. If there's opportunities for us to add a client on a standalone basis that is non-standalone payroll, let's go and do that. I think what you're going to see is now that we have this capability, we will try to begin to integrate that into our sales motion, so that if it's not the right time for a client to transition their payroll provider, their HCM provider, it may be the right time for them to leverage our compliance tool. It may be the right time for them to use another one of our products or services, like one of our benefits. Retirement or et cetera.
John Gibson: I think one of the things that is probably different in the motion that we now have the capability to do that we just have to figure out the economics, the go-to-market strategy around is, okay, when I'm in that deal and I'm trying to sell the entire bundle, which is typically what we're trying to do, we're trying to convince someone to move to our HCM and payroll platform, and then we're bringing our 401 partner in at the same time. Those things are generally, or insurance or ASO, those things were generally done as a integrated bundle. If you didn't win the HCM payroll, you didn't win anything. Now what we have an enablement to do technologically, that's the start. Is that we can actually bill it, and we can actually collect it, and we can actually service it. That's the breakthrough here.
John Gibson: I think one of the things that is probably different in the motion that we now have the capability to do that we just have to figure out the economics, the go-to-market strategy around is, okay, when I'm in that deal and I'm trying to sell the entire bundle, which is typically what we're trying to do, we're trying to convince someone to move to our HCM and payroll platform, and then we're bringing our 401 partner in at the same time. Those things are generally, or insurance or ASO, those things were generally done as a integrated bundle. If you didn't win the HCM payroll, you didn't win anything. Now what we have an enablement to do technologically, that's the start. Is that we can actually bill it, and we can actually collect it, and we can actually service it. That's the breakthrough here.
John Gibson: I think, now we're just really to the point of saying, Okay, can you do that profitably? What are the economics of that? Certainly, the capability is what I'm excited about because I do think it gives us an opportunity to be able to impact more customers in the marketplace, and then build a relationship with them. I think over the long term, what we've proven is over the long term, if we build a relationship with a client, they're going to buy more from us, and they're getting value. I look at our retention this year, for example, our price value losses were down significantly. Again, it's a very competitive environment. I think it just indicates that customers are seeing the value that we're providing.
John Gibson: I think, now we're just really to the point of saying, Okay, can you do that profitably? What are the economics of that? Certainly, the capability is what I'm excited about because I do think it gives us an opportunity to be able to impact more customers in the marketplace, and then build a relationship with them. I think over the long term, what we've proven is over the long term, if we build a relationship with a client, they're going to buy more from us, and they're getting value. I look at our retention this year, for example, our price value losses were down significantly. Again, it's a very competitive environment. I think it just indicates that customers are seeing the value that we're providing.
John Gibson: I think, as long as we continue to do that, and now that we have more products and services that we can serve those clients with, I think gives us more opportunities to get hooks into a client. Then I think if we get a hook into a client, I think we know how to monetize that relationship over the long term.
John Gibson: I think, as long as we continue to do that, and now that we have more products and services that we can serve those clients with, I think gives us more opportunities to get hooks into a client. Then I think if we get a hook into a client, I think we know how to monetize that relationship over the long term.
Samad Samana: Great. Thank you so much.
Samad Samana: Great. Thank you so much.
John Gibson: Thanks, Samad.
Bob Schrader: Thanks, Samad.
Operator 2: We'll go next now to Ashish Sabadra at RBC Capital Markets.
Operator: We'll go next now to Ashish Sabadra at RBC Capital Markets.
William Qi: Hey, good morning, guys. This is William Qi in for Ashish Sabadra. Appreciate you guys taking our question. Maybe just on the fiscal year 2027 margin guidance, 44%, I think came in a little bit above our expectations. I think you alluded to some of the factors with the better client selection, just wondering if you could break out the drivers there, as we rationalize increased resources towards Salesforce, also general prudent cost management and optimization across the rest of the spend.
Bill Qi: Hey, good morning, guys. This is Bill Qi in for Ashish Sabadra. Appreciate you guys taking our question. Maybe just on the fiscal year 2027 margin guidance, 44%, I think came in a little bit above our expectations. I think you alluded to some of the factors with the better client selection, just wondering if you could break out the drivers there, as we rationalize increased resources towards Salesforce, also general prudent cost management and optimization across the rest of the spend.
Robert Schrader: Yeah. Well, let me start by saying I said approximately 44%. I'll just say you can leave that to interpretation. Listen, I think we typically are looking for ways to, in a normal year, we're looking at 25 to 50 basis points of margin expansion. The guide probably assumes the higher end of that. I think we've talked a lot about this. I think the investments in technology and what we're seeing from a productivity standpoint, if you asked us a few years ago, would we be able to get to 44% margins, we probably would've had a different answer. We continue to look for ways to be more productive, more efficient.
Bob Schrader: Yeah. Well, let me start by saying I said approximately 44%. I'll just say you can leave that to interpretation. Listen, I think we typically are looking for ways to, in a normal year, we're looking at 25 to 50 basis points of margin expansion. The guide probably assumes the higher end of that. I think we've talked a lot about this. I think the investments in technology and what we're seeing from a productivity standpoint, if you asked us a few years ago, would we be able to get to 44% margins, we probably would've had a different answer. We continue to look for ways to be more productive, more efficient.
Robert Schrader: One of the metrics that John and I are holding ourselves and the team accountable to is really trying to drive higher service revenue per employee, that's growing at a rate higher than our revenue growth rate. That certainly helps with driving margin expansion. Then I'd say the other thing to think about there too is, we bought a business that had structurally significantly lower operating margins than what we had, we came in and we applied our operating model to it. Got a lot of synergies associated with that, you're going to see the full year. A lot of that was realized this year, you're also going to get the full year impact of that next year, which helps from a margin standpoint. We're not done. I'm not sure we'll talk further about expense synergies as we go forward.
Bob Schrader: One of the metrics that John and I are holding ourselves and the team accountable to is really trying to drive higher service revenue per employee, that's growing at a rate higher than our revenue growth rate. That certainly helps with driving margin expansion. Then I'd say the other thing to think about there too is, we bought a business that had structurally significantly lower operating margins than what we had, we came in and we applied our operating model to it. Got a lot of synergies associated with that, you're going to see the full year. A lot of that was realized this year, you're also going to get the full year impact of that next year, which helps from a margin standpoint. We're not done. I'm not sure we'll talk further about expense synergies as we go forward.
Robert Schrader: It'll be BAU. We see further opportunities there, certainly from a procurement standpoint as contracts come up for renewal and those types of things. I would say those are probably the things that contributed to maybe being a bit on the high end of a normal year, but not too dissimilar than what we've been able to deliver. I think it was 70 basis points this year. It's in that range next year.
Bob Schrader: It'll be BAU. We see further opportunities there, certainly from a procurement standpoint as contracts come up for renewal and those types of things. I would say those are probably the things that contributed to maybe being a bit on the high end of a normal year, but not too dissimilar than what we've been able to deliver. I think it was 70 basis points this year. It's in that range next year.
John Gibson: Yeah. Again, I'm going to harp on this a little bit because this is something that doesn't get exposure. You can't go to HR Tech and look at our back office systems. You go to HR Tech and you look at all of the client-facing components. I know for some people it's a mystery how we can have the margins we have, 42% and 44%. It really has to do with the heritage of us being a payroll service company that invested a lot of technology and having a very tight operating model and system internally. I only say that because this modernization that we've been able to unlock and do systematically across each portion of the back office component of what we do, I think has been one of the reasons why you've seen this constant progression.
John Gibson: Yeah. Again, I'm going to harp on this a little bit because this is something that doesn't get exposure. You can't go to HR Tech and look at our back office systems. You go to HR Tech and you look at all of the client-facing components. I know for some people it's a mystery how we can have the margins we have, 42% and 44%. It really has to do with the heritage of us being a payroll service company that invested a lot of technology and having a very tight operating model and system internally. I only say that because this modernization that we've been able to unlock and do systematically across each portion of the back office component of what we do, I think has been one of the reasons why you've seen this constant progression.
John Gibson: It's why when we went into an acquisition, even I remember in the Oasis days, when we did the Oasis acquisition, and someone from their operations comes in and looks at our tax capability and go like, "Well, when can we get off of ours?" Right? It's those type of things you begin to have that, because in our business, the most expense is generated by mistakes and errors. If you have to clean up a tax error, then it takes a lot of manual work to do that with the government, et cetera. The capability now to prevent these errors up front, and now to be able to use agentic AI to.
John Gibson: It's why when we went into an acquisition, even I remember in the Oasis days, when we did the Oasis acquisition, and someone from their operations comes in and looks at our tax capability and go like, "Well, when can we get off of ours?" Right? It's those type of things you begin to have that, because in our business, the most expense is generated by mistakes and errors. If you have to clean up a tax error, then it takes a lot of manual work to do that with the government, et cetera. The capability now to prevent these errors up front, and now to be able to use agentic AI to.
