Paycom Software Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending the Paycom Software First Quarter 2023 Quarterly Results call. My name is Matt, and I will be the moderator for today's call. [Operator instructions]

I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, James Samford, Head of Investor Relations. James, please go ahead.

[James Samford, Head of Investor Relations at Paycom Software]

Thank you, and welcome to Paycom's earnings conference call for the first quarter 2023. Certain statements made on this call that are not historical facts, including those related to our future plans, objectives and expected performance, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent our outlook only as of the date of this conference call. While we believe any forward-looking statements made on this call are reasonable, actual results may differ materially because of the statements are based on our current expectations and subject to risks and uncertainties.

These risks and uncertainties are discussed in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. You should refer to and consider these factors when relying on such forward-looking information. Any forward-looking statement made speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and we do not undertake and expressly disclaim any obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Also, during today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income, adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross margin and certain adjusted expenses.

We use these non-GAAP financial measures to review and assess our performance and for planning purposes. A reconciliation schedule showing GAAP versus non-GAAP results is included in the press release that we issued after the close of the market today, and is available on our website at investors.paycom.com.

I will now turn the call over to Chad Richison, Paycom's President and Chief Executive Officer. Chad? Thanks, James, and thank you to everyone joining our call today. We delivered strong results in the first quarter and I'm very pleased with the progress we've made on a variety of initiatives. I'll start with highlights from the first quarter, then I'll discuss some of our plans for the remainder of the year. Following that, Craig will review our financials and our guidance and discuss our new dividend policy, then we will take questions. With that, let's get started. Our 2023 first quarter revenue of approximately $452 million came in very strong, up 28% year-over-year, with strong recurring revenue growth from new clients. First quarter adjusted EBITDA also came in very strong at $221 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of roughly 49%, up 70 basis points year-over-year. With our updated full year 2023 guidance, we are well-positioned to exceed our initial outlook for a solid Rule of 65. On the product front, Beti continues to be a key differentiator in the market with employee self-service payroll continuing to drive strong client additions. The industry transformation to more efficient HCM and payroll processes is accelerating, and now with Beti, payroll processes can be automated to deliver perfect payroll. Using Beti, employees do their own payroll. Employee usage is a key differentiator and new clients are coming to Paycom for exactly that. With 95% of database interactions being completed by the employees of our clients as measured by the DDX, we are changing the way employees engaged with HCM solutions. Our product and go-to-market strategy are working. I just returned from our annual President's Club meeting with our top salespeople and I couldn't be more excited about the tone of the conversations and enthusiasm for our product, especially around employee usage in Beti. [Phonetic] We are having increasing success at market with continued rapid growth at the upper-end of our target market range. Larger organizations benefit tremendously from simplifying their HCM and payroll needs with our single database solution. We have 5% of the TAM today, however, our TAM has increased now that we have laid the groundwork for our global platform beginning with global HCM, which further strengthens our value proposition with our largest clients. To sum up, we are executing well with a highly differentiated product and go-to-market strategy. Our addressable market opportunities continue to expand, and we are pleased to enhance our long-term commitment to stockholder return with the initiation of a quarterly dividend program. I'd like to thank our employees for helping lay the foundation for another record-breaking year. With that, I'll turn the call over to Craig for a review of our financials and guidance. Craig?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Before I review our first quarter results for 2023 and our outlook for the second quarter and full year 2023, I would like to remind everyone that my comments related to certain financial measures will be on a non-GAAP basis. We delivered very strong results this quarter, with revenue of $451.6 million, up 27.8% compared to the prior year period. Our GAAP net income for the first quarter was $119.3 million or $2.06 per diluted share, up 29.8% compared to the prior year period based on approximately 58 million shares. Adjusted EBITDA was $220.5 million in the first quarter of 2023 or 48.8% of total revenues compared to $170.1 million in the first quarter of 2022 or 48.1% of total revenues. Non-GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2023 was $142.7 million or $2.46 per diluted share, up 28.9% from the prior year period.

Our revenue growth was driven by strong demand, new business wins and new product adoption. Within total revenues, recurring revenue was $444.4 million for the first quarter of 2023, representing 98.4% of total revenues for the quarter and growing 27.6% from the comparable prior year period.

Adjusted sales and marketing expense for the first quarter of 2023 was $98.1 million or 21.7% of revenues. We have been aggressively investing in marketing to drive strong demo leads that complement our outside sales model.

Adjusted R&D expense was $37.4 million in the first quarter of 2023 or 8.3% of total revenues. Adjusted total R&D costs, including the capitalized portion, were $55.2 million in the first quarter of 2023 compared to $42.9 million in the prior year period, reflecting continued investment in new products.

For Q2 and full year 2023, we anticipate our effective income tax rate to be approximately 28% on a GAAP basis and approximately 26.5% on a non-GAAP basis.

Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with a very strong balance sheet, including cash and cash equivalents of $506 million and total debt of $29 million. Cash from operations was $146.1 million in the first quarter, representing an increase of 24.6%. The average daily balance of funds held on behalf of clients was approximately $2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2023, up approximately 10% year-over-year.

Now let me turn to guidance. For fiscal 2023, we are raising our outlook and now expect revenue in the range of $1.713 billion to $1.715 billion or approximately 25% year-over-year growth at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $717 million to $719 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 42% at the midpoint of the range. With these strong results and outlook, we are well-positioned to exceed the Rule of 65.

For the second quarter of 2023, we expect total revenues in the range of $397 million to $399 million, representing a growth rate over the comparable prior year period of approximately 26% at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter in the range of $152 million to $154 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 38% at the midpoint of the range.

Finally, after 25 years of rapidly growing Paycom into a highly profitable Company, we're expanding our capital allocation strategy. On May 1, the Board of Directors approved a quarterly dividend program that we expect to initiate in mid-May. In 2023, we project Paycom will generate greater than $1.7 billion in revenues, over $700 million in adjusted EBITDA and strong operating cash flow, all of which continue to grow. We believe Paycom is in a unique position to return value to stockholders in the form of a dividend and still have the necessary resources to aggressively pursue growth opportunities.

Since 2016, we returned a total of nearly $600 million to stockholders through stock buybacks, and we have a $1.1 billion buyback authorization still in place. Today's dividend policy announcement reflects our confidence and the resilience of our long-term growth opportunity, the strength of our balance sheet and the profitability of our business model. We intend to pay a dividend at an annual rate of $1.50 per share with a first quarterly dividend of $0.375 per share payable in mid-June, subject to Board approval.

2023 is off to a great start. We are in a strong financial and strong competitive position in a large and attractive addressable market, and we have a long runway to continue to deliver rapid organic revenue growth, high profit margins and attractive cash flows.

With that, we will open the line for questions. Operator?

Questions and Answers

[Operator]

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Raimo Lenschow with Barclays. Your line is now open.

[Raimo Lenschow, Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you. Congrats on another strong quarter and dividend introduction. Two quick questions from me. First, on the global initiative, Chad, can you help us understand a little bit, like, how global or, like, what's the extent of what you're trying to do here? Is this like helping existing customers that have subsidiaries? Is this like a whole sea change in strategy that you become like more international? Just help us understand a little bit there. And then I have one follow-up.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Sure. So right now, Raimo, we have several clients, who currently use our domestic software, and they use it internationally. They rig the system a little bit so that they can store employees in other countries. And then oftentimes, they'll work with a third-party for payroll. So our current clients, they don't have to do this any longer because the Paycom system now does have Global HCM product that will work in 180 countries and 15 languages. And Global HCM for us is everything minus the payroll side.

And so we've looked at integration opportunities, we've looked at working with third parties and even potential acquisitions. But the fact is the -- everyone else does it the old way, and payroll and HR departments send data for processing, and we're not going to be putting any development into the old way. So for us, Beti is packing her bags and will be going around the globe as we develop it out.

[Raimo Lenschow, Analyst at Barclays]

Yes, yes. Okay. Perfect. Okay. But does it mean that you want to become now a global Company with operations in other major countries? Or is this just more for U.S. domestic clients to give them more optionality and just kind of work with them better?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes, absolutely. We'll be a global company. This is the first step, and that's moving our product into the different languages and getting the HCM side done. And now we're heavily focused on bringing Beti to the other countries, which -- it will require us to have operations in certain countries in order to do that, in order to process in those countries.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Samad Samana with Jefferies, your line is now open

[Samad Samana, Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

Hi. Good afternoon, and congrats on the good quarter. Chad, I had a whole list of questions, but then you said the word open to acquisitions, which I haven't really ever heard you say before. So I'm going to pivot in real-time here and ask you between the dividend announcement you mentioning potential for M&A, which is something Paycom hasn't historically done. Is M&A something that is just maybe going to be something part of the broader capital allocation strategy of how to use the Company's cash going forward? Or -- and is that just limited to maybe the global side of it? Or is it -- would it be something you'd explore in other areas, too?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Well, I mean I don't want to say never, but it's been our process to develop internally and develop things that way and grow that way. And so my comment earlier was more as we looked at building out the payroll side internationally. We did review multiple options for that. But at the end of the day, there's no shortcut to long-term success. And so at the end of the day, we're going to dance with what brung [Phonetic] us, and we know how to develop software, and we're already well on our way in getting things set up to be able to have Beti in all the other countries as well.

So an answer to your question I would say more no, Samad, I mean, if I was going to have to be direct with that, but we did do dividend, and we still have a $1.1 billion buyback in place.

[Samad Samana, Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

Great. And then maybe just a quick follow-up for Craig. Just the numbers on the margin side were impressive as always. The sales and marketing dollars jumped a pretty good bit from 4Q to 1Q more than you normally see. I was just curious, I know you mentioned marketing campaigns. Was there any acceleration or pull forward maybe in sales headcount additions or anything else that we need to maybe be aware there beyond just digital marketing? And how should we think about that maybe going forward?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

No. I would just say it's pretty normal. I think last Q1 was slightly down. But yes, I mean, just kind of normal marketing spend and campaigns that we talked about kind of from Q4 of 2022 to Q1 of 2023, some of those pushed into this quarter.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Brad Reback with Stifel. Your line is now open.

[Brad Reback, Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Great. Thanks very much. Chad, you have a pretty unique perspective on the economy across the country, down market, upmarket geos, verticals. Anything you're seeing specifically that gives you pause or optimism?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean, no, I wouldn't say either way. I mean I do think it's a little bit easier to hire. I would look -- if you're looking at from a year ago, I would say the labor market was a little bit tighter for us on hiring just as more people touted the work-from-home in which we came back to work. I think that especially on the tech side, we seem to be doing very well, attracting top talent there as more and more companies have shed some of those jobs.

From our own client base, we're definitely focused on adding clients. Don't really have anything to call out on seeing any negative softening within our own client base. I've tried to do as much as I can to kind of look into the future with 5% of the TAM and several accelerators for ourselves. I'm focusing on being a salesperson right now than an economist. But definitely, we're really not seeing much in our own numbers as we look into the future. But from hiring people, which, I mean, I think is somewhat of a proxy to what happens as well for our clients, we are definitely seeing it. It's a little bit easier to hire, especially on the technical talent side.

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes, Brad, I would say on our client base, I mean, we have a very diversified client base, and that's both geographically and based on industries. So some of the things you're hearing out there, we're not overly exposed to those.

[Brad Reback, Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

That's great. Thanks very much.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Mark Marcon with Baird. Your line is now open.

[Mark Marcon, Analyst at Robert W. Baird]

Hey. Good afternoon, Chad, Craig and James, and congratulations on the really strong results and also the initiation of the dividend, which I think is a huge positive.

With regards to what you ended up seeing during the selling season and then extending into the first quarter, could you give us a little bit of a sense for -- on the recurring revenue, if we strip out the float income, what you ended up seeing in terms of, like, sales from new logos relative to upsells, relative to increases in employment within the existing base and how you're thinking about the pipeline on a go-forward basis?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean for us on that, it's all really about new logo adds. I mean increases in employment from existing base or decreases, I can't say that, that's had a meaningful impact on us one way or the other with the exception of the -- what I'm going to call maybe a six-month to 12-month period in COVID where it went down and then back up, you had some significant fluctuations then. But since stabilization, it's not going to be employee gains, and/or at this time, we don't really have the employee -- employees leaving that would impact that.

So for us, it's new logos. We added over 3,000 clients to Beti in this first quarter, and that's been going really well. I don't know if Craig would have anything to add to that.

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

No, I would agree with Chad. I mean it's primarily new logo wins, and that's what's driving the recurring revenue.

[Mark Marcon, Analyst at Robert W. Baird]

Great. And you just came out of Club, what are you seeing just in terms of sales force productivity? And how much more were that people have to do in order to qualify for Club? And what regions are you really starting to see some real pickups in terms of traction?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. We had the President's Club in Hawaii, which was the very same place that we had it at our initial President's Club 15 years prior. So I was able to actually talk about the numbers from that first club and now. And we've continued to accelerate the amount that any one sales rep can sell. Our top sales reps continue to sell more than they have in the past. This year, again, I mean, we had a rookie sales rep that sold over $2 million. When we IPO, that would have been great for a city [Phonetic]. And now we have a rookie rep selling that.

And so the numbers continue to go up as we've had -- we've continued to develop product, we've put more into the product. So it produces more value. So of course, it costs a little more than what it used to. And then we're getting better at marketing and landing leads that -- we're also getting better at closing because we have a very strong differentiator. And we're back out in the field. I think that's -- that was a big part of it, too, for us to get back out face-to-face because these are big decisions for companies to make. And I think we present well in person.

I would expect another record to be broke next year as we've already got some reps that are very close to what our top rep finished at last year. So that's -- and which is always how we've achieved our numbers as sales performance continuing to get stronger.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Brian Schwartz with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

[Brian Schwartz, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions this afternoon. I'll congratulate a real nice fine start to the year for the business. Chad, I wanted to ask you, I saw that you announced a global HCM solution and capability this quarter. I just wanted to ask you on the strategy behind that. Is the strategy more to extend the reach and capabilities of your multinational customers? Or is there an opportunity that you see in the future of targeting international markets?

And then if I could ask one other question along this new solution. How should we think about the solution in terms of the impact to the margin, whether it can be accretive or dilutive to the overall business?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

I mean on the first question, I mean, I think people can talk about whether it's a single database or willingness to integrate with multiple systems and what have you. The fact is, is there's one type of employee. I mean, the employees are the same, and they like doing their own payroll. And so for us, international and laying the groundwork with global HCM is the first step to going all the way upmarket. I mean there's never really been an issue for us and scalability of the system. It's really been about the buying decisions that you'll oftentimes see way upmarket.

Well, employees these days, they don't have a high tolerance for a system complexity in any stage of product that they use. And so I think we've got a very simplified product. It does very complex things. And I would say there might have been one thing that we were missing to be able to go, work with the largest companies in the world. And I don't think we're going to be missing that one thing very much longer.

That said, I mean, our system still does work well. We have a lot of clients that have -- definitely, we're having success upmarket. We have a lot of clients that are 10,000 employees and more. We have clients that even like our system so much, they were willing to work around it to use it for other countries. Now they don't have to do that on the HCM side, and we would be planning to roll out Beti in other countries throughout this year.

[Brian Schwartz, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thank you.

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. And I would say on the margin front, I mean, we wouldn't call out that it would be accretive -- it should be -- follow the same profile fairly similar to what our current clients are doing. I mean, obviously, we'll have some R&D costs as it relates to building some of this out. But in terms of just the overall margins, it should be very similar.

[Brian Schwartz, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Joshua Reilly with Needham. Your line is now open.

[Joshua Reilly, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. On the international product here, when you say you're building Beti on a global basis, does that mean that you plan to build native payroll solutions in some international countries? Or is Beti going to sit on top of the existing payroll solutions used by customers with an international presence?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

We would be building Beti out in each country. We are building Beti out would be the better way to say that.

[Joshua Reilly, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Okay. So you are building a native payroll in some of these international countries?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Correct.

[Joshua Reilly, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Got it. Okay. And then have you increased your advertising spend sequentially from Q4? And I think in the past, you've said that increasing that spend implies more confidence around demand. Is that accurate that you're seeing more demand in Q1 than Q4?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

We continue to see strong demand. We saw the strong demand in Q4, too. Oftentimes, Q4, sometimes you can advertise a little bit stronger than others depending on elections, depending on how many ads are running. Oftentimes, you can be competing against that and what the ad dollars cost. And so sometimes the juice isn't worth the squeeze there. Also, you have some holidays. But we do monitor our advertising spend weekly, and we monitor the lead generation from it. And we're constantly making moves and method to how we generate more leads.

[Joshua Reilly, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Got it. Thanks, guys.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Siti Panigrahi with Mizuho. Your line is now open.

[Siti Panigrahi, Analyst at Mizuho]

Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. Chad, in this macro environment, we keep hearing small businesses kind of under pressure right now. They're cautious in terms of commit to any kind of investment in this environment. So wondering what are you hearing from your customer base. Any color would be helpful.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean we're not hearing a lot right now. I mean now I would say a part of that is, we're very focused on growth and landing new logos. I wouldn't say that we're having -- we're not seeing losses from clients going out of business any different than what we had seen in the past, again, with the exception of the COVID time period.

So I really can't call out much, and it might just be where we're focused. Again, only about 5% of our revenue is derived from companies that have less than 50 employees, and 95% of it's derived from companies that have larger than that, obviously. And then we're continuing to grow at the top end of our range. It's probably our fastest-growing segment.

And so I'm not saying things couldn't be happening downmarket. It's just from the data that we have. It's not something that we could call out on our end.

[Siti Panigrahi, Analyst at Mizuho]

That's super helpful. And a follow-up for Craig. If I heard your client fund balance, I think $2.4 billion, you said, that's almost kind of 9% on a year-over-year growth compared to other years, which was pretty high. Was there anything that we should -- anything that caused this slowdown? And also, any color in terms of interest income, any float income contribution this quarter?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

I can take the first question, and I'll let Craig handle the interest income. But from a float balance perspective, the larger the client, the less days you hold on to that money. So that money clears very quickly with large clients. So -- which if you're handling a small business, you might hold on to that for a month or a quarter. You're handling a large client, you're holding on to that for about 24 hours. So there's larger amounts, but it impacts your average steady balance a little bit because it's clearing out of there so quickly with the larger clients. Then I'll let Craig handle the second part.

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I would say on the interest income on our client funds, we called out last quarter, we're realizing around 80% of the Fed funds rate. And that -- part of that's because it's layered in. We have some investments that are a little bit longer term. And I mean, the banks don't give you the full amount as the Fed raises those rates. So that's kind of what we've said last quarter, and we really wouldn't update that any.

[Siti Panigrahi, Analyst at Mizuho]

Great. Thank you. Great quarter.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

[Jared Levine, Analyst at TD Cowen]

It's actually Jared Levine on for Bryan tonight. In terms of retention, how did 1Q revenue retention compared to 1Q '22? And were there any notable changes based on clients with under 50 employees and then those clients with 50-plus employees?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. So we provide retention at the end of each year. It fluctuates quarter-to-quarter. I kind of said on the last call, we have the have and have-nots here at Paycom, and that was related to Beti. Our Beti retention rate last year was better than 99% of anybody that had Beti. So I expect our retention to remain strong and even increases -- increase a larger percentage as more clients use the product the right way to achieve the maximum ROI that's available to them.

But yes, for retention, I've also said in the past, typically, regardless of -- I'm not comparing it from last first quarter to this first quarter, but typically, for -- especially for larger clients of any of our competitors, retention oftentimes starts off lower the first of the year and continues to increase throughout the year because less clients usually leave in the fourth quarter, if you will. But nothing to call out special in the first quarter. I would just say we've been very stable, and the companies that use Beti do better.

[Jared Levine, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Got it. And then as my follow-up, what is your adjusted gross margin expectation for this fiscal year? And then more specifically, looking at 1Q, what weighed on that adjusted gross margin within that operating expense line item?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean we didn't guide to the adjusted gross margin. I mean it's been very stable over the last few years in that 85% to 86%. I mean, typically, if it gets too high, it's -- we may be a little bit behind on hiring. And so that's usually what would cause it to creep up some. And it fluctuates based on how our hiring trends are because those are the individuals that are bringing on -- handling the new business that we're bringing on. And we have to hire them ahead of the revenue growth. And that way, they can be trained up and ready to capture those clients.

[Jared Levine, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Jason Celino with KeyBanc. Your line is now open.

[Jason Celino, Analyst at KeyBanc]

Hey. Thanks, guys for taking my questions. Chad, in the press release for global HCM a few weeks ago, you mentioned that you've been working on the product for two years. Since it doesn't include Beti yet, why not just wait until you had developed it for some of those countries first? Or maybe can you just talk about the timing on why move now?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Sure. Well, you're going to have to do first things first. So we're going to have to have it. But as I mentioned with Raimo's very first question, we have a demand for global HCM right now as we have clients that are storing client or employees that they have in other countries in our system right now and somewhat rig in the system. So we have demand right now for HCM. And you have to have first things first. I mean with Beti, everything is connected. It's not like it's payroll only. You have to have time and attendance. You have to have expense management. You have to have paid time off. So you have to have these other products within the system to work Beti.

I wouldn't say that we're developing just payroll only. We're developing Beti, the Beti process internationally. We looked at kind of us to following what the competition does out there with international. And I mean, quite honestly, I think it was unimpressive from an ROI strategy that it produces for clients.

And our clients now are used to using Beti. And so I think they're going to expect that internationally, and I think that's how we win. So I would say it's the beginning foundation for what we're doing, but also we have demand for that product in and of itself right now.

[Jason Celino, Analyst at KeyBanc]

Okay. Yes, that's fair. And you have mentioned some of your customers are kind of jerry-rigging onto your system already. But how -- is there any way to know how many of your customers have international employees or offices?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

It's our larger clients. It would be our larger clients in many of those cases. So I'm not going to give out a specific number, but I mean the revenue opportunities there for them. And then, of course, when you look at our just prospect base that's out there, over time, this will increase the size of companies that we prospect.

[Jason Celino, Analyst at KeyBanc]

Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Arvind Ramnani with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

[Arvind Ramnani, Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask about some of the churn -- kind of benefit you see from churn from legacy players. And are you seeing any kind of change in sort of the competitive dynamics or sort of the win rates that you've historically seen from some of the legacy players?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean I wouldn't call out anybody in particular. We're getting much stronger. When we released Beti in 2021, I think it was July of 2021 when we very first even started selling it, we've gotten a lot better at our value proposition and how we actually go to market with it. I think it took some learning. It was somewhat hard to teach old dog new tricks from our standpoint of our sales force. And when we started selling Beti, we were all virtual sales, and we've made a bunch of changes dramatically.

And so I definitely think having a stronger value proposition as we've had with Beti as well as us being face-to-face is helping our close ratio out there, and I would say it would be competitor-agnostic. When we have a strategic buyer that takes the time to really try to achieve the return on investment, that implementing any one of these products would promise to produce, we do very well.

[Arvind Ramnani, Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Perfect. And certainly, within the technology world, there's a lot of conversation with ChatGPT and AI and -- just wanted to sort of get your perspective either sort of expected impact to pick on specifically, but even to the HCM space. Do you think this is a space that's kind of susceptible [phonetic] to change or kind of some pressure from ChatGPT? Or do you think it's not yet kind of relevant to your space or to your Company?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

No, I definitely think it'll be relevant. You can use AI for multiple things. There are areas that you can use it for that are better than others. And they're front-end things you can use it for direct to the client. They are back-end things that you can use it for that a client may never see. And so when you're talking about AI, it has many uses, some of which is front-end and some back-end. And I don't want to talk specifically about what exactly we're using it for already internally and what our opportunities would be into the future. But in answer to your question, yes, I do think that over time, AI is going to be a thing in our industry.

[Arvind Ramnani, Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Jackson Ader with SVB. Your line is now open.

[Jackson Ader, Analyst at SVB Securities]

Great. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. The first one is on, Chad, you mentioned hiring and maybe being able to kind of hoover up some of the tech talent that have been coming from some of the larger maybe tech layoffs, but it sounded like that was more on the developer or the R&D side. I was curious whether you've also been able to maybe pick up additional salespeople along the way as well.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean, well, I called out R&D because that's a side that we oftentimes hire people that have experience with technology, writing code and what have you. Our salespeople, we've always -- we typically look for people with less than two years outside sales experience. We do take changing careers, what have you. We do have specific education requirements for that position. And so I wouldn't necessarily say it was difficult for us to hire jobs. But what has changed on the sales side is you get a little bit more time to look there for a while. I mean if you had a salesperson that you had -- that you were interviewing, you had a week or two to make a decision because they were getting 12 offers.

I would say today, that's slowed down quite a bit. So I would say you're able to take a little bit more time than what you were able to do when we were a very compressed in time during the interview process to hire salespeople. I'd say that's changed some on the sell side. But I just -- I called out technology because we're just -- we're seeing it. We're seeing it.

[Jackson Ader, Analyst at SVB Securities]

Right. Okay. All right. Cool. That's great. One quick follow-up. Just -- like on the mechanics of the Beti payroll rollout, so you're in 180 countries with global HCM, but like do you roll out Beti one country at a time? Are we going to see like 180 press releases for all the different countries? Is it a block here, a block there? Just mechanically, how is that rollout going to work?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

There's about 16 to 20 countries that represent about well over 80% of the opportunity. So I would expect us to be rolling those out first as you look at it. But yes, I mean, over time, we build things ourselves. And so I would expect us to continue to roll them out, but there's 16 to 20 countries that are going to be first.

[Jackson Ader, Analyst at SVB Securities]

Yes. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Alex Zukin with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

[Alex Zukin, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Most of my questions have been asked. But I guess maybe on the topic of just pipeline and sales expansion efficiency, I guess how do you think about office openings, territory expansion through the rest of the year, maybe sales hiring moving into the back half of this year to get ready for next year? Just any kind of commentary around that, particularly as it would relate or compared to last year? And then just a quick follow-up.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. So that opening up offices continues to be a big part of our strategy. We've continued to open up offices I think a year ago, was it last year, maybe about 15 months ago, let's call it, 14 or so. We opened up five offices from December through February, and those offices are maturing very well and continue to mature. And we'll continue to open up offices.

For us, our bottleneck on being able to open up offices is capacity of our management group being ready to do that. We have to both backfill for managers that may not be accomplishing their goals as well as we have to expand. And over the course of 25 years, I think we've done that pretty well. But it is a -- it's a part of our growth strategy, and we'll continue to open up offices when we're able.

[Alex Zukin, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Perfect. And then I guess maybe just a quick financial question. Free cash flow was previously really strong here in Q1, I think quite a bit stronger than we were modeling. What's the right way to think about that progression as we head through the year? And in general, as you're seeing Beti adoption specifically get better, I think last quarter, you mentioned it was almost 50% penetration for Beti. Where does -- what's the target for this year? And how much is that -- how much more efficient is an incremental Beti sale than traditional one?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes, I'll take the free cash flow question. I mean first quarter was strong. As we look out through the rest of the year, we've called out kind of what our capex is going to be. We're wrapping up our building in Oklahoma City, a large building here. So capex will be a little bit more back-end loaded in terms of how it flows throughout this year. So that will -- that's kind of the way I would look at the free cash flow for the year. And then on the Beti penetration?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes, I can take that. So I think the question was how much more efficient is an incremental Beti sale. I mean Beti is a very nominal sale to a current client from that perspective. I mean it's not an expensive item and drives a significant amount of ROI. What I would say on new clients -- on new clients that come in with Beti because they all have to, I would say the biggest margin impacts for them than us.

I've always said it costs you the same whether you use the system correctly or not, charge is the same. So you may as well try to get the most value out of the system by using it the right way. So when someone uses Beti, it returns a significant -- there's a significant return on investment to the client. For us, you might see some positive margin impact by those clients that use Beti have less paper cuts caused to themselves. And therefore, on the margin, they require less service for us to be able to provide them and less services around what I would call more of our low-margin activities, which is going to be amending -- amended returns and other issues that could come out by having payroll done wrong.

[Alex Zukin, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Understood. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Bhavin Shah with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

[Bhavin Shah, Analyst at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft]

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple for Craig. Craig, if I just look at your 1Q sequential growth and 4Q recurring revenue, it looks like it trended a little bit lower versus the prior 1Qs. I know the decline in mix of tax forms revenue has an impact to you, but any other commentary on linearity of go-lives or even growth within the tax forms? And how that's trending?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

I would say we've called out the tax forms. I mean, obviously, they don't grow at quite the same rate as the rest of our revenue, but they become a smaller portion of our overall revenue. So I would say that, that's kind of what we've seen on those tax forms filings. They don't have the same growth rate as the rest of our revenue.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I said a little bit differently since 1998 when we started the Company, we've only added one product to our year-end services, and that was ACA. That's it in 25 years. Meanwhile, our monthly recurring revenue products, we've continued to add products that we charge on a monthly recurring basis for them. And so the monthly recurring, it's just growing at a rate much more so than our annual recurring. And over time, the annual recurring amount represents a smaller amount of a client's bill because of that.

[Bhavin Shah, Analyst at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft]

Got it. Helpful. Just one follow-up on float revenue and just your philosophy on reinvesting some of the upside here. Can you just remind us of your philosophy and if anything has changed at all given some of the announcements on kind of your global initiatives?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. No, I mean we still invest in a pretty short-term investments, very safe. We're looking at CDs, commercial paper, treasury notes and then some overnight. So we're still very safe on our investments in fairly short term. And then as we do globally, we'll look at those opportunities as well.

[Bhavin Shah, Analyst at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft]

Thanks again for taking my questions.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Daniel Jester with BMO Capital. Your line is now open.

[Daniel Jester, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Hey. Thanks for taking my question. Good afternoon, everybody. Maybe I want to tackle global HCM in a different way. If I think about the -- some new products you've launched in the last couple of years, Beti, DDX, like, that goes into theoretically, the entire customer base.

For Beti, I think we saw the impact on your business, like, relatively quickly. I'm just trying to size up, like, on global HCM, it's not going to go into all of your customers. And so is it -- so is your large customer opportunity so big that it actually can move the needle this year? Or is global HCM something we're just thinking about from, like, a multiyear perspective laying the groundwork and it's not going to look like Beti affecting the numbers this year? It's a long question, but hopefully I got all my points across.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean we just came out with global HCM. I do think it'll be somewhat accretive to our numbers this year, more so in subsequent years. And it's a significant system. I think it'll allow us to continue to go further up. Even just the global HCM side increases our TAM by about 50%. So I mean it's available there. And then as we continue to add the payroll to it, I just think that puts us on a different playing field for us to continue to go upmarket as well as serve those clients of ours that currently have international presence and might not be using our system the way they're going to be using it into the future.

[Daniel Jester, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Okay. Thanks. And then as a follow-up, maybe just on the dividend and the buyback and capital allocation. You haven't really been utilizing that buyback authorization in the last few quarters. So I'm wondering maybe just refresh us on your thinking about doing the dividend when you haven't been using other levers that you already have had in place. Thank you.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Well, I would -- for one thing, we did buy back over $100 million last year. So we've been -- maybe not the last couple of quarters, but for sure, last year, we continue to do buybacks and -- over $100 million. Over time, we've bought back $600 million and 4.7 million shares. So I would expect that it'll be a balance between buybacks and dividends as we kind of look to the future.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Kevin McVeigh with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

[Kevin McVeigh, Analyst at Credit Suisse Group]

Great. Thank you, and congrats on the terrific results. I think I know the answer, but the source of the upside and then the race be it kind of the quarter as well, that was new logo primarily? Just wanted to understand where that's at relative to expectations initially.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. New logos drive our growth. And so I'm not going to say -- you see when interest rates go up, we talked about how we're achieving roughly 80% of that as it moves. So obviously, that impacts us positively as well. But for us, what's always driven our revenue has been new logo adds.

[Kevin McVeigh, Analyst at Credit Suisse Group]

And then as you think about kind of the move internationally and upmarket, does that impact the implementation strategy at all in terms of -- I know upfront, you try to be very opportunistic around modules, things like that. Is that the same strategy as you kind of scale the client base?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

Yes. I mean it's -- well, our implementation strategy as you continue to add other countries, yes, I mean, it is going to change implementation to some extent. Now that will -- a lot of that will be determined by the origination of the client. Where is the client? Are they in Nebraska? Are they in Mexico? Are they in the U.K.? Where is the client? You have different time zones and everything else where sometimes people are awake sometimes they're not. So definitely, it changes your implementation strategy as you go global.

I don't know that many of our methods will change as much as it would be modifying them to meet the needs of the country that we are in.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. The last question comes from the line of Robert Simmons with D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open.

[Robert Simmons, Analyst at D.A. Davidson]

Hey. Thanks for taking the question. I was wondering, do you have customers sort of now using global HCM? And if so, what's been the early feedback?

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

We have some companies that are starting to pilot it, and I think there's a couple. And a lot of global HCM is developed with current client feedback from that perspective, just seeing what they're trying to accomplish, what they're using and then just making a decision that we had just to take our current systems and be able to put them to where they could be used in 180 countries and in 15 languages. And so -- but we would expect more and more clients throughout this year to use the global HCM piece of Paycom.

[Robert Simmons, Analyst at D.A. Davidson]

Got it. And then on the dividend, how are you thinking about adjusting that going forward? Would it be as a percent of GAAP EPS or free cash flow or some other metric?

[Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer at Paycom Software]

No. I mean right now, it's -- we're looking at it as a fixed amount, $1.50, over the next year at $0.375 a quarter. I mean right now, it's basically a 50 to -- about a 50%, 0.5% dividend yield based on our current share price. So we would look at it as $1.50 and then adjust it as we see fit in the future.

[Robert Simmons, Analyst at D.A. Davidson]

Got it. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you for your question. There are no additional questions waiting at this time. So I'll pass the conference back to Chad Richison for closing remarks.

[Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer at Paycom Software]

All right. I want to thank everyone for joining the call today. Our employees' efforts continue to put Paycom in a great position, and we're off to a great start in 2023. So thank you to the Paycom team. Over the next quarter, we'll be hosting meetings at five conferences, beginning with the Needham Tech and Media Conference and the MoffettNathanson Technology Media and Telecom Conference, both of which will be held in New York. Following that, we'll be attending the JPMorgan TMT Conference in Boston and the Jefferies Software Conference in Newport Beach. We'll also be presenting at the Baird Global Consumer Technology and Services Conference in New York in early June. We look forward to catching up with many of you soon. And operator, you may disconnect. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Participants

Corporate Executives

• James Samford, Head of Investor Relations
• Craig E. Boelte, Chief Financial Officer
• Chad Richison, President and Chief Executive Officer

Analysts

• Raimo Lenschow, Barclays PLC
• Samad Samana, Jefferies Financial Group Inc.
• Brad Reback, Stifel Nicolaus
• Mark Marcon, Robert W. Baird
• Brian Schwartz, Oppenheimer Holdings Inc.
• Joshua Reilly, Needham & Company LLC
• Siti Panigrahi, Mizuho
• Jared Levine, TD Cowen
• Jason Celino, KeyBanc
• Arvind Ramnani, Piper Sandler Companies
• Jackson Ader, SVB Securities
• Alex Zukin, Wolfe Research
• Bhavin Shah, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft
• Daniel Jester, BMO Capital Markets
• Kevin McVeigh, Credit Suisse Group AG
• Robert Simmons, D.A. Davidson