Earnings results often indicate what direction a company will take in the months ahead. With Q4 behind us, let’s have a look at BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) and its peers.
Organizations are constantly looking to improve organizational efficiencies, whether it is financial planning, tax management or payroll. Finance and HR software benefit from the SaaS-ification of businesses, large and small, who much prefer the flexibility of cloud-based, web-browser delivered software paid for on a subscription basis than the hassle and expense of purchasing and managing on-premise enterprise software.
The 14 finance and HR software stocks we track reported a mixed Q4. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 1.1% while next quarter’s revenue guidance was 1.4% below.
Amidst this news, share prices of the companies have had a rough stretch. On average, they are down 12.2% since the latest earnings results.
Started in 2001 by software engineer Therese Tucker, one of the very few women founders who took their companies public, BlackLine (NASDAQ:BL) provides software for organizations to automate accounting and finance tasks.
BlackLine reported revenues of $169.5 million, up 8.8% year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 0.6%. Despite the top-line beat, it was still a slower quarter for the company with full-year EPS guidance missing analysts’ expectations.
“We believe our recent user conference and accelerating innovation are creating momentum for BlackLine,” said Owen Ryan, Co-CEO of BlackLine.
The stock is down 26.5% since reporting and currently trades at $46.56.
Read our full report on BlackLine here, it’s free.
Founded by industry veterans Aneel Bushri and Dave Duffield after their former company PeopleSoft was acquired by Oracle in a hostile takeover, Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) provides cloud-based software for organizations to manage and plan finance and human resources.
Workday reported revenues of $2.21 billion, up 15% year on year, outperforming analysts’ expectations by 1.3%. The business had a very strong quarter with a solid beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates and an impressive beat of analysts’ billings estimates.
The market seems unhappy with the results as the stock is down 6.2% since reporting. It currently trades at $239.30.
Is now the time to buy Workday? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free.
Originally created to process international tuition payments for universities, Flywire (NASDAQ:FLYW) is a cross border payments processor and software platform focusing on complex, high-value transactions like education, healthcare and B2B payments.
