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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021
OR
☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the Transition Period from to
Commission File Number 001-36348
PAYLOCITY HOLDING CORPORATION
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
1400 American Lane
Schaumburg, Illinois60173
(Address of principal executive offices and zip code)
(847) 463-3200
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of each class Trading symbol(s) Name of Exchange on which registered
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes⌧ No ◻
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ◻No⌧
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes⌧ No ◻
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes⌧ No ◻
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer”, “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer ⌧ Accelerated filer ◻
Non-accelerated filer ◻ Smaller reporting company ☐
Emerging growth company ☐
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ⌧
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No ⌧
The aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of December 31, 2020, the last day of registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was $7.8 billion (based on the closing price for shares of the registrant’s common stock as reported by the NASDAQ Global Select Market for the last business day prior to that date).
As of July 30, 2021, there were 54,601,434 shares of the registrant’s common stock issued and outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:
The information required by Part III of this Report, to the extent not set forth herein, is incorporated herein by reference from the Proxy Statement relating to the registrant’s 2022 annual meeting of stockholders, which shall be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to which this Report relates.
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PAYLOCITY HOLDING CORPORATION
Form 10-K
For the Year Ended June 30, 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PART I
Item 1. Business 1
Item 1A. Risk Factors 16
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments 29
Item 2. Properties 30
Item 3. Legal Proceedings 30
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures 30
PART II
Item 6. [Reserved] 32
Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk 47
Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 48
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures 48
Item 9B. Other Information 49
PART III
Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 50
Item 11. Executive Compensation 50
Item 14. Principal Accounting Fees and Services 50
PART IV
Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules 51
Signatures 55
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PART 1
Forward Looking Statements
Except for the historical financial information contained herein, the matters discussed in this report on Form 10-K (as well as documents incorporated herein by reference) may be considered “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our future financial position, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations. When used in this Annual Report, the words “believe,” “may,” “could,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “intend,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “project” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (“COVID-19”) on the U.S. economy, including changes in interest rates, business disruptions, reductions in employment and an increase in business failures; the impact of COVID-19 on Paylocity’s employees and clients, and other risks and potential factors discussed in this report, and in particular, the risks discussed under Part 1, Item 1A:”Risk Factors” and those discussed in other documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we do not intend to update these forward-looking statements publicly or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this report and in the documents incorporated in this report may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.
Item 1. Business.
Overview
We are a cloud-based provider of payroll and human capital management, or HCM, software solutions for medium-sized organizations, which we define as those having between 10 and 1,000 employees. Our comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform to create a modern workplace for our clients and their employees through automation, data-driven insights and engagement. Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, as of June 30, 2021, we provided our payroll and HCM software solutions to approximately 28,750 clients across the U.S., which on average had over 100 employees.
Our multi-tenant software platform is highly configurable and includes a unified product suite for payroll, human capital management, workforce management, talent management, benefits, modern workforce solutions, and analytics & insights, to enable our clients to make strategic decisions all while promoting a modern workplace and improving employee engagement. Our payroll and HCM modules provide robust on-demand functionality, reporting and analytics. Our platform provides intuitive self-service functionality for employees and managers combined with seamless integration across all our solutions. We supplement our comprehensive software platform with an integrated implementation and client service organization, all of which are designed to meet the needs of our clients and prospects.
Effective management of human capital is a core function in all organizations and requires a significant commitment of resources. Organizations are faced with complex and ever-changing requirements, including diverse federal, state and local regulations across multiple jurisdictions. In addition, the workplace operating environment is rapidly changing as employees increasingly become mobile, work remotely and expect an end user experience similar to
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that of consumer-oriented applications. Many companies also are operating without the infrastructure, expertise or personnel to implement or support large and complex systems in today’s dynamic environment. Existing solutions offered by third-party payroll service providers can have limited capabilities and configurability while other enterprise-focused software vendors can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to implement and manage. We believe that modern organizations are better served by modern SaaS solutions designed to meet their unique needs, deliver fast time to value and provide their employees with the most engaging experience available.
Our solutions provide the following key benefits to our clients:
We market and sell our products through our direct sales force. We generate sales leads through a variety of focused marketing initiatives and from our extensive referral network of 401(k) advisors, benefits administrators, insurance brokers, third-party administrators and HR consultants. We derive revenue from a client based on the solutions purchased by the client, the number of client employees and the amount, type and timing of services provided with respect to those client employees. Our annual revenue retention rate was greater than 92% in each of the fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021. Our total revenues increased from $467.6 million in fiscal 2019 to $561.3 million in fiscal 2020, representing a 20% year-over-year increase and to $635.6 million in fiscal 2021, representing a 13% year-over-year increase. While the majority of our agreements with clients are generally cancellable on 60 days’ or less notice, we also have term agreements which are generally two years in length. Our recurring revenue model and high annual revenue retention rates provide significant visibility into our future operating results.
Industry Background
Effective management of human capital is a core capability for all organizations. Identifying, acquiring and retaining talent is a priority at all levels of an organization. Likewise, in today’s increasingly complex business and regulatory environment, organizations are being pressured to manage critical payroll and HCM functions more effectively, automate manual processes and decrease their operating costs, while at the same time successfully managing their workforces.
Complex and Dynamic Tax and Regulatory Environment
The tax and regulatory environment in the United States is complex and dynamic. Organizations are subject to a myriad of benefit, workers compensation, healthcare, tax and other rules, regulations and reporting obligations. In addition to U.S. federal taxing and regulatory authorities, there are more than 10,000 state and local tax codes in the United States. Further, federal, state and local government agencies continually enact and amend the rules, regulations and reporting requirements with which organizations must comply. Leveraging industry leading technology and service to meet these demands delivers critical value to organizations.
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Growing Demand for Mobility and Enhanced User Experience
Connectivity and mobility are enabling employees to spend less time in traditional office environments and more time working remotely. This trend increases the demand for advanced and intuitive solutions that improve collaboration and foster employee engagement, such as remote self-service access to payroll and timesheet reporting, HR and benefits portals and other talent management applications. Given the prominence of consumer-oriented applications, employees expect the user experience and accessibility of internal systems to be similar to those of the latest consumer and social applications, such as LinkedIn, Amazon and Facebook.
Large Market Opportunity for Payroll and HCM Solutions
The market opportunity in the U.S. for payroll and HCM applications and services is driven by the importance of payroll and HCM solutions to the successful management of organizations. To estimate our addressable market, we focus our analysis on the number of U.S. medium-sized organizations and the number of their employees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were over 1.3 million firms with 10 to 1,000 employees in the U.S. in 2018, employing over 55 million people. We estimate that if clients were to buy our entire suite of existing solutions at list prices, they would spend approximately $420 per employee annually. Based on this analysis, we believe our current target addressable market is approximately $23 billion. Our existing clients do not typically own our entire suite of solutions, and as we continue to expand our product offerings, we believe that we have an opportunity to increase the amount clients spend on payroll and HCM solutions per employee and to expand our addressable market.
Organizations Are Increasingly Transitioning to SaaS Solutions
SaaS solutions are easier and more affordable to implement and operate than those offered by traditional service bureaus and legacy software providers. SaaS solutions also enable software updates with greater frequency and without new hardware investments, enabling organizations to better react to changes in their environments. Many organizations are transitioning to SaaS solutions to satisfy their software needs. Similarly, we believe organizations are adopting SaaS applications for payroll and HCM solutions with increasing frequency.
Limitations of Legacy Competitive Solutions
We believe that legacy payroll and HCM solution providers have limitations that cause them to underserve the unique needs of modern organizations. Existing legacy payroll and HCM solutions include:
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Given the challenges many organizations face operating in complex and dynamic environments and the limited ability of traditional offerings to address these challenges, we believe there is a significant market opportunity for a comprehensive, unified SaaS solution designed to serve the payroll and HCM needs of modern organizations.
Segment Information
Our chief operating decision maker reviews our financial results in total when evaluating financial performance and for purposes of allocating resources. We have thus determined that we operate in a single cloud-based software solution reporting segment.
Our Solutions
We are a cloud-based provider of payroll and HCM software solutions. Our solutions enable organizations to more efficiently manage payroll and human capital in their complex and dynamic operating environments. Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, as of June 30, 2021, we provided our payroll and HCM software solutions to approximately 28,750 clients across the U.S., which on average had over 100 employees.
The key benefits of our solutions include the following:
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Our Strategy
We intend to strengthen and extend our position as a leading provider of cloud-based payroll and HCM software solutions. Key elements of our strategy include the following:
Our Products
Our comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform to create a modern workplace for our clients through automation, data-driven insights and engagement. Our product suite includes the following categories:
Payroll
Payroll and Tax Services – Our Payroll and Tax Services solution is designed to simplify payroll, automate processes and manage complex compliance requirements within one system. Our payroll solution leverages data from our Time and Attendance and Human Capital Management solutions to accurately calculate wages, deductions and withholdings, without the need for manual reentry. Clients work with our experts to configure general ledger integrations, accruals and complex reports to enable data-driven decision making. Our integration capabilities also automatically transfer 401(k) information, retirement plans and benefit files to
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third-party providers. Through our Tax Services solutions, we accurately prepare and file the necessary tax withholdings and filing documents for local, state and federal jurisdictions.
Expense Management – Our Expense Management solution enables mobile app capture of receipts and imports transactions from credit cards, reducing manual entry errors and minimizing employee and approver paperwork, while also eliminating spreadsheets, calculators and manual approvals through automated workflows that route approved expenses for payroll reimbursement.
On Demand Payment – On Demand Payment provides employees with visibility into their earned wages in between pay cycles based on their hours worked and offers financial flexibility to employees through access to a portion of their earned wages before their scheduled payday without impacting the client’s standard payroll process.
Garnishments – Our Garnishments solution provides the calculation, setup and maintenance of historical deduction records and performs calculation validation against state and federal legislation to mitigate compliance risk and prevent costly penalties and errors.
Human Capital Management
Human Capital Management – Our Human Capital Management solutions streamline HR processes using modern, mobile-enabled tools that help save time by automating administrative tasks and providing data-driven reporting. Clients can track headcount and status for positions, manage position and manager changes, manage compliance tracking and reporting, and employee data and documents in one central location.
Employee Self-Service – Our Employee Self-Service module provides employees with access to their information 24/7, which allows them to view checks, request time off, clock in and out, and update personal data. Employees can also enroll in benefits, view coverage, access Learning Management System training or view course completion status on-the-go via our mobile app.
Document Library – Our Document Library serves as a central location to securely store personal employee files such as offer letters and performance reviews to help clients stay compliant and organized by replacing manual processes and paper files. HR professionals can search electronic documents and easily upload, store and download documents while managing access with our role-based permission settings.
Compliance Dashboard – With our Compliance Dashboard, clients save time and money by staying up to date with new laws and regulations related to topics such as employment verification, Equal Employment Opportunity and compensation.
HR Edge – HR Edge supports human resource leaders’ navigation through complex compliance requirements, social issues and HR policies. Clients can also access a comprehensive library of detailed articles, guides and other resources to make informed decisions on compliance topics such as healthcare reform, wages and hours regulations, employee leave, state laws, discrimination and more.
Workforce Management
Time and Attendance – Our Time and Attendance solution accurately tracks time and attendance data, eliminating the need for manual tracking of accruals and reducing administrative tasks. Employees can request and manage time off, edit timecards and manage schedule changes. A customizable supervisor dashboard provides at-a-glance visibility to missed punches, pending time off requests, attendance exceptions and more.
Scheduling – Clients can automate schedule tracking by creating and adjusting work schedules as needed, including leveraging templates and building policies based on duration, time between shifts and availability
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without having to manually correct payroll data. Managers and employees can easily manage their schedules from our mobile app to ensure the appropriate shift coverage.
Time Collection – Our wide variety of time collection devices include kiosks, state-of-the-art time clocks, and mobile and web applications to meet unique needs of different companies while enabling employees to clock in wherever business is conducted. Advanced features include specifying geographic parameters for mobile punch-in, requiring employees to punch in with a photo, answering attestation prompts and temperature checks.
Talent Management
Recruiting – Recruiting helps clients find the right candidates by offering intuitive tools to streamline talent acquisition processes from application creation to candidate acceptance. By modernizing the experience, clients can conveniently reach candidates wherever they are, including through embedded text messaging, and instantly track conversations in our platform. HR professionals can customize job applications and reach more candidates by automatically posting to online job portals. Additionally, our solution provides clients with the ability to auto-fill and simplify background checks, maintain and track personal and confidential data, and have real-time access to candidate information to enable timely staffing decisions. Recruiters can communicate with modern candidates in the ways they expect, including email and text messaging from right within the Paylocity platform.
Onboarding – Onboarding enables new employees to complete all pre-hire tasks through digital data collection to gather important personal and confidential information and documentation right through the Paylocity platform. Clients can streamline processes such as handbook acknowledgment, tax withholding forms, I-9 document verification, E-Verify and many others. Additionally, new hires feel an instant connection to their team and employer with welcome notes from leaders, introductory videos, company culture information and company policies.
Learning Management – Our Learning Management solution allows clients to easily assign courses tailored to training their employees on new skills, policies, products, and other topics with a variety of course delivery methods including on-demand and webinars, all of which are available via our mobile app. Our clients can create a variety of content for their employees including via a Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), embedded video and various document types. The client’s custom content is supplemented by a library of standard trainings provided by Paylocity to help in areas like anti-harassment, new hire, workplace safety, diversity in recruiting and many more. Clients can also empower their employees to create trainings so that internal subject matter experts can share their expertise with colleagues.
Performance Management – Our Performance Management tools enable transparent, two-way communication, allowing teams to have ongoing performance conversations. With the ability to manage employee review cycles at the center of the performance management solution, employees can also manage goals and track their career development. Our tools help facilitate ongoing, goals-driven conversations using Journals, giving employees a record of their tasks, goals and accomplishments. Additionally, our clients can prepare succession planning assessments across their employee population by using our 9-box tool that provides context to employees’ performance and the ability to visualize the distribution of their workforce.
Compensation Management – Compensation Management helps clients ensure alignment between organizational goals, budgets and participant eligibility in an efficient process that reduces manual effort and paper-based budgeting activities. Our customized dashboards provide visibility to individual performance and compensation history at custom permission levels and the full value of an employee’s compensation and
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benefits. Clients can create employee-facing Total Rewards Statements in bulk to demonstrate the full compensation an employee receives—including not just pay but also benefits, time off, and more.
Benefits
Employee Benefits Management – Clients can plan and administer competitive benefits packages in one place while offering a smooth, mobile-friendly enrollment and management experience for employees with our Employee Benefits Management tool. Benefit administrators can add enrollment rules, manage benefit offerings for different employee groups, customize user plan limits, and view plan documentation, among other features. Employees can manage their own elections in Employee Self Service or via the mobile app, which allows them to better understand their healthcare packages. Clients can also administer third-party benefit services such as Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) with ease and supplement standard plans with complementary programs, giving employees the benefits options they need.
Third-Party Administrative (TPA) Solutions – Our TPA solutions are designed to modernize the administration of HSA, FSA, Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), Transportation Management Account (TMA) and Premium Only Plan (POP) benefits by providing users with a single, unified access point for payroll, HR, and benefits administration. Our TPA solutions include mobile and web access, allowing users to view transaction details and account balances while having the ability to submit claims from our integrated employee portal. It also eases the administration of COBRA coverage and retiree billing.
Modern Workforce Solutions
Community – Community is our integrated, mobile-friendly social collaboration tool designed to centralize company communications while also providing clients with an avenue to increase employee connection, engagement and productivity. Community enables leaders, HR professionals and employees to share and respond to meaningful, timely and relevant content in the way today’s modern workforce expects, leveraging groups, which are Community’s foundation. Clients can create groups on topics ranging from project-related collaboration to employee resource groups (ERGs), fostering inclusivity to special interests like music or sports. In addition, specialized Ask an Expert group types can provide a consolidated forum between employees and subject matter experts in areas like IT troubleshooting or open enrollment. Employees can ask questions privately or publicly to designated group administrators who are alerted of submissions and can track questions and status in a dashboard. Employees receive notifications when questions are addressed.
Premium Video – Premium Video provides clients the ability to record, upload and embed videos across our HCM platform to increase collaboration, morale, engagement and productivity. Our solution enables clients to embed videos seamlessly into tasks that are critical to their business such as employee communication, recruiting, onboarding, performance management and surveys.
Surveys – Our Surveys tool help clients gather valuable feedback to encourage ongoing and transparent conversations.
Peer Recognition – Peer Recognition promotes positive interactions by allowing employees to recognize and celebrate colleagues’ achievements. It also gives employees the ability to post accolades on their profiles and share with co-workers.
Analytics & Insights
Modern Workforce Index – The Modern Workforce Index (MWI) leverages patent-pending AI and data from more than 25,000 clients to provide insight and actionable recommendations to improve employee sentiment and engagement. Clients can view their overall MWI score and compare performance to peers—then break down results across tool utilization, employee sentiment, and organizational health. This enables our clients to improve employee engagement and productivity, lower turnover, and ultimately realize greater growth.
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Data Insights – With our Data Insights solution, our clients can evaluate the health of their organizations with actionable insights in areas such as employee retention, composition of their employee populations and labor costs.
Reporting – In addition to over 200 out of the box reports, dynamic reporting capabilities help clients utilize data within the Paylocity platform, allowing them to customize and schedule reporting. New reports are added regularly in response to regulatory changes, compliance updates and client feedback.
Client Support Teams
We supplement our comprehensive software platform with an integrated implementation and client service organization with deep subject matter expertise. Our core operation consists of various specialists, including implementation teams, account managers, payroll processing and tax service teams. Delivering a positive experience and a high level of support is an essential element of our ability to sell our solutions and retain clients.
Implementation and Training Services
Our clients are typically migrating to our platform from a competitive solution or are adopting their first online payroll and HCM solution. These organizations often have limited internal resources and rely on us to implement their payroll and HCM solutions. We typically implement our product suite within one to eight weeks, depending on the size and complexity of each client. Each client is guided through the implementation process by our knowledgeable consultants for all implementation matters. We believe our ability to rapidly implement our solutions is principally due to the combination of our emphasis on engagement with the client, our standardized methodology, our cloud-based architecture and our highly configurable, easy-to-use products.
We offer clients the opportunity to utilize on-demand or in-class training designed to provide clients with general knowledge on our solutions. We also host an annual client conference for clients to learn about new products and features and allow clients to provide feedback and learn best practices.
Client Service
Our client service model is designed to serve and support the needs of our clients and to build loyalty by developing strong relationships with clients. We strive to achieve high revenue retention, in part, by delivering high-quality service. Our revenue retention was greater than 92% in each of fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021. Each client is assigned an account management team that serves as the central point of contact for any questions or support needs. We believe this approach enhances client service by providing clients with knowledgeable resources who understand the client’s business, respond quickly, and are accountable for the overall client experience. Account managers are supplemented by teams with deep technical and subject matter expertise who help to expediently and effectively address client needs. We also proactively solicit client feedback through ongoing surveys from which we receive actionable feedback that we use to enhance our client service processes. We have also built an online knowledge repository for clients that provide industry content and Paylocity product and service information.
Tax and Regulatory Services
Our software contains a rules engine designed to make accurate federal, state, and local tax calculations that is continually updated to support all pertinent legislative changes across U.S. jurisdictions with the support of our tax compliance professionals. Our tax service teams provide a variety of solutions to clients including processing payroll tax deposits, preparing and filing quarterly and annual employment tax returns and amendments and resolving client employment tax notices. Our tax filing and compliance departments perform multiple audits to ensure that clients remit timely and accurate tax payments. In addition, a series of audit routines are run to ensure that quarterly tax filings are accurate and submitted on a timely basis.
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Clients
Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, as of June 30, 2021, we provided our payroll and HCM software solutions to approximately 28,750 clients, across the U.S. The rate at which we add clients is variable period-to-period and is also seasonal as many clients switch solutions during the first calendar quarter of each year. Clients include for-profit and non-profit organizations across industries including business services, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, restaurants, retail, technology and others. For each of the three years ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021, no client accounted for more than 1% of our revenues.
Sales and Marketing
We market and sell our products and services through our direct sales force. Our direct sales force includes sales representatives who have defined geographic territories throughout the U.S. We seek to hire experienced sales representatives wherever they are located and believe we have room to grow the number of sales representatives in each of our territories.
The sales cycle begins with a sales lead generated by the sales representative, through our third-party referral network, a client referral, our telemarketing team, our external website, e-mail marketing, or other territory-based activities. We support our sales force with a marketing program that includes seminars and webinars, email marketing, social media marketing, broker events and web marketing.
Referral Network
As a core element of our business strategy, we have developed a referral network of third-party service providers, including 401(k) advisors, benefits administrators, insurance brokers, third-party administrators and HR consultants, that recommend our solutions and provide referrals. Our referral network has become an increasingly important component of our sales process, and in fiscal 2021, more than 25% of our new client revenue originated by referrals from participants in our referral network.
We believe participants in our referral network refer potential clients to us because of the strength of our products and services, the value we provide our referral partners through our broker portal, the fact that we do not provide services that compete with our referral networks, and because we offer third parties the ability to integrate their systems with our platform. Unlike other payroll and HCM solution providers who also provide retirement plans, health insurance and other products and services competitive with the offerings of the participants in our referral network, we focus only on our core business of providing payroll and HCM solutions. In some cases, we have formalized relationships in which we are a recommended vendor of these participants. In other cases, relationships are informal. We typically do not compensate these participants for referrals.
Partner Ecosystem
We have developed a partner ecosystem of third-party systems, such as 401(k), benefits and insurance provider systems, with whom we provide automated data integration for their clients. These third-party providers require certain financial, payroll and other employee demographic information from their clients to efficiently provide their respective services. After securing authorization from the client, we exchange data with these providers. In turn, these third-party providers supply data to us, which allows us to deliver comprehensive HR and benefit management services to our clients. We believe our partnerships with these third parties are an important part of their service offerings. We have also developed our solutions to integrate with a variety of other systems used by our clients, such as accounting, point of sale, banking, expense management, recruiting, background screening and skills assessment solutions.
Paylocity’s automated data integration reduces the complexity and risk of error of manual data transfers and saves clients and employees time. Direct and automated data transmission improves the accuracy of data and facilitates data collection in partners’ systems. Having automated data integration with a payroll and HCM provider differentiates partners’ product offerings, strengthening their competitive positioning in their own markets.
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Technology
We offer our solutions on a cloud-based platform that leverages a unified architecture and a common code base that we organically developed. Clients do not need to install our software in their data centers and can access our solutions through any mobile device or web browser with Internet access.
We use multiple cloud hosting and third-party data center providers to host our solutions, including data centers in Franklin Park, Illinois and Kenosha, Wisconsin (for backup and disaster recovery). We supply the hardware infrastructure and are responsible for the ongoing maintenance of our equipment at all data center locations.
Competition
The market for payroll and HCM solutions is both fragmented and highly competitive. Our competitors vary for each of our solutions and primarily include payroll and HR service and software providers, such as Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Paychex, Inc., Paycom Software, Inc., Paycor, Inc., Ultimate Kronos Group and other local and regional providers.
We believe the principal competitive factors on which we compete in our market include the following:
● Solutions built to connect with today’s workforce;
● Comprehensive payroll and HCM product suite on a single platform;
● Breadth and depth of product functionality;
● Configurability and ease of use of our solutions;
● Modern, mobile, intuitive and consumer-oriented user experience;
● Benefits of a cloud-based technology platform;
● Ability to innovate and respond to client needs rapidly;
● Domain expertise in payroll and HCM;
● Quality of implementation and client service;
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● Ease of implementation;
● Real-time web-based payroll processing; and
● Access to a wide variety of complementary third-party service providers.
We believe that we compete favorably on these factors and our ability to remain competitive will largely depend on the success of our continued investment in sales and marketing, research and development and implementation and client services.
Research and Development
We invest heavily in research and development to continuously introduce new modules, technologies, features and functionality. We are organized in small product-centric teams that utilize an agile development methodology. We focus our efforts on developing new modules and core technologies and on further enhancing the usability, functionality, reliability, performance and flexibility of existing modules.
Research and development costs, including research and development costs that were capitalized, were $73.6 million, $91.0 million and $108.5 million for the years ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Intellectual Property
Our success is dependent, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary technology and other intellectual property rights. We rely on a combination of trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks, as well as contractual protections to establish and protect our intellectual property rights. We require our employees, consultants and other third parties to enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements and control access to software, documentation and other proprietary information. Although we rely on laws respecting intellectual property rights, including trade secret, copyright and trademark laws, as well as contractual protections to establish and protect our intellectual property rights, we believe that factors such as the technological and creative skills of our personnel, creation of new modules, features and functionality and frequent enhancements to our modules are more essential to establishing and maintaining our technology leadership position.
Governmental Regulation
As a provider of payroll and HCM solutions, our systems contain a significant amount of sensitive data related to clients, employees of our clients, vendors and our employees. Data privacy has become a significant issue in the United States and in other countries. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Many federal and state government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws and regulations affecting or regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. These include, for example, rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Affordable Care Act, state breach notification laws and state privacy laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, the California Privacy Rights Act and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Further, because some of our clients have international operations, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and other foreign data privacy laws may impact our processing of certain client and employee information.
In addition, many of our solutions are designed to assist clients with their compliance with certain U.S. federal, state and local laws and regulations that apply to them. As such, our products and services may become subject to increasing and/or changing regulatory requirements, including changes in tax, benefit and other laws, and as these requirements proliferate, we may be required to change or adapt our products and services to comply. Changing regulatory requirements might reduce or eliminate the need for some of our products and services, block us from developing new products and services or have an adverse effect on the functionality and acceptance of our solution. This might in turn impose additional costs upon us to comply, modify or further develop our products and services. It might also make introduction of new products and services more costly or more time-consuming than we currently anticipate or prevent
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introduction of such new products and services. For example, the adoption of new money transmitter or money services business statutes in jurisdictions or changes in regulators’ interpretation of existing state and federal money transmitter or money services business statutes or regulations, could subject us to registration or licensing or limit business activities until we are appropriately licensed.
Our ability to comply with and address the continuously evolving requirements and regulations applicable to our business depends on a variety of factors, including the functionality and design of our solutions and the manner in which our clients and their employees utilize them. We have implemented operating policies and procedures to protect the accuracy, privacy and security of our clients’ and their employees’ information and voluntarily undergo certain periodic audits and examinations and maintain certain certifications to demonstrate our commitment to regulatory compliance.
The foregoing description does not include an exhaustive list of the laws and regulations governing or impacting our business. See the discussion contained in the “Risk Factors” section in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for information regarding changes in laws and regulations that could have a materially adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.
Human Capital
As a leading provider of cloud-based HR and payroll software, we are committed to delivering the most modern suite of solutions that drive employee engagement and a more connected culture for both our clients and our employees. Our CEO, together with our senior executive team and Board of Directors, drive our human capital strategy including key initiatives related to our employees and company culture.
For additional information regarding our human capital initiatives, we encourage investors and other users of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to visit our Corporate Social Responsibility website at https://www.paylocity.com/who-we-are/about-us/corporate-responsibility/. The information contained on this website is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
As of June 30, 2021, our workforce consisted of approximately 4,150 employees, substantially all of which were employed on a full-time basis in the United States.
Culture & Engagement
At Paylocity, we strive to be an organization where every employee has a voice, feels welcomed and is empowered to do their best work. Our core values drive our culture – we believe in earning it every day, that growth fuels opportunity, thinking next generation, living the reputation, and being unbeatable together. Our core values serve as the foundation from which we create an engaging culture for our employees, how we train and develop our teams and how we identify the right talent for our organization. Our approach to drive a strong culture and employee engagement has been validated externally as Paylocity has been named a certified Great Place To Work on multiple occasions.
We support a number of employee resource groups (“ERGs”) including PCTY Equality, which focuses on fostering a positive work environment and providing support for employees and allies of the LGBTQ+ community, PCTY Virtual Connect, which helps bring our remote employees closer together, our PCTY OneWorld group, which fosters an inclusive work environment and provides support for our employees of diverse ethnic backgrounds, PCTY Sheroes, which supports and celebrates women, and PCTY Sustainability, whereby our employees promote initiatives to operate our business and facilities to conserve energy, water and raw materials. Each of these groups are organized to give employees the chance to build community and connections, voice their ideas and perspectives, personally develop and grow, and shape our culture to make a difference at work and in our local communities.
Diversity & Inclusion
Dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DE&I”) is foundational to our culture. Led by our Chief Diversity Officer and Diversity Leadership Council, we remain committed to increasing the representation of minority
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groups within our organization, including in leadership roles, and we directly focus on these goals within our talent acquisition and employee development efforts. Our focus includes attracting diverse candidates to our organization while also investing in professional development and mentorship programs focused on underrepresented employee groups.
As of June 30, 2021, approximately 49% of our employees identified as female and 31% of our employees were made up of underrepresented minorities. As of June 30, 2021, approximately 43% of director roles and above were held by a female and 17% of our director roles and above were held by underrepresented minorities. The tables below provide metrics regarding the composition of our workforce as of June 30, 2021.
Overall Workforce
Ethnicity All Female Male *Undisclosed
Hispanic & Latinx 11.0 % 50.8 % 49.2 % — %
Black or African American 7.4 % 59.2 % 40.8 % — %
Asian & Indian 5.4 % 47.5 % 52.5 % — %
Multiracial 3.5 % 52.8 % 47.2 % — %
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander 0.3 % 38.5 % 61.5 % — %
American Indian or Alaska Native 0.3 % 53.8 % 46.2 % — %
Leadership**
Ethnicity All Female Male *Undisclosed
Hispanic & Latinx 1.0 % 100.0 % — % — %
Black or African American 1.9 % 100.0 % — % — %
Asian & Indian 10.7 % 27.3 % 72.7 % — %
Multiracial — % — % — % — %
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander — % — % — % — %
American Indian or Alaska Native — % — % — % — %
Undisclosed* 2.9 % 33.3 % 66.7 % — %
*Individuals preferred to not disclose an ethnicity and/or gender
**Defined as individuals in director-level positions and above
To support our DE&I efforts, we are launching a curriculum of learning and training content known as “BRIDGE” (Belonging, Respect, Inclusion, Diversity, Generosity, and Equity), that delivers training content related to topics such as unconscious bias, inclusive leadership and building diverse teams. Our curriculum is designed with the needs of both our employees and clients in mind, with content widely available via Community, our internally developed social collaboration platform.
Learning & Development
As a 2021 Association for Talent Development 100 Best Training organization, we are committed to creating industry leading talent development and leadership programs that support the professional growth of our employees. In addition to other programs throughout our organization, we provide our operations team with an immersive scenario-based training program and our salesforce with an intensive learning experience on our go-to-market sales strategy and process. Through our internally developed Learning Management System (“LMS”) with Video Premium, we enable employees to share knowledge through self-recorded sessions, which complements our library of more than 600 internal courses.
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Talent Acquisition & Compensation
We focus diligently on attracting a diverse pool of talented candidates that can help us achieve our short and long-term goals as an organization. Our philosophy of “talent anywhere” focuses on identifying the right individuals for our business, regardless of where they are located geographically. For Paylocity, the right talent is someone who embodies our values, has an innate curiosity to learn and grow with our business, and has a diverse perspective on how best to accomplish our goals.
Our compensation approach is centered around a philosophy that allows us to compete for and retain the right talent to grow our organization, while being consistent and equitable. Our total rewards program includes competitive pay, an employee stock purchase program, the ability to receive a portion of earned wages before the end of the payroll cycle through our On-Demand Payment product, market competitive retirement benefits, paid time off, the ability to consolidate and refinance federal and private student loans, interest free employee loans and many other benefits. Retaining talent is key to our compensation strategy, and we provide time-based restricted stock grants to certain employees based on role. We partner with best-in-class organizations to ensure that we utilize the most current data to serve as a foundation of our compensation strategy.
We are also committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our employees and offer a multitude of resources to assist in these efforts. In addition to traditional benefit offerings, we provide all employees with innovative perks and benefits that help to support their health and overall wellbeing. Such offerings include paid parental leave, adoption assistance, health advocacy services, personalized training to measure and improve resiliency and mental health, paid time off to volunteer, tuition reimbursement and many others.
PCTY Gives
Giving back to our local communities takes many forms at Paylocity. Through PCTY Gives, we mobilize our technology, people and resources across the country through in-kind donations, our Elevate Your Passions (“EYP”) Grant Program, Volunteers in Action paid time-off, signature program funding and many other initiatives. To support our employees and their communities, each quarter we donate to a qualified 501 (c)(3) charity nominated by our employees through the EYP program. In addition to local charities, Paylocity partners with national organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Blessings in a Backpack and American Red Cross. To support the children of Paylocity employees, the Peter J. McGrail Scholarship program, named after our late CFO, provides higher education tuition assistance for selected participants.
Available Information
Our Internet address is www.paylocity.com and our investor relations website is located at http://investors.paylocity.com. We make available free of charge on our investor relations website under the heading “Financials” our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such materials are electronically filed with (or furnished to) the SEC. Information contained on our websites is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, the public may read and copy materials we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. In addition, the SEC maintains an Internet site, www.sec.gov, that includes filings of and information about issuers that file electronically with the SEC.
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Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Our business, prospects, financial condition or operating results could be materially adversely affected by any of these risks, as well as other risks not currently known to us or that are currently considered immaterial. The trading price of our common stock could decline due to any of the risks and uncertainties described below, and you may lose all or part of your investment. In assessing these risks, you should also refer to the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes.
Risks Related to our Business and Industry
Our quarterly operating results have fluctuated in the past and may continue to fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control.
Our number of new clients typically increases more during our third fiscal quarter ending March 31 than during the rest of our fiscal year, primarily because many new clients prefer to start using our payroll and human capital management, or HCM, solutions at the beginning of a calendar year. Client funds and year-end activities are also traditionally higher during our third fiscal quarter. As a result, our total revenue and expenses have historically grown disproportionately during our third fiscal quarter as compared to other quarters. Due to this seasonality in our business, quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our operations are not necessarily meaningful and such comparisons should not be relied upon as indications of future performance. Additionally, fluctuation in quarterly results may negatively impact the price of our common stock.
In addition to other risk factors listed within this “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, some other important factors that may cause fluctuations in our quarterly operating results include the following:
● The extent to which our products achieve or maintain market acceptance;
● Changes in client budgets and procurement policies;
● The number of our clients’ employees;
● Timing of recognition of revenues and expenses;
● Client renewal rates;
● Seasonality in our business;
● Technical difficulties with our products or interruptions in our services;
● Our ability to hire and retain qualified personnel;
● Changes in accounting principles;
● Changes in interest rates;
● Unforeseen legal expenses, including litigation and settlement costs.
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In addition, a significant portion of our operating expenses are related to compensation and other items which are relatively fixed in the short-term, and we plan expenditures based in part on our expectations regarding future needs and opportunities. Accordingly, changes in our business or revenue shortfalls could decrease our gross and operating margins and could negatively impact our operating results from period to period.
Changes in regulatory laws or requirements applicable to our software and services could impose increased costs on us, delay or prevent our introduction of new products and services and impair the function or value of our existing products and services.
Our products and services may become subject to increasing and/or changing regulatory requirements, including changes in tax, benefit and other laws, and as these requirements proliferate, we may be required to change or adapt our products and services to comply. Changing regulatory requirements might reduce or eliminate the need for some of our products and services, block us from developing new products and services or have an adverse effect on the functionality and acceptance of our solution. This might in turn impose additional costs upon us to comply, modify or further develop our products and services. It might also make introduction of new products and services more costly or more time-consuming than we currently anticipate or prevent introduction of such new products and services. For example, the adoption of new money transmitter or money services business statutes in jurisdictions or changes in regulators’ interpretation of existing state and federal money transmitter or money services business statutes or regulations, could subject us to registration or licensing or limit business activities until we are appropriately licensed. These occurrences could also impact how we conduct some aspects of our business or invest client funds, which could adversely impact interest income from investing client funds. Should any state or federal regulators determine that we have operated as an unlicensed money services business or money transmitter, we could be subject to civil and criminal fines, penalties, costs, legal fees, reputational damage or other negative consequences. Any of these regulatory implementations or changes could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.
If we do not continue to innovate and deliver high-quality, technologically advanced products and services, we will not remain competitive and our revenue and operating results could suffer.
The market for our solutions is characterized by rapid technological advancements, changes in client requirements, frequent new product introductions and enhancements and changing industry standards. The life cycles of our products are difficult to estimate. Rapid technological changes and the introduction of new products and enhancements by new or existing competitors, or development of entirely new technologies to replace existing offerings could limit the demand for our existing or future solutions and undermine our current market position.
Our success depends in substantial part on our continuing ability to provide products and services that organizations will find superior to our competitors’ offerings and will continue to use. We intend to continue to invest significant resources in research and development to enhance our existing products and services and introduce new high-quality products that clients will want. If we are unable to predict user preferences or industry changes, or if we are unable to modify our products and services on a timely basis or to effectively bring new products to market, our revenue and operating results may suffer.
Failure to manage our growth effectively could increase our expenses, decrease our revenue, and prevent us from implementing our business strategy and sustaining our revenue growth rates.
We have and we believe we will continue to experience rapid revenue and client base growth. However, the growth in our number of clients puts significant demands on our business, requires increased capital expenditures and increases our operating expenses. To manage this growth effectively, we must attract, train, and retain a significant number of qualified sales, implementation, client service, software development, information technology and management personnel. We also must maintain and enhance our technology infrastructure and our financial and accounting systems and controls. We must also expand and develop our network of third-party service providers, including 401(k) advisors, benefits administrators, insurance brokers, third-party administrators and HR consultants, which represent a significant source of referrals of potential clients for our products and implementation services. Failure to effectively manage our growth could adversely impact our business and results of operations. We could also suffer operational mistakes, a loss of business opportunities and employee losses. If our management is unable to
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effectively manage our growth, our expenses might increase more than expected, our revenue could decline or might grow more slowly than expected, and we might be unable to implement our business strategy.
The markets in which we participate are highly competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be adversely affected.
The market for payroll and HCM solutions is fragmented, highly competitive and rapidly changing. Our competitors vary for each of our solutions and primarily include payroll and HR service and software providers, such as Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Paychex, Inc., Paycom Software, Inc., Paycor, Inc., Ultimate Kronos Group and other local and regional providers.
Several of our competitors are larger, have greater name recognition, longer operating histories and significantly greater resources than we do. Many of these competitors are able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products and services. Furthermore, our current or potential competitors may be acquired by third parties with greater available resources and the ability to initiate or withstand substantial price competition, which may include price concessions, delayed payment terms, or other terms and conditions that are more enticing to potential clients. As a result, our competitors may be able to develop products and services better received by our markets or may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, regulations, or client requirements.
In addition, current and potential competitors have established, and might in the future establish, partner or form other cooperative relationships with vendors of complementary products, technologies or services to enable them to offer new products and services, to compete more effectively or to increase the availability of their products in the marketplace. New competitors or relationships might emerge that have greater market share, a larger client base, more widely adopted proprietary technologies, greater marketing expertise, greater financial resources, and larger sales forces than we have, which could put us at a competitive disadvantage. In light of these advantages, current or potential clients might accept competitive offerings in lieu of purchasing our offerings. We expect competition to continue for these reasons, and such competition could negatively impact our sales, profitability or market share.
If we fail to manage our technical operations infrastructure, including operation of our data centers, our existing clients may experience service outages and our new clients may experience delays in the deployment of our modules.
We have experienced significant growth in the number of users, transactions and data that our operations infrastructure supports. We seek to maintain sufficient excess capacity in our data centers and other operations infrastructure to meet the needs of our clients. We also seek to maintain excess capacity to support new client deployments and the expansion of existing client deployments. In addition, we need to properly manage our technological operations infrastructure in order to support version control, changes in hardware and software parameters and the evolution of our modules. We may experience website disruptions, outages and other performance problems. These problems may be caused by a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, viruses, security attacks, fraud, spikes in client usage and denial of service issues. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. If we do not accurately predict our infrastructure requirements, our existing clients may experience service outages that may subject us to financial penalties, financial liabilities and client losses. If our operations infrastructure fails to keep pace with increased sales, clients may experience delays as we seek to obtain additional capacity, which could adversely affect our reputation and our revenues.
In addition, our ability to deliver our cloud-based modules depends on the development and maintenance of Internet infrastructure by third parties. This includes maintenance of a reliable network backbone with the necessary speed, data capacity, bandwidth capacity, and security. We may experience future interruptions and delays in services and availability from time to time. Any interruption may affect the availability, accuracy, or timeliness in our services and could damage our reputation, cause our clients to terminate their use of our software, require us to indemnify our clients against certain losses due to our own errors and prevent us from gaining additional business from current or future clients. In the event of a catastrophic event with respect to one or more of our systems, we may experience an
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extended period of system unavailability, which could negatively impact our relationship with clients. To operate without interruption, both we and our clients must guard against:
● Communications failures;
● Software and hardware errors, failures and crashes;
● Other potential interruptions.
We use multiple cloud hosting and third-party data center providers to host our solutions, including data centers in Franklin Park, Illinois and Kenosha, Wisconsin (for backup and disaster recovery). We also may decide to employ additional offsite data centers in the future to accommodate growth. Problems faced by our data center locations (such as a hardware or other supply chain disruption), with the telecommunications network providers with whom we or they contract, or with the systems by which our telecommunications providers allocate capacity among their clients, including us, could adversely affect the availability and processing of our solutions and related services and the experience of our clients. If our data centers are unable to keep up with our growing needs for capacity, this could have an adverse effect on our business and cause us to incur additional expense. Any changes in service levels at our third-party data center or any errors, defects, disruptions or other performance problems with our modules could adversely affect our reputation and may damage our clients’ stored files or result in lengthy interruptions in our services. Interruptions in our services might reduce our revenues, subject us to potential liability or other expenses or adversely affect our renewal rates.
In addition, while we own, control and have access to our servers and all of the components of our network that are located in our backup data centers, we do not control the operation of these facilities. The operators of our third-party data center facilities have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew these agreements on commercially reasonable terms, or if the data center operators are acquired, we may be required to transfer our servers and other infrastructure to new data center facilities, and we may incur costs and experience service interruption in doing so.
We typically pay client employees and may pay taxing authorities amounts due for a payroll period before a client’s electronic funds transfers are finally settled to our account. If client payments are rejected by banking institutions or otherwise fail to clear into our accounts, we may require additional sources of short-term liquidity and our operating results could be adversely affected.
Our payroll processing business involves the movement of significant funds from the account of a client to employees and relevant taxing authorities. Though we debit a client’s account prior to any disbursement on its behalf, due to Automated Clearing House, or ACH, banking regulations, funds previously credited could be reversed under certain circumstances and timeframes after our payment of amounts due to employees and taxing and other regulatory authorities. There is therefore a risk that the employer’s funds will be insufficient to cover the amounts we have already paid on its behalf. While such shortage and accompanying financial exposure has only occurred in very limited instances in the past, should clients default on their payment obligations in the future, we might be required to advance funds to cover such obligations. Depending on the magnitude of such an event, we may be required to seek additional sources of short-term liquidity, which may not be available on reasonable terms, if at all, and our operating results and our liquidity could be adversely affected and our banking relationships could be harmed.
Our business could be negatively impacted by disruptions in the operations of third-party providers.
We rely on third-party couriers such as the United Parcel Service, or UPS, to ship printed checks to our clients, and any disruptions in their operations that impact their ability to successfully perform their tasks may negatively impact our business.
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We also currently have agreements with eleven major U.S. banks to execute ACH and wire transfers to support our client payroll, benefit and tax services. If one or more of the banks fails to process ACH transfers on a timely basis, or at all, then our relationship with our clients could be harmed and we could be subject to claims by a client with respect to the failed transfers. In addition, these banks have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. If a material number of these banks terminate their relationships with us or restrict the dollar amounts of funds that they will process on behalf of our clients, their doing so may impede our ability to process funds and could have an adverse impact on our business.
We depend on our senior management team and other key employees, and the loss of these persons or an inability to attract and retain highly skilled employees, including product development, sales, implementation, client service and other technical persons, could adversely affect our business.
Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our key executive officers. We also rely on our leadership team in the areas of product development, sales, client service, and general and administrative functions. From time to time, there may be changes in our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives, which could disrupt our business. While we have employment agreements with our executive officers, these employment agreements do not require them to continue to work for us for any specified period and, therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers or key employees could have an adverse effect on our business.
We believe that to grow our business and be successful, we must continue to develop products that are technologically advanced, are highly integrable with third-party services, provide significant mobility capabilities and have pleasing and intuitive user experiences. To do so, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel, particularly employees with high levels of experience in designing and developing software. We must also identify, recruit and train qualified sales, client service and implementation personnel in the use of our software. The amount of time it takes for our sales representatives, client service and implementation personnel to be fully trained and to become productive varies widely. Competition for skilled employees across the United States and globally is intense. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be severely harmed. We follow a practice of hiring the best available candidates wherever located, but as we grow our business, the productivity of our product development and direct sales force may be adversely affected. In addition, if we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees have breached their legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources.
Our software might not operate properly, which could damage our reputation, give rise to claims against us, or divert application of our resources from other purposes, any of which could harm our business and operating results.
Our payroll and HCM software is complex and may contain or develop undetected defects or errors, particularly when first introduced or as new versions are released. Despite extensive testing, from time to time, we have discovered defects or errors in our products. In addition, because changes in employer and legal requirements and practices relating to benefits, filing of tax returns and other regulatory reports are frequent, we may discover defects and errors in our software and service processes in the normal course of business compared against these requirements and practices. Defects and errors could also cause the information that we collect to be incomplete or contain inaccuracies that our clients, their employees and taxing and other regulatory authorities regard as significant.
Defects and errors and any failure by us to identify and address them could result in delays in product introductions and updates, loss of revenue or market share, liability to clients or others, failure to achieve market acceptance or expansion, diversion of development and other resources, injury to our reputation, and increased service and maintenance costs. The costs incurred in correcting any defects or errors or in responding to resulting claims or liability might be substantial and could adversely affect our operating results. Our clients might assert claims against us in the future alleging that they suffered damages due to a defect, error, or other failure of our product or service processes. A product liability claim and errors or omissions claim could subject us to significant legal defense costs and adverse publicity regardless of the merits or eventual outcome of such a claim.
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Our agreements with our clients typically contain provisions intended to limit our exposure to such claims, but such provisions may not be effective in limiting our exposure. Contractual limitations we use may not be enforceable and may not provide us with adequate protection against product liability claims in certain jurisdictions. A successful claim for product or service liability brought against us could result in substantial cost to us and divert management’s attention from our operations. We also maintain insurance, but our insurance may be inadequate or may not be available in the future on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, our policy may not cover all claims made against us and defending a suit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and divert management’s attention.
If third-party software used in our products is not adequately maintained or updated, our business could be materially adversely affected.
Some of our products utilize certain third-party software. Although we believe that there are alternatives for these products, any significant interruption in the availability of such third-party software could have an adverse impact on our business unless and until we can replace the functionality provided by these products at a similar cost. Additionally, we rely, to a certain extent, upon such third parties’ abilities to enhance their current products, to develop new products on a timely and cost-effective basis and to respond to emerging industry standards and other technological changes. We may be unable to replace the functionality provided by the third-party software currently offered in conjunction with our products in the event that such software becomes obsolete or incompatible with future versions of our products or is otherwise not adequately maintained or updated.
We may acquire other companies or technologies, which could divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders and otherwise disrupt our operations and adversely affect our operating results.
We have acquired and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in other businesses or technologies. The pursuit of potential acquisitions or investments may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing suitable acquisitions, whether or not they are consummated.
We may not be able to integrate the acquired personnel, operations and technologies successfully, or effectively manage the combined business following the acquisition. Factors that may negatively impact our operating results, business and financial position, without limitation include the following: