American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMSWA) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So we are going to get business done in the next six months. But how fast and how quickly and the timing of it is tough. And then, of course, from a revenue standpoint, the later you get in the year, because we take that revenue monthly and report it quarterly, obviously, that impacts the year-over-year results, because the later you are in the year, you don’t have the accumulation effort from earlier months. So that’s why we are being pretty conservative. But we — there’s no question that there’s a lot of demand. Our pipeline is still growing. There is more and more need for Supply Chain capabilities and we have always seen it in the past that strong companies will come out of it even stronger by making these investments.

Zach Cummins: Understood. That’s helpful. And can you talk a little bit more about your strategy when it comes to Supply Chain Professional Services. It seems like there’s more of a concerted effort for you to ship some more of that project work over the system integrators?

Allan Dow: We are. And actually, we have had — there’s a couple of things that are under play there. I mentioned both of those. But, yes, we are getting more engagement, more participation from the third-party integrators those SI firms and through our distribution network, our value-added resellers. We continue to build their skill sets because they provide some valuable surge assets, as well as local presence. So we want both of those parties to play a stronger role going forward. Both have a broader reach than we have independently in the marketplace and that builds that ecosystem. But we are also seeing the impact now of our three-year long initiative to continue to improve the efficiency of enable and the timeline that have been able to get systems up.

That’s come through practice. It’s come through development efforts. It’s come through just attention to detail on making sure that we work projects diligently in our prescriptive approach. Don’t go in and just waiting for them to the client to decide what they want, we go in and tell them what’s best and then we debate with them a little bit on maybe the scope for that and the approach to it. But it’s just making for much more efficient projects and that’s a good thing. We are not a service company. We are not trying to be an SI firm. We are driving these projects based on client value and return on the investment they have made and a subscription provider of planning applications is really what we want to be known for, not a services company.

Zach Cummins: Understood. And final question for me, probably, geared towards Vince. But how should we be thinking about the progression of subscription gross margin as the subscription line continues to scale here in the coming fiscal year?

Vince Klinges: Yeah. We are anticipating — right now it’s 71% if you take the amortization of the cap software out. We are anticipating kind of towards the back end of this fiscal year 2024. We should be at or near 75%. And as we approach the next fiscal year, which towards the back end of fiscal 2025, we should be close to 80%. So that’s what we are targeting.

Zach Cummins: Understood. Well, thanks again for taking my questions and best of luck with the remainder of the quarter.

Vince Klinges: Thank you.

Allan Dow: Thank you, Zach. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will take our next question from Anja Soderstrom. Your line is open.

Anja Soderstrom: Yeah. Thank you for taking my questions. So I just want to follow up on your commentary about the softness playing out here in the shorter term, which gives you confidence that will — that is just a short-term softness?