Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Andrew Anagnost: Yes. So obviously, we invest a lot in bringing our partners along on this. It doesn’t mean all partners are going to be happy with these changes. Okay? It’s just that is not an outcome that we’re looking for or is likely. But many partners are going to be happy with these changes because we’ve been very clear about what the path is to growth for them. Beyond that, we’ve taken a really kind of incremental approach to these things with our partners. We kind of led them along, showed them the way. You might recall, we started the new transaction model with Flex, close to about 1.5 years ago in Australia, then we rolled it out to the broad-based partner network and everybody got experience with it. Now we’re testing in Australia.

Again, we take our partners along on these journeys in very deliberate ways. And frankly, the credibility we have with our partners in terms of making their businesses more consequential and significant and, frankly, larger over time has really created an environment where there’s a lot of trust. And there’s a lot of discussion about what’s the best way to do this. What this means for them and where it’s going to take their business. And this will make the partners ultimately more consequential in some of the business discussions with their partners with their customers by bringing them closer to the design and make infrastructure work that needs to happen in the services and support that.

Michael Funk: Thank you for that, Andrew. And one for you, Debbie, will see a check on the accounting of the math. You mentioned EBA revenue, non-recurrence in fiscal 2025 a few times. So, two pieces. First, accounting. I thought that the true-ups with upsizing in EBA, I thought that was recognized ratably over the term of the contract. Just trying to think how that might carry over an impact 2025, I’m correcting that accounting? And then second, if you can just remind us on the actual benefit to fiscal year 2024 from those items so we can pull that out of the fiscal year 2025 number?

Debbie Clifford: Sure. So, from an accounting standpoint, the true-ups we recognize upfront. So, think of it as an enterprise customer signs up for X number of tokens. And when they exceed X number of tokens, we build them for the differential and we recognize that revenue upfront and it doesn’t recur in future periods, unless over the next three-year contract term, they utilized more than the tokens allotted in their contract again. So, that’s why it’s something that is sort of a one-off — a good one off, but a one-off nonetheless, that could only recur three years from now for these contracts if we found ourselves in the same situation. And then in terms of sizing the benefit to fiscal 2024, we haven’t gotten into exact numbers, but you can think about the overall guidance upgrade that we talked about today is largely being driven by the strength that we’re seeing from the enterprise business this year.

Michael Funk: Great. Thank you both.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Hedberg of RBC.

Matt Hedberg: Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess for either of you, maybe thinking longer term, I’m curious if you could help us with maybe the — this move from contra revenue. What is the impact to sort of like pro forma revenue growth once the business has migrated more so to the Flex model?

Debbie Clifford: Matt, it’s going to be — revenue growth will accelerate. And the pace at which it accelerates is going to be determined based on how we go about the rollout. But as we mentioned, we’re working on that now. We launched Flex last year. We just launched Australia. We’re learning from Australia — as we — right now. And then as we look ahead to next year, we intend to go global with this, but we need to make sure that we are set up for success, which is why we’re watching Australia closely. But when we execute finally, on all aspects of this transition, it will be an accelerator to revenue growth.

Matt Hedberg: Got it. Thank you. And then I know last quarter, you saw some pretty good non-compliant conversions I don’t think you mentioned the other side – recall you’re talking about that. Was there any this quarter that you called out?

Debbie Clifford: We continue to perform well with our non-compliant conversions. So, I think you’ve heard us talk about a couple of things. I think historically, we have talked about some of the larger deals that we’ve closed, and those types of deals are still happening. But as I recall, on last quarter’s earnings call, Andrew was talking about some of the stuff that we’ve been doing in product that’s driving more conversion. That’s on a smaller scale in terms of deal sizes, but is driving significant volume for Autodesk. So, over time, you’re going to see us continue to flex different means of driving more compliance from non-compliant users, and it continues to be a steady drumbeat contributor to our revenue growth over time.