Good morning, and welcome to Alcidion's Full-Year Financial Results for FY 2023. Before we begin, I would firstly like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the various lands on which we work and meet today, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have joined us on the call today. On the call today, we have Alcidion's Chair, Rebecca Wilson, Managing Director, Kate Quirke, and Chief Financial Officer, Matthew Gepp. We will begin with a presentation by Kate, who will go through the operational highlights of the year, followed by Matt, who will cover off the financial results.
All participants are in listen-only mode, and should you wish to ask a question, please do so using the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen, and at the end of the presentation, we will endeavor to answer as many as possible. There might be quite a few questions, so we may group them together just for speed. Thank you very much again for joining, and I will now hand over to Kate.
Thanks very much, Hannah, and welcome everyone to the call. As Hannah mentioned, I'll go to a summary version of what was lodged earlier today. I'm actually going to leave most of the talk to Matt today, although I'll pick him up in the end. I've had a bit of a virus, and my voice is not what it could be. So, hopefully, it won't flag too much during the course of the call. For those of you on the call who are not as familiar with our, our story, I thought I'd just, maybe start by giving a bit of a snapshot of where Alcidion's positioned as we close out the results for FY 2023. We are, quite rightly, I think, very proud of the work the team has been doing to support our healthcare system.
As we are outlined in the FY call in late July, we're really pleased with the results we've delivered for FY 2023. Alcidion, as you know, is a healthcare software and informatics company, and we're very focused on providing an innovative technology platform that's really about improving the efficiency and quality of patient care. Something that all healthcare systems around the world are focused on at the moment. What we do is aggregate and analyze data available in healthcare, and we use artificial intelligence to then enable a proactive rather than a reactive approach to patient care. Our aim is to support healthcare professionals, so the clinicians, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, who are using our tools and who love using our tools.
And we do that really to make their jobs easier so that ultimately the patients are delivered better patient outcomes. As we stand today, we have around 400 hospitals across 95 healthcare organizations using our solutions, and, you know, that gives us a really strong and referenceable customer base, from which to continue to grow the business. The flagship platform is Miya Precision, which we have created, as a platform with a number of modules, capable of being implemented, alongside that platform. And the modular approach allows us to accommodate our customers' priorities and budgets, and which we've demonstrated to some success during the course of this year. We also are backed by a really strong technical services capability, our integration, consulting, and training teams. And it's very important and a real differentiator for us, as it complements our software products.
It's that team that ensures that what we sell is actually implemented to our customers and supported in a way that helps those customers achieve their stated benefits. That's how you get referenceability, so that people continue to buy our software. In the year, we reached revenue of AUD 40.4 million, with the audit now complete and with now more than 70% of that being of recurring in nature. We've got gross profit margins of over 85%, operating cash flow positive to the 30th of June 2023, strong cash balance of AUD 14.7 million, and no debt. Matt will actually take you through the highlights in more detail and the financials in more detail, but at a high level, it was a really positive one for Alcidion in FY 2023.
As we continued to build and scale the business, the increasing increase in recurring revenue supported us achieving positive operating cash flow for the year. As I just discussed, revenue was AUD 40.4 million, up 18% on the same period last year, and really pleasingly, the recurring revenue grew 21% to AUD 28.1 million. The underlying EBITDA, which is the really new information that comes out in these results, as we had already given an indication of where revenue was going to land. So the underlying EBITDA was a loss of AUD 1.5 million, which is an improvement on last year.
Not quite what we'd hoped for when we started planning FY 23, but as I indicated, during the course of this second half of this year, we have experienced delays in the rollout of the NHS modernization program, which, where we did expect to see more opportunities and contracts as a result of that initiative. And really, it's the process of procurement that's been delayed due to numerous challenges that they faced, getting the funding moving, the political challenges, and then really, I think the staffing challenges that are going on within the trusts and the integrated care systems as they attempt to push through the procurement processes.
Which, as you can imagine, for contracts such as an EPR of that size, you know, the process and the input on all the clinical staff evaluating all of these solutions, alongside delivering care, is really important. And I think that has had an impact across all IT procurement in the U.K., as we've seen a real focus on the EPRs and perhaps distracting from more of the modular sales. We are seeing movement in these processes now, and whilst they're, you know, they are at least a year behind the published program. I've just come back from the U.K., and, you know, I know the team is very busy, in respect of how those procurements are progressing.
I'll let Matt talk a little bit more around the details of the financials as we get into them. We did continue in FY 2023 to execute on the strategy, and I will expand a little bit more after Matt's talked about the financials, about some of our new contract wins and deployments that were highlights for the year. We did have new sales worth, with a TTV of AUD 29.9 million for the year, and those new sales came from across all of our markets and do demonstrate the diversity and variety of the opportunities that our Alcidion now offers. And they are, as I will talk to them, really quite varied, but varied, but driven from the capability of the Miya Precision platform.
We also saw the strength of our delivery capabilities, which allowed us to really demonstrate some strong value for our customers, and I'll talk a little bit more about some of the results we're seeing from our deployments after Matt has spoken. The strategy's being validated as a result and has been strongly through FY 2023, particularly as we continue to see modular sales on top of the Miya Precision platform. So that, that's been highlighted by additional module wins at Dartford, Derby, South Tees, and Bolton. We've got a foothold with at least one module in 28% of the UK trusts, which also provides us that streamlined route to broader trust and integrated care system, or integrated care boards, as they now call them, upsell.
The Leidos contract extension, which was very significant, also further validates the Miya platform capability and our ability to deliver at scale on these very large programs of work. As we look forward, we've got AUD 33.7 million of contracted and scheduled renewal revenue for FY 2024 before, that's at the end of last year or the start of this year, before we even make any additional sales. We've got deep engagement with existing customers, as you'll see from some of the results I'll talk about a little while later. And so that is also strengthened by the increasing referenceability we have from our customers across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. I'm going to hand over to Matt now, who'll take you through the financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Kate, and good morning to everyone who's joined us on the call today. We're looking at the P&L slide here. Thank you, Kate. So as touched on by Kate just now, we saw year-on-year revenue growth of 18%, with recurring revenue growth outpacing the non-recurring revenue quite considerably. Year-on-year recurring revenue grew by 21%, and that's versus growth of 11% in non-recurring revenue. Recurring revenue now makes up just on 70% of total revenues for the year. That's marginally up on the prior year, where we saw it making up 68% of our revenue. The margin increased 18% in line with the revenue, and, you know, as you'd expect, the margin percentage has remained stable at 86%. And that's pretty much where we've actually been for the last four years.
I think we moved into about 88% in FY 2021, but 86% is where we've been sitting now for the last four years. Year-on-year, our staff costs increased by 27%. That's partly driven by the full-year cost of the Silverlink team members who joined us in the first half or late in the first half of FY 2022. We incurred only seven months of costs in the prior year. We also saw greater than usual increases in salaries across our base as we addressed the cost of living pressures being experienced by our team members in the year. Our staff costs represented 74% of revenue in FY 2023, and that's slightly higher than the level we saw last year, around 69%.
And you've heard me talk about this before, this is a metric that we keep a very close eye on. And, you know, we anticipate this to start decreasing again in FY 2024. We end the year with around 191 staff, with a quarter of those based out of the U.K. Increases in headcount in the year included a number of additional resources to reinforce our cyber security posture, as well as increases in our product support capabilities. So looking at the non-staff OpEx, half on half, that was pretty steady. We reported AUD 2.9 million in H1, and that increased slightly to AUD 3.1 million in H2, and we ended the year with AUD 6 million in total. That's about AUD 1 million up on the prior year.
That represents just under 15% of our revenue, and that's very consistent with what we saw in the prior year. Now, similar to the discussion we had at H1 around costs, much of that increase is driven by increased expenditure on travel, and obviously, we're seeing in FY 2023, travel returning to pre-COVID levels. Finally, on the PNL, we delivered an H2 EBITDA loss of just AUD 300,000, and that follows on from the EBITDA loss we recorded in H1 of AUD 1.2 million. So we end the year with a full-year EBITDA loss of AUD 1.5 million. Moving on to the revenue dashboard. So on the top left here, we can see the revenue growth over five years. We're looking at a CAGR of around 19% for the period shown.
So the current year, year-on-year increase of 18% is consistent with that historical growth rate. Half-on-half, the revenue split is quite even, 47% in H1, 53% in H2. That's not entirely unexpected. We now have strong month-on-month recurring revenue being generated from the Silverlink customer base after the full year versus seven months in the prior year. Looking at the bottom left, we see the steady growth in recurring revenue over the five year period, noting that in FY 2019, recurring revenue made up less than half of our total revenue. It's now increased to 70%, and that's consistent with our strategy to focus on product sales, which leads to a steady recurring support and maintenance revenue stream, as well as recurring ongoing hosting revenue.
Non-recurring revenue in this year is largely made up of implementation revenue, and that's a feature that's going to remain with the business as all new software sales do need some level of implementation. But as a percentage of revenue, we expect it will continue to shrink, as our product sales grow. A quick look to the right, we see now that the U.K. makes up almost half of our revenue, being 49% for FY 2023. It's worth noting that, just back in FY 2020, the U.K. contributed less than a quarter, of our total revenue. Okay, on to the revenue model. So, this is quite a good diagram, especially for those new to the Alcidion story. It explains quite clearly the various, sources and flows of revenue in the business. Excuse me.
New sales of our software in the form of license fees is considered recurring revenue, and while it's not necessarily recurring annually in all instances, it's worth pointing out that we do not sell perpetual software licenses. So license revenue is recurring periodically. Licenses are renewable typically every one to five years. Very much depends on the installation of the customer, and you know, this is one of the factors that can make our quarter-on-quarter cash flows and our revenue quite lumpy during the year. So I think as I mentioned on the previous slide, our license sales are always accompanied by implementation revenue. In the current year, implementation revenue was, you know, AUD 10 million. That's AUD 10 million out of AUD 12.3 million non-recurring revenue of implementation revenue for 24% of total revenue.
Depending on the size of the deployment, implementation revenue is usually recognized over a 3-6-month period. The exception, of course, being the ADF contract, where the implementation period is quite a bit longer at three years, but that's, you know, what we'd consider an outlier at the moment. Following on from the implementation, we will build maintenance and support fees, you know, which is very much ARR, as well as ongoing cloud hosting fees. Non-product-related revenue makes up only 6% of total revenue now and consists of consulting and integration, technical design work, and data analytics. I'm moving on to the balance sheet. With the settlement of the final payment to Silverlink, our balance sheet is quite clean now.
It's important to note here that Alcidion does not capitalize internal development costs, so we're not going to see staff costs on the balance sheet. There's not a lot of variation from the prior year. I'll talk to the cash on the cash flow slide. You know, the two large movements we saw this year were in the carrying value of the intangibles and the and the deferred tax liability. You know, very much, you know, accounting issues there. We booked AUD 2 million of amort through the P&L through the amortizing intangibles we acquired with Silverlink and ExtraMed, and we started unwinding the deferred tax liability, which again arose on the acquisition of ExtraMed and Silverlink in the prior year.
That's another movement that we expect to see in the future as this reduces in line with the amort, expense of those intangible assets. Moving on to the cash flow, please, Kate. Okay, we're revisiting the cash flow here, and this, of course, is unchanged from the cash flow we presented in July in the Appendix 4C. After reporting AUD 18.8 million receipts in H1, you know, we collected a further AUD 28.1 million in H2, taking the full-year total receipts to AUD 46.9 million. That's a record level of receipts for Alcidion, 13% higher than the previous year, and it's a result that we are very pleased with. Operating cash flow was positive for the year.
It was modest at AUD 169,000, but it is notable that this is the third consecutive year our business has delivered positive operating cash flows. As expected, you know, following the renewal of Dorset and Wolverhampton in the year, the second tranche of the contingent consideration became payable, and this was settled in full in Q4. You know, with the positive operating cash flow, that is pretty much the driver of the year-on-year decrease in the cash balance. I will hand back over to Kate now, I think, for the next slide.
Thanks very much, Matt.
Welcome.
Yeah, so I just want to sort of give a little bit more detail around the operating activities for FY 2023 as a backdrop to the financials that Matt has just gone through. The new contracts continue to reinforce the modular strategy that we've taken in respect of our go-to-market, and it really is about catering to customers as they enhance their digital maturity. And it supports them with progressing in a modular nature, which is in line with their capacity to receive, but also their budget and ability to spend. Which allowed us to continue to expand our coverage in the UK with a new customer in University Hospital Southampton.
Who are already quite a digitally mature site in terms of the modules that they have purchased over time and the work they've done themselves actually in developing software. And they're considered what we would call the best in class, where they've chosen the modules that suit them. And what they did was choose Miya Precision as the platform to bring together their existing investments into an electronic patient record, with the ability to add on additional modules from the Alcidion suite, to enhance those that they already had from other suppliers. And this added a new integrated care board/system to our customers in that Hampshire and Isle of Wight. We did not have as well as new trust.
We did not have anything deployed in that ICB, and we, we do look forward to continuing to demonstrate to that whole ICB, the value that Alcidion can deliver, to deliver. We also signed further contract renewals for PCS, the acquired solution from Silverlink, with Royal Wolverhampton becoming the fourth trust to re-sign since acquiring Silverlink in December 2021. We really are now benefiting, benefiting from that expanded product offering, enabling us to confidently tender for the larger EPR contract-type contract that we're now seeing to move through the NHS. As Matt mentioned, all earn-out simulations for Silverlink acquisition have now been paid. Looking at another one of our acquisitions, we saw a further movement around the ExtraMed sites, with Bolton deciding to upgrade to Miya Precision platform.
We already had ExtraMed and Miya Observations and Assessments running at Bolton, and they're now moving from ExtraMed to use Miya Flow, Access, Command with Miya Precision. And that positions us really well for further penetration into the Greater Manchester area, which Bolton is part of that ICB. And really does continue the ongoing value from the ExtraMed acquisition. East Lancs was a similar site that was running ExtraMed and then moved to Miya Flow. During the year, we also extended the contract with Leidos Australia for the Australian Defence Force Health Knowledge Management System program, and that was to include Miya Observation into the modules that they're going to be using, but also to extend the whole contract to cover further deployment areas for the ADF.
That brings the combined contract for the first five and a half years to around AUD 32 million, with options to extend that out for a further 15 years. Some very exciting new contract wins during the year. How we implement the solutions that we sell and the depth of our technical skills has always actually been a very strong part of the Alcidion business. And reference sites are absolutely critical in healthcare, and we've successfully worked with our customers during the year to ensure that they receive the benefits that we promise them when we go through that sales process. Alfred Hospital went live across 3 hospitals, where we're integrated to Cerner and the Victorian State Patient Administration system.
This is really focused on helping the Alfred support the management and flow of patients through and across their hospitals from an admission, discharge process. It really was great to have the opportunity to take the board there, to visit during the year and to see the impact firsthand that we've been doing. I think that was really exciting for them to be able to see the value that the Alcidion products bring day to day to caregivers. The Leidos program work touched on that, where there was new software sales, but also we continue to deliver into that.
We're getting to a very exciting part of handing the whole system over to the Commonwealth, and we've been able to meet our deliveries in respect of that program of work, still more to continue on through FY 2024. East Lancs went live with Miya Flow and Miya Observations, alongside a big bang deployment of the Cerner electronic patient record, which is the first in the U.K., and demonstrates the value that Alcidion can bring alongside or on top of an electronic patient record. Of course, now we have a reference site in South Tees and our own full EPR with the acquisition of Silverlink. We hope in future they would actually choose us for their whole EPR. That brings me on to talking a little bit about South Tees, where we are extremely pleased with the progress at South Tees.
The results coming out of this site are better than we could have hoped, I think so soon after going live, especially with the electronic noting module called Miya Noting. It's a notoriously challenging part of an electronic patient record rollout, where you're trying to take all the doctors and nurses from being in a paper environment, which, to be frank, they, you know, prefer in some respects to doing everything electronically. This was the first go live of this module anywhere in the world, and the feedback has been so positive that I just thought I'd share with you, you know, some of the statistics coming out of South Tees, and we're getting more and more every month when they meet to consolidate their data.
But, you know, at the moment, South Tees is doing, administering about 15,000 dosages of medications per day. There are about 140 discharge letters or discharge summaries produced every day, from the Alcidion solution. There's been 11,000 VTE assessments assessing patients for their risk of venous thrombosis. There's been 37,000 documents created, and some of the really positive for customers or for patients really, is that 93% of discharge letters or discharge summaries have been completed by the time the patient is discharged, and then, which means they're immediately available to the GP. Previously, they had another electronic system that did this, and there was like sort of around about 80% completed.
Miya Letters, which is again, the letters to everybody from a referral that is done on discharge, are completed on average, one hour and 16 minutes quicker than the prior system, and so on and so on, and there's more to come. And so we're quite rightly very proud of how we are supporting the clinicians in the South Tees area, to deliver better care to patients. Another module that we have had a lot of success with during the year, which we don't talk a lot, much about really, is Smartpage, which is an application that runs on smartphones for in-hospital communication and the management of tasks, and where possible, the automation of those tasks.
You'll start to hear me talk more and more about the importance of automating some of the more mundane administrative tasks of our clinical team, as we try to really support this challenge we have with a lack of clinical staff in the healthcare system. We support both clinical and non-clinical environments with this solution, so doctor to nurse and vice versa, communication and task management, but also management of orderlies and cleaners. So if you want to free a bed and you want to get people moving through the system, you need to really be able to efficiently manage the cleaning of beds and movement of patients to and from radiology and so forth. So it supports all of that in an electronic means. So really about automating and reducing administrative burden.
We've had some fantastic results out of Lancs, not East Lancs, another trust in the same integrated care system. And there really are very significant results that have been published. There's been a 50% improvement in identifying deteriorated patients and getting help early for those patients that are demonstrating deterioration. 72% reduction in interruptions in the clinical care, so you don't need to get interrupted while you're engaged with a patient. 125% improvement in the time and use of availability of clinical time. And effectively, it's, you know, resulted in measurable saving of two hours for every 12-hour shift, keeping in mind that the NHS operates two 12-hour shifts, rather than three eight hour shifts, as we do in Australia. So you know, really exciting results.
I hope that you, as shareholders, are proud of having the impact on patient care as we are in respect of those outcomes. I'm going to hand over to Bec now to talk a little bit about the work we've been doing in ESG.
Thanks, Kate, and good morning, everyone. We wanted to give a little bit of visibility to investors on our ESG program, which we've formalized over the last 12 months. We first foreshadowed that we would be taking a more focused view on ESG in the last annual report. You know, we've got a really active cross-functional team with representation across customer, across investor relations, people and culture, and operations. And I'm a member of that ESG task force, which really directly links the board with support for that ESG program and direction. So in this last year, we've really focused on progressing the areas of ESG materiality to us as a business within our industry and society as a whole.
To do that, we've sought feedback from our staff, from our customers, from our investors, to ensure that we evolve the program and create a framework to really prioritize and operationalize that ESG program and ensure that we're committing in the right areas to really have an impact. I just wanted to share a couple of examples of how we're approaching that. So within our sort of employee engagement and well-being program, we've implemented an employee assistance program, monthly well-being themes, mental health first aiders, and well-being support tools. But also, we really empower our staff and give them time annually to give back to the community through volunteering. And we just love seeing our teams around the world really embracing that and doing the things that they really love doing.
We're absolutely committed to supporting families, and we've implemented a new paid parental and miscarriage leave policy, and also industry-leading leave allowances for primary and secondary carers. We've also implemented health and well-being schemes and initiatives at various levels across the company. For diversity and inclusion, we're aiming for more than 50% female representation across senior executive leadership teams and 60% female board representation, which we have. But I think some of the broader things we're doing there is we've implemented a gender-neutral paid leave scheme and promoted diverse workforce participation, including the option to self-identify diversity information, and education and support around neurodiversity within Alcidion. We're taking sustainability action, targeting flights and community, including carbon offsets for flights and salary sacrifice for electric vehicle purchases in the U.K. in particular.
We support remote working, as well as choose office locations that are proximate to public transport, to really ease and minimize the impact of transportation to and from work. We've also focused on the protection, not surprising, of sensitive data to maintain the privacy of individuals and our customers. You know, given that, you know, we're a digital health business. We've appointed a CIO during the year and also grown our internal cybersecurity team, as well as now building out a cyber resilience, which has improved our incident preparedness with 24/7 support. Then I just think finally, in terms of our ongoing action, we've commenced an investigation into developing a baseline for our carbon footprint, and have already introduced initiatives to really support that in the coming year.
It's certainly something that we'll be giving our shareholders great visibility to as that comes together. So it's great to see this, this progress during the year, but also to see a great group of people across the Alcidion business coming together to ensure that we not only take this seriously, but we you know, very much live and breathe the, the policies we're putting in place.
Thanks, Bec. Just turning now a little to the outlook as we move forward. As I've probably talked a bit about this at the quarterly as well. We are really looking forward in respect of accelerating our momentum. We start this year very strongly with a contracted revenue base of AUD 33.7 of renewals able to be recognized, sorry, of revenue able to be recognized in FY 2024 as of the end of 30 June. That's without any further sales being made. And if you couple that with the strong balance sheet in respect of cash and no debt, we are really well placed as we move forward. As I touched on in the release that was made today, we have invested in the scale of the business.
If you look at some of the things that we have done and achieved and including what we've done from an ESG perspective, we have made the investments that now position us incredibly well in respect of starting to gain that leverage as the revenue grows from this point forward. We've got deep engagement with the new and existing customers, as touched on in respect of the reference ability we have with those sites, and their ability to be prepared to act as reference sites for us and support us.
We had a very strong position in the UK during a time of significant investment in the modernization of the NHS, and we're optimistic in an increased number of procurements commenced, as we've seen an increased number of procurements commencing, that this will result in new business over the next six months. We have an excellent product position for healthcare, particularly at a time when it is short of resources and needing technology to automate and drive efficiency. We have, I think, in the full deck that was launched today, talked a little bit about potential to look at expansion beyond the current markets we are in. We continue to cautiously investigate the opportunities beyond Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
We know that what we are doing will resonate well, with countries, outside of those that we're in at the moment, and we are certainly continuing to explore this. We'll keep the market updated, as we see potential opportunities arise. So in summary, Alcidion is really excellently placed as we enter FY 2024, having scaled the business, created strong references and the capabilities that we have as a company, I think create a compelling investment profile. We have a very large addressable market, in a market that is, continuing to see the need to invest in modernization, to invest in technology. The, desire and need for better patient management and better flow is across the world. We're seeing it certainly in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
In respect of our financial profile, we are in a very strong position in terms of recurring revenue. We start the year strongly. We know what the revenue, the base revenue to recognize is for this year. We have very strong growth, profit margins and positive operating cash flow. We have several very strong marquee customers. I talked about the likes of the Australian Defence Force, South Tees, Northern Territory Health, Queensland Health, in respect of the work we do there in referral management, and a number of NHS, large NHS trusts. When people look at Alcidion, they see that there are very significant customers choosing to work with us.
Our product offering is modern, it's modular, it's cloud-native, it supports better decision-making in hospitals, and it is modular in nature, which I think is a real differentiator for Alcidion, in that we can work with our customers over time to deliver on their needs as they mature and have access to funds to afford those modules. The type of acute market we're engaged with, the long-term nature of the contracts that we have with these customers, whilst, as you can see from what I've talked about in respect of the procurement cycles, it can take some time to win these very large contracts. When you do win them, they are lengthy in nature.
While they might start at three to five years, we see negligible churn and we see significant rates of renewal, and we have demonstrated the rates of renewal over the past few years. So we have very strong market tailwinds. Health systems are stretched. There's limited bed availability. We have under-resourcing of clinical staff. The governments across the world are committed to seeing technology as one of the differentiators to increase productivity. I think we're hearing about that not just in healthcare, but with the intergenerational statement coming out and looking at productivity and the importance that technology is going to play in that as we move forward. Alcidion is very well placed to help the healthcare system to support a better delivery for our patients and our clinicians.
With that, I think we will hand over to questions.
Thank you very much, Kate. We do have a few that have come in. I will start with the one live from today, and then I'll move on to some that came in, in advance.
... the first one being: How do you differentiate yourself from Beamtree and other similar operatives in your space?
I don't want to talk for Beamtree necessarily, but I am very aware of Beamtree, and as a matter of fact, I think we are complementary to each other rather than as all competitive in respect of what we do. Beamtree has a number of elements to what they do in respect of looking at clinical coding and data quality and coding quality, and those sorts of capabilities could very much exist alongside what Alcidion does. We don't necessarily do what they do, but they have algorithms, for example, that could be deployed across the Alcidion platform. We are very much focused on the workflow, supporting the workflow. So what actually happens day to day, our solutions are in the hands of doctors and nurses day to day.
All right. Thank you very much. The next one: Is the current sales and BD focused on upselling existing accounts or signing new customers, particularly in the UK?
It's absolutely both. As a matter of fact, we've in some ways segregated the sales team in the UK so they can focus on these things differently. I've just come back from the UK and spent some time with the sales team. We've got a team that are really focused on responding to the EPR procurement engagements. And then we also have business development team focused on the upselling opportunities. So they are equally important to us and equally will impact the FY 2024 revenue for Alcidion this year.
All right. Thanks so much. I think this one might be for you, Matt, and it says: While underlying EBITDA has improved, for those of us who follow Charlie Munger, prefer to look at EBIT, which actually went in the wrong direction. Can we expect this metric to improve going forward, and when might it turn positive?
Yeah, thank you. It's a good question. FY 2023 was the first time, you know, the market had visibility of our full D&A profile. So in the prior year, because of the date of the Silverlink acquisition, we didn't see a full year of amort in the books. So we're running at, you know, AUD 3.2 million D&A in FY 2023. The increase from FY 2022 is around 900,000, and that's led by the amortization of those acquired intangibles. That's up by 700,000. Okay, so I'm taking a long time to get to the answer. So the short answer is, with AUD 3.2 million D&A profile and about 300,000 or 400,000 of share-based payment costs, you would be needing to see an EBITDA of between AUD 3 million and AUD 4 million to cover that.
That's the mathematical answer of when do we get to positive EBIT. We need to get enough EBITDA to cover those recurring D&A costs.
Thanks, Matt. Thanks very much, Matt. The next one: Regarding growth in employee OpEx, due to previous investments in new hires, Silverlink and wage inflation, could you give some more perspective on the trajectory of employee OpEx growth relative to revenue going forward, particularly given your comments regarding previous investment in resources being able to support a materially larger business?
Thanks, Hannah. I mean, I would expect, as we've said throughout, and, Matt, that we expect our operating expenses to level out, with the exception of salary increases that may, you know, flow through in FY 2024. We are comfortable that the business is well scaled at this point in time.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. What is the strategy for broadening Alcidion's implementation capabilities into appropriate partner SI?
Thanks very much. Good question. We keep our... We already do a little bit of that. We work with an implementation partner in the UK. So far, we've been able to deliver most of our implementation needs with our existing team. Were we to win a number of sizable deals at the same time, we will make use of some of those partner SIs, system integrators. Well, and, and we keep our eye open on similar opportunities in Australia and New Zealand as well.
Thanks very much. If a customer buys a single module and then purchases additional module, is the incremental revenue from each additional module the same?
No, not always. Some modules, deliver more value than others, and therefore we charge accordingly.
All right, thanks very much. And then we have one here specifically on ESG, so I guess this will be for you, Bec. It says: As a shareholder, I welcome Alcidion's focus on ESG. There is now a significant opportunity for Alcidion to improve reporting on the non-financial metrics that ESG covers, closing the gaps and providing greater confidence with stakeholders in delivering on strategy and ESG commitments. This means setting specific and measurable targets against KPIs for material ESG aspects and driving desired behaviors by embedding performance against these targets in executive and management performance programs. Is this something we can expect to see moving forward?
... Yeah, so that was a long question. Look, first of all, completely concur that ESG is a really important thing, and it needs to be more than just a policy on the page. It does, you know, absolutely needs to be lived and actioned within the organization. And so I would agree that as we mature in the approach that we're taking on ESG, we will absolutely be ensuring that we have very clear goals, that are measurable and that we're really identifying what those metrics are to measure those goals. So I think it's really important that we're looking at it very holistically, and then that would also flow through to, you know, the expectation of, you know, of Kate and her team in terms of how they embrace those.
We are at the early, earliest stage of our ESG program, so you will start to see those types of things coming through as we mature. I think one of the things that is in our favor with our ESG program, it's not something we've had to create. I mean, this business was founded through a very strong purpose that has an inherent social impact. So I feel very confident that we have the social and the governance side really tight. I think for us it's around how do we have a meaningful impact on the environmental element of just conducting business and being you know, as part of a global community. So, yeah, so great, great question, and certainly we remain sort of committed to providing visibility to shareholders as we continue on our journey.
Thanks very much, Bec. A few more here. Given the ongoing headwinds in the NHS digitization program and procurement challenges affecting new sales among UK trusts and ICSs, when is the business likely to get positive EBITDA?
We're not giving, you know, guidance at this point in the year, but all things going according to plan, it is our aim to look to be EBITDA positive. We're holding operating expenses, and with the exception of some salary increases, we're focused on the revenue growth continuing as it has. We are waiting to see how quickly those procurements in the U.K. proceed. They are moving at the moment, but the timing of those is somewhat out of our hands. But we will keep the market updated as they progress, and you know, reflect the impact that that's having on our move towards EBITDA positive.
All right. There's one more, which is a follow-on question from the one previously on, wages. Is it what magnitude of salary increases do you expect to flow through to FY 2024? And what degree is this driver, additional hires or wages inflation?
Well, salary increases, not driven necessarily from additional hires, although to be, you know, what we do, and have done in quite a bit of detail this year, is go through and analyze and ensure that all our staff are being paid at a market competitive rate. That is really where we come from. We aim to be, as indicated in the Rem report , we aim to pay our staff around about the median, for their roles. So, you know, we, we have budgeted, around, 3%-4% increase across the board in respect of addressing not only increases, but ensuring that our staff are paid in line with our own policy.
All right. Thanks a lot, Kate. And there's one that came in advance, which I will just find. And this one I also think is to you, Bec, which is: How is it that a company that is so innovative in the healthcare space have few directors on the board without a medical background?
Look, thanks, Hannah. Look, I think shareholders are well aware that this company was established through the vision of a medical doctor who, you know, I see as a real visionary in identifying the power of technology to solve complex problems in healthcare. And that DNA very much remains in the business today. And we see that through the types of staff that we have now. We have a Chief Medical Officer, we have a Chief Nursing Officer, we have many staff who have been trained and work across the medical ecosystem, in allied health, in nursing, in pharmacy. So, you know, I'm really confident that Kate has the right team to really leverage our opportunities globally, and that her deep and demonstrable experience in digital health is supported by that clinical team.
And I think, you know, clearly the evidence remains in our ability to build, and, you know, sell products in, into customers as they're really you know, really facing those big healthcare challenges. I'd just say, particularly to the board, I just think that that was a good context. I think while none of our directors are clinically or medically trained, you know, several of us have quite extensive, you know, healthcare experience. But we do acknowledge that with our founder, Malcolm Pradhan, stepping down from the board this time or maybe in the last year, that there is an opportunity for us to consider the future skills set and experience of our board, really to align with our aspirations and our opportunities.
We've had a really, you know, ongoing and active board succession program in place for many, many years. We do expect that future changes to our board would focus on acquiring someone with global digital health and/or that medical expertise. So it's a great question, and I think it's a really relevant question. Certainly we would, as I said, continue to see the evolution of our board and really looking at bringing people in with those skills.
Thanks very much, Bec. We just have a few more here, which I'll go through quickly because we are running out of time. Will the business be looking at inorganic growth via acquisitions or mostly focused on organic growth at this point in time?
We're very much focused on organic growth at this point in time.
All right, thank you very much. And you say you have AUD 33.7 million of contracted and scheduled revenues for FY 2024 as of June. How are sales going so far in FY 2024?
Very early on in the year, sales are progressing as expected. Procurements are progressing as expected, and the market will be notified of any of those sales deals that are above the threshold for material reporting. Otherwise, we will report them as we do regularly in our business updates to the market.
All right, I think we've just got one more here. Again, everybody, if you do have a question, please use the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. And it says, "Obviously, the NHS situation is out of control, but with you having scaled up expenses in anticipation of contract wins and a dysfunctional NHS, how do you think the risk of that procurement will be delayed further?
First of all, I think they meant out of your control, because I never said the NHS is out of control, nor did I say they were dysfunctional. So I would not want to be quoted as having said that. I find the NHS amazing in respect of what it delivers for the amount of funding that it receives. We have scaled up the business to deliver on a particular type amount of revenue and to see that revenue growth continue. I am confident that that revenue will come. I'm anticipating that some of that will come from the NHS. As I said, timing can be impactful, but we have a very long runway ahead of us in terms of signing those contracts and recognizing it as revenue. And at this stage, I am confident.
All right. Thanks, Kate. We have one more here, and it says, "Congratulations on another great result. You start the year with AUD 33+ million of contracted revenue, up 20%+ on last year, and last year you generated AUD 30 million of new sales. Is it fair to say you anticipate growing in the next 12 months?
I could just say yes. Very, confidently. So thank you for that question.
All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today. Kate, before we go, do you have any closing remarks?
Look, as we draw another year to a close, and they all do seem to run by very quickly, it is hard for me to believe that I have been in this role, what I consider a very privileged role as CEO of Alcidion since 2018. I would like to thank the board for their ongoing support. We have a very close working relationship, and I enjoy the support and advice that they give to us. I'd very much like to thank the senior leadership team and the staff of Alcidion, who have continued to work extremely hard during FY 2023 to ensure that we are providing to our customers, to patients, and ultimately, also to shareholders, the sort of results that we present today.
I would also like very much to thank our customers and our shareholders for their ongoing support and commitment of Alcidion, and I look forward to continuing to keep you updated on our positive results as the year progresses.
Thank you very much, Kate, and to Bec and Matt. Again, for everybody, if you didn't get a chance to ask your question today and would like us to answer it for you, please send an email to the contact details at the bottom of the ASX announcement, and we will come back to you as soon as possible. But for now, thank you very much for joining, and goodbye.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone.
Goodbye!