Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Technology One Full Year Results Roadshow. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. Participants on the phone who wish to queue for questions will need to press star, followed by one on your telephone. If you would like to submit a question online via the webcast, please type your question into the Ask a Question box and click Submit. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, CEO, Mr. Edward Chung. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for the introduction. This morning I've got Stuart MacDonald, the Chief Operating Officer, to my right, and Cale Bennett, our new CFO, with me to my left. Welcome to the 2023 results presentation. These materials were lodged with the ASX today. Today, I'm gonna take you through the results, and then Cale will take us through the financials, and Stuart will take us through our significant achievements, our secret sauce, if you will, and particularly our strong NRR result. You know, some have questioned what happens after we transition our business and our customers from on-premise to SaaS. Will we fall off a cliff?
We're gonna spend some time and present our first-ever cohort disclosure to show how we land and expand with our customers over time, and how SaaS transitions has simply been a step in our customers' journey with us over time. I'll explain the key initiatives we are delivering to build the future and help us to continue doubling in size every five years, and finally provide you with outlook and guidance for FY 2024. Now, turning to our highlights. You're gonna see some strong results today that we're very proud of. It's a culmination of many, many years of hard work from the talented and innovative team to totally transform our entire business from on-premise to SaaS, without skipping a beat for our customers and without impacting our growth and our profit.
We listen, we watch, we're constantly learning and evolving and, evolving our offerings. Our team have an exceptional focus, and they're executing to the highest standards. This execution is against this very clear strategy, and this strategy has been very consistent and has stood the test of time. Firstly, we're an ERP software provider. We have very broad and very deep functionality, and if you think back to 2008, we had 11 products, and today we've got 16 products and over 400 modules, and we continue to invest in even more features and more functionality for our customers. We have the deepest functionality for the specific vertical markets we serve. You'll hear us say it all the time, we're not all things to all people.
We provide mission-critical software that powers universities, powers local governments, governments and large infrastructure providers. Our global SaaS ERP, it's our fourth-generation ERP. It's highly efficient, which allows us to invest for our customers. All but a handful of our traditional ERP customers are now on SaaS, and all our SaaS customers unlock significant benefits, including two releases a year, providing new features and functions, defense and depth security. We have the highest level of cybersecurity certification of any ERP provider on the planet. Our customers are always on the latest release and have the latest technology, and all products and modules are available for our SaaS customers, so that they can take them on with little friction. Finally, our customers save 30%+ by moving to our global SaaS ERP.
Now, as I said, this is our fourth generation ERP. It's available any device, anywhere, anytime, and we've successfully re-engineered our entire code base. That's millions of lines of code, enabling our customers to be on this latest technology. When you think about it, there's been no other ERP provider on the planet who's been able to rewrite their code base once, let alone the four times that TechnologyOne has done over the last 36 years. With the Power of One, we build, we market, we sell, we implement, we support, and we run our SaaS ERP. Our game-changing SaaS Platform Solution as a Service, which we'll describe a bit later, can only happen because of the Power of One. Finally, we're an innovation-driven company, and that we leverage new and emerging technology at each generation for our customers.
So to sum up, we're unique. It's this clear strategy which resonates with the market and why we win against our competitors. And once we land a customer, they expand with us over many, many years by taking more products and more modules to streamline their business. It's why our customers stay with us forever and what fuels our consistent, strong growth. And so you can see our total ARR grew strongly, up 23% to AUD 392.9 million, and that growth came from both new and existing customers. All but a few of our customers have transitioned to SaaS, and the total ARR, which is our key metric, simplifies our business that little bit more. Now, in what is now our twelfth year as a SaaS business, our business is more predictable.
So it was probably the most measured Q4 that we've had in a very long time, and as a result, we're set up well for the first quarter of the new year and set up well for the full year FY 2024. And this ARR growth culminates in strong profit growth, up 16% to AUD 129.9 million. That beats the original guidance we set in May of 10%-15% profit growth. And for those who've been following us for a while, we had a target, and that target was AUD 500 million ARR by FY 2026. And you can see at the end of FY 2023, we have about AUD 393 million now in total ARR.
You've heard me say many times before that cloud is war, and we've won this war in our vertical markets, as we've now transitioned all but a few of our customers to SaaS. Our customers on SaaS, they take more products more quickly than our customers did on-premise, and we've proven this. This results in our very clear and strong and predictable pipeline, which in turn leads to our very strong net revenue retention number. So we're confident that we're going to beat our original target, and now we upgrade that target to AUD 500 million ARR by FY 2025, and that's a whole 12 months earlier than originally planned. So if we're on track to surpass AUD 500 million ARR by FY 2025, the next question is: What's your next ambitious goal?
As you'd expect, our strategies don't end with transitioning to SaaS. They don't end with moving our whole customer base to SaaS or AUD 500 million or that end in FY 2025. We plan out for the long term. We plan out 10 years, and we've got long-term strategies for every aspect of our business, including R&D, to build future platforms for growth. Our focus is to maintain our momentum well beyond AUD 500 million and continue to double in size every five years. With the completion of our fourth generation ERP, we call it CiA, we've now showcased to our customers our exciting new products and solutions that are going to enable us to continue to double in size every five years. Things like DxP, like App Builder, and like SaaS Plus, that will continue our momentum and our strong growth.
And SaaS Plus, it's a game changer in the ERP industry. We all know salesforce.com, and they removed all the complexity of on-premise to SaaS, and TechnologyOne is removing the traditional, complex, long, risky, expensive implementations by introducing SaaS Plus. SaaS Plus, it's the next logical evolution of SaaS, where TechOne delivers the entire outcome faster, with little risk, and in one single annual fee to our customers. That is no traditional consulting. SaaS Plus will deliver faster time to value as we continue to dramatically drive down implementation time frames, removing the need for traditional, long, drawn-out, risky implementations. Through the Power of One, TechOne is the only SaaS ERP provider able to deliver on this compelling value proposition because we own all parts of the value chain. Firstly, we've got our deep mission-critical products. Secondly, we've got specific IP built up over 36 years.
And thirdly, we've got our highly skilled and talented in-house consulting team. SaaS Plus will power our growth for many, many years to come, and we'll update you more on that a bit later as well. And when you narrow down to FY 2024, our outlook is strong, and I'll get into guidance a bit later. Now, just before I hand over to Cale, I'll provide a bit of a highlight. We delivered 16% profit before tax growth. That beats our original guidance of 10%-15% profit growth. And in addition to this strong profit performance, we delivered strong ARR growth, up 23%, strong net revenue retention of 119%.
And remember, at 115%, we can continue to double in size every five years, and we delivered strong cash conversion, with cash flow generation to NPAT of 102%. That's one year ahead of our plan. So you can see the operating result was good across all parts of our business, which allowed us to make additional investments earlier. And this had a small impact on our PBT margin, which we'll talk about a bit later. But these investments are for the future, beyond AUD 500 million ARR, and they enable us to continue to double in size every five years.
I'll take you through the results summary, beginning with the income statement. It's worth reiterating that this is a strong result. With total ARR up 23%, revenue from our SaaS and recurring business grew 22% to AUD 390.7 million in FY 2023. You'll note that we have split out our consulting into two segments, our recurring AMS business for existing customers and our traditional project-based consulting, which we will report under the traditional and legacy business category going forward. Consistent with our communicated strategy, our legacy license business continues to reduce as planned. There will be no more license fee sales going forward. As our business continues to evolve, the next impact will be on our traditional consulting business.
Our revolutionary SaaS Plus offering, which does away with the long, risky, expensive implementations, will see the traditional consulting line leveraging the the lessons that we learned as we transition to SaaS. We will closely manage the bottom line impact of the transition. As called out in note five on the right, other revenue is up because the finalization of the earn-out of Scientia, with a AUD 7.4 million impact reported at the half. It should be noted that there was an expense impact in the form of the impairment of customer contracts and software in the amount of AUD 6.8 million made at the same time. The net impact is immaterial at around AUD 600,000. While the sellers did not achieve their aggressive earn-out targets, the results have exceeded our initial business case.
Total expenses grew 21% to AUD 311.5 million in FY 2023. Within that, our operating costs of AUD 268.7 million, which is before the net impact of capitalization and amortization of R&D of AUD 26.5 million, and includes our continued investments for growth that has served the business so well over time, in addition to the one-off costs I'll talk about on the next slide. Profit before tax was up 16% to AUD 129.9 million, and net profit after tax was also up 16%. The effective tax rate for the year was 21%, consistent with last year, and we expect the effective tax rate to settle around 23% with current policy settings. We continue to expect our profit margin will increase to 35% over time.
As we move our entire business to SaaS, our P&Ls become a lot more predictable. Our revenue is more predictable because SaaS is contracted for multiyears as opposed to license. As you saw in our first half results, we were going to have a good year. With the predictability of SaaS, we had the confidence to invest. In the end, we beat profit guidance and delivered 16% PBT growth, ARR growth of 23%, and NRR of 119%.... Our cash flow generation to NPAT outcome of 102% is a year ahead of schedule. Importantly, we have good ongoing visibility of a strong pipeline. This allowed us to accelerate our investment program in the second half.
These investments are long-term investments that enable us to grow beyond AUD 500 million in ARR into the next leg of our journey, to continue to double in size every five years. Specifically, we invested in the UK, our largest market opportunity, in scaling our service center in Malaysia, and in R&D, delivering on DXP, App Builder, and SaaS Plus investments. We continue to actively evaluate acquisition opportunities within the markets of local government and education, to further our growth in these markets and support our growth beyond AUD 500 million in ARR. To demonstrate our commitment to investing growth, during the second half, we invested AUD 2 million to make a non-binding and indicative proposal for a UK publicly listed higher education software provider, a transformational combination opportunity. However, following significant due diligence, we did not proceed, as the potential acquisition did not meet our set criteria.
While we remain disciplined, our intention is clear. We see our underlying PBT margin for FY 2023 at 30% if we strip out this one-off AUD 2 million impact. To reiterate, our PBT margin is 35% in the medium term. Our operating segments are on the left-hand side of this slide. As a SaaS company, we manage our business in three operating segments. Strong growth in our SaaS recurring revenue is driving the profit from the software segment. Our consulting segment is down as planned as we invest in our SaaS Plus offering. We expect this to continue to reduce over time as we gather momentum and reach scale in SaaS Plus, as I previously talked to. The corporate segment benefits from growth in the operational segments, but was impacted by the aforementioned AUD 2 million in acquisition due diligence costs.
On the right-hand side, you can see our geographic segments, with all of our regions growing strongly. The UK's profit is up 54% year-over-year. While still in its relative infancy as a region, the investments we are making in the UK continue to gather momentum. We'll talk more about the UK later in the presentation. Turning to the balance sheet, we finished the year strongly with timely invoicing, a fantastic effort from our collections team, and clients paying in advance for their share. This is evidenced in our modest receivables increase, despite the 23% increase in our ARR. This is the result of our team selling well, servicing well, and collecting well. Our contract assets, which increases as we implement large projects prior to payment, have not moved year-over-year.
Given the high credit quality of our customer base, there is minimal risk to this number. With growth in our ARR and clients paying in advance, our deferred revenue liability has correspondingly increased by 17% to AUD 214.5 million. The timing of renewal sales drive this number, with the revenue earned in subsequent periods for those upfront payments. TechOne continues to maintain balance sheet flexibility for inorganic growth, with significant cash holdings and no outstanding borrowings. In the period, net assets have increased by AUD 67 million. As mentioned on the balance sheet, we had a measured second half, resulting in cash flow generation to PBT coming in at 102%. This is calculated as operating cash, adjusted for lease payments and capitalization of both commissions and R&D as a percentage of NPAT.
Cash flow generation is higher than usual because of the collection performance in the year, but we expect it to be approximately 100% in future periods. Cash flow becomes increasingly predictable and stable with the business now having completed its transition to SaaS. By all measures, our company is performing well. Our applications are mission-critical for our verticals, resulting in customer retention of 99% over an extended period. Strong revenue and cash generation and a clean balance sheet, which has built a significant cash reserve over time, enables us to reward our shareholders. Our board has determined a final dividend of AUD 0.119 per share, in addition to a special dividend of AUD 0.03 per share. This takes our FY 2023-
Thanks, Cale. Before I jump into the details, I'd like to remind everybody of our diversified multiple platforms for growth. TechnologyOne has a very clear strategy of providing a true SaaS ERP solution with mission-critical products for our community. As a verticalized business, we hyper-focus on the markets we serve. Our products and services are designed specifically for these markets and empower the verticalized strengths we have been so fortunate to have gained. This foothold in the customer with our land and expand strategy usually means we start in a partnership with the customer, with our Financials product, and sell them the remaining 15 products over time. This deep understanding of the vertical and that specific customer enables us to develop a White Space Analysis. Currently, this white space in Australia alone is worth more than AUD 2 billion.
It's this deep understanding of our customers that empowers our confidence to guide between 115%-120% NRR per year, which should be noted, is industry best practice. We continually invest in R&D to not only bring new features and functions to our already award-winning products, but we develop new modules and completely new products, which in turn increases the TAM for our customer base. It's these new products, such as DxP LG and DxP Student, which are on track to grow our white space from AUD 2 billion to AUD 4 billion in APAC alone.
Our new go-to-market strategy of SaaS Plus leverages our unique Power of One philosophy, powered by the unique integration within TechnologyOne, of the sales team, the consulting team, and R&D, which has enabled us to bring to the market ERP implementations that take less than half the time of our competitor, while at the same time increasing the ARR per deal by 40%. We've become the ERP provider of preference for local government and education in Australia and New Zealand. The UK is now in a growth phase, and with three times the population, we are in a fantastic place to leverage the success we have in Australia and New Zealand and become the preferred ERP in the UK for the markets we serve. As we've highlighted, CiA is our fourth generation global SaaS ERP solution, and it is fueling our growth.
Designed specifically for our verticals and with defense-in-depth security, over 400 modules, our twice-yearly upgrades, our customers have taken to it fantastically well, and this is validated by the new logos as well as customers that are migrating to CiA at a rate that is exceeding our expectation. CiA is also the foundation for our DXP products, such as Expense Management, as well as our new DXP LG, which was released in the last six months, and we've seen significant interest in the application. We are on track to release to our early adopter version of DXP Student with our 24A release. As mentioned, we have 16 products that make up our ERP, and each of these products have between 20 and 40 different modules.
If we look at Financials, which is our flagship product, it is definitely the product that separates us from the Oracles and SAPs for its functionality, its ease of use related to verticals it was designed specifically for. With our SaaS Plus design, and the market adoption has exceeded our original targets. We have a GIS product that day in and day out beats Esri. We have an HRP product that consistently beats Workday, who only have HR, and we are fortunate enough to have the HR product as well as the payroll side, which is unique within our industry. And then the crown jewels, which is our property rating and student management products, that continue to dominate in the sectors we serve. The growth of our ARR and the subsequent growth per customer is something we're very proud of.
This graph shows the ERP strategy of landing and expanding in our customer base is not only being achieved, it's accelerating. For transparency, we've included the impact in light blue, which represents the acquisition of Scientia. When we acquired Scientia, we brought on new logos to TechnologyOne. Now, these are small customers, about AUD 80,000 each. Therefore, with a significant increase in the amount of logos, we've diluted the total ARR per customer in the short term. We wanted to represent the traditional growth as well as the growth with the acquisition of Scientia, or what we now call our Timetabling & Scheduling product. The strategy of our fourth-generation solution, CiA, its amazing products, and the modules that underpin it, have all been validated with the success that we see in this graph. It shows significant growth in each of our core verticals, as you would expect.
Our core verticals of local government, education, and government all grew at the rates you would traditionally expect. We should note that we're no more than 15% penetrated in any vertical we serve. Let me reiterate that. We are no more than 15% penetrated for any vertical we serve. Two highlights of our success in the half. We were selected over SAP for the Department of Veterans Affairs for a full OneGovernment solution. This opportunity is over AUD 2 million in ARR, a significant win for us, and we're very proud to be supporting the Veterans Affairs. This is a real testament to not only our product, its scalability, its defense in-depth security, but it also validates that we have a product in our OneGovernment solution that competes and beats SAP. If we look at the University of Buckingham, we sold them a One...
We sold them a full OneEducation SaaS Plus solution. It should be highlighted that SaaS Plus is the only way we sell in the UK. The Uni of Buckingham selected our Student Management Solution to replace Tribal, finance solution to replace Unit4, HRP solution to replace Unit4 again. This highlights that the market is excited about our SaaS capability of our OneEducation solution, including student management, which nobody else has. Please let me repeat that. Nobody, no software provider in the world, not SAP, Oracle, Workday, Ellucian, not even Tribal, can can provide a true SaaS Student Management Solution, let alone financials, HR, payroll, enterprise asset management, as well as 13 other products in a fully integrated ERP specifically designed for SaaS with defense in-depth security that our markets require.
But it's a SaaS Plus offering that is really setting us apart and accelerating our growth as it delivers the speed of implementation and zero risk to the customer that the industries we've been serving have always asked for, and we are the only company on the planet that can do it. We're beyond proud of this slide as it represents two core KPIs and formal commitments we've made to you over the past few years. Firstly, if we look at NRR, as we've previously mentioned, with the metric achieving 115% alone, we will double in size every five years, and I'm happy to report we achieved 119%, which is at the top end of our guidance.
If we look at our churn historically, we've always had a target of 1% churn, and I'm proud to say we achieved 1% churn again, while at the same time coming to the conclusion of our SaaS flip program. As we've mentioned to you today already, our traditional ERP strategy is anchored around a land expand philosophy, must continue to purchase additional products and modules repeatedly over time. Let me take that one step further. We've constantly been asked, "What happens after the SaaS flip program finishes?" Therefore, we wanted to show you the growth of ARR for customers that have already flipped. This graph resets the cohort of customers that flipped to SaaS. We rebaseline their ARR to zero and showed all the ARR growth post SaaS flip.
We're very proud of this growth, because once again, it validates our ERP strategy, how important SaaS is, how powerful and valuable the products are to the verticals we serve, and our continued investment in R&D is paying off. In summary, with our customers now moved to SaaS, our ability to provide them mission-critical software specifically designed for their vertical, the release of new products like DxP LG and DxP Student, which are redefining the industry, and our unique ability to provide all of this within a SaaS Plus, we don't see the SaaS flip program finishing. We see it as enabling our next stage of growth. Now, let me translate this whole story into three real-world examples of three different customers and three different verticals. These three customers have all been with us for many years.
The original traditional license sale is represented by the ARR in gray, and then the growth of ARR with the customer, once they flip to SaaS, is represented by the dark blue section. However, as these graphs show, growth continues over time as they continue to purchase new products. It's not just the flip to SaaS, but it's also the adoption of new products that is generating the new ARR. Now, if I take this concept and add SaaS Plus, this is an example of a large local government customer who have been with us for many years. In 2017, they actually began to flip to SaaS. That is highlighted in the dark coloring. They bought new products, as you'd expect, as a result of the flip.
However, earlier this year, they came to us to buy our Enterprise Asset Management solution product, as well as additional Property and Rating modules. As they were doing this, they looked at the speed which they could implement Property and Rating product under the traditional model, as well as with SaaS Plus. They decided they would move even faster than originally to get that speed benefit. With that, you see, not only are they getting additional products and speed of implementation that result in a much quicker return on investment, but we also benefit from significantly greater ARR. The UK continues to accelerate its growth. In FY 23, total ARR grew by more than 50%, a fantastic result. And I'm beyond proud to highlight, we sold two new Student Management deals in Q4 in the UK. We have referenceable products and customers in the region.
Our pipeline is fantastic. We have a strong sales and consulting team. This all shows the UK is firing on all cylinders, and we are beyond excited by this continued growth that we have for the foreseeable future. We released our 23B solution in Q4, which contained over 540 new features. 87% of these features were customer-driven. 12 new modules and additional new technology and security to support our defense and depth security posture, which remains the highest accredited ERP for security in the markets we serve. Our 23B solution has had the fastest adoption from our customer base than any release in our history. Within this release, we released our first three modules of our groundbreaking DxP LG product. The initial feedback from the market is fantastic, and our roadmap for this product will again differentiate us in local government market.
Our DxP Student product, which will put the power of OneEducation in the hands of the student for the first time, with completely new technology and empowerment for the student that no other product in the market can compete against. This is on track for early adopter release with our 2024A solution in February. I'd like to take just one minute. We've had our TechnologyOne Foundation with a target of supporting over 500,000 children and their families out of poverty, and I'm happy to inform you that to date, we've helped over 84,000 children, and our team dedicated over 5,400 hours to this goal in FY 2023. We've implemented an employee share purchase program, which we've been told many times is the best employee share purchase program in Australia.
With more than 40% of our team worldwide participating in this program, we could not be more excited that the TechnologyOne team is now part of the long-term growth of this amazing company. In FY 2023, we completely refreshed our mission, purpose, values, core beliefs, or what we call our TechOne Way, to reflect our evolution to a SaaS Plus company.
Thanks, Stuart. To wrap up the results, ladies and gents, you can see that we delivered record profit. We delivered NRR of 119%. Just remember, at our long-term target of 115%, we can continue to double in size every five years. Our U.K. ARR grew 52%. You can see that our U.K. strategy and investments are paying off, and we delivered strong cash flow performance, and that was 102% of NPAT. Now, with strong profit, strong cash collection, a strong pipeline and outlook, we invested ahead of the curve in the U.K., in our Malaysian service center, in R&D, things like DxP App Builder, products, and SaaS Plus, and we also invested in acquisition due diligence....
With total ARR of AUD 392.9 million, up 23%, we've now upgraded our 500 mil ARR target by bringing it forward one year. That's AUD 500 million dollars of ARR by FY 2025. Now I'll turn to building the future. So if we're going to surpass AUD 500 million by FY 2025, as I said before, our plans don't end at AUD 500 million, or they don't end in FY 2025. We now focus on what we call building the future. Our focus is to maintain our strong momentum well beyond the 500 mil, and continue to double in size every five years. And to be honest, it's why we invest in R&D for the long term, to continue to build platforms for growth, new products, new modules, new offerings, and Stuart reminded us, and on acquisitions.
You've heard us talk about SaaS Plus a number of times. We launched SaaS Plus to the market last year as a long-term strategy that's a game changer in the ERP market. I just want to remind you why we launched SaaS Plus. Today, we all have SaaS, but in the ERP world, it still relies on traditional implementations with system integrators. If you're implementing SAP or Oracle or Infor, they provide the software, and then you need system integrators. To be honest, it's in the interest of system integrators to drag out implementations because, quite frankly, that's how they make money. These traditional implementations, they're complex, they're long, they're risky, they're expensive. When things go amiss, which is often the case in large ERP implementations, the vendor blames the system integrator, and the system integrator blames the vendor.
We, on the other hand, are the only company able to deliver SaaS Plus, because through the Power of One, TechOne owns the whole value chain. We've got our deep mission-critical products, industry-specific IP built up over 36 years, and our highly skilled in-house consulting team. We have changed the ERP world because we've taken away long, complex, risky, expensive implementations from our customers and now deliver our SaaS ERP and implementation in one single fee. And just like we moved carefully from legacy, one-off, on-premise license fees to high-quality SaaS recurring revenue, we're going to carefully move from one-off, low-quality consulting revenue to high-quality SaaS Plus recurring revenue, which continues forever, or for as long as we have, the customer relationship, and this is the additional 40% ARR that Stuart talked about. Now, we're having some early wins. We targeted 10 deals this year.
It's the first year of a long-term strategy, but we signed 34. So you can see that our SaaS Plus offering is resonating with the market, and our first year's results far exceeded our initial expectations, and we'll provide more details as this strategy continues to evolve. Now, as Cale mentioned, during the year, we made approximately AUD 2 million investment in due diligence for one potential acquisition. In the end, we made a non-binding and indicative proposal for a UK higher education software provider. And I thought I'd just recap on how we pick our potential targets. Firstly, they have to be in our vertical markets of higher education or local government. Secondly, they have to bring something, bring IP, a product, something unique, something like Student Management, like Property and Rating, like ECM.
Thirdly, they need to operate in our current regions, APAC or the UK, but, to be honest, UK is a special focus for us as we continue to grow fast in this market. Fourthly, it's preferred that they're a SaaS provider, but they don't have to be, because we've got the technical and commercial experience to transition customers from on-premise to SaaS, just like we've done with Scientia. In one year, we've created the first SaaS version of the Timetabling and Scheduling product. And then, of course, the potential acquisition needs to be accretive and meet all of our financial metrics. So if you look back at our M&A history, our philosophy and criteria, it's very clear, and it's also embodied in our core beliefs.
The philosophy is that every product we acquire has to be fully rewritten into our single global code line. That gives one experience for our customers and huge efficiencies for our organization. And to be honest, that increased gradually to AUD 15 million-AUD 20 million. And at each stage, we proved our ability to successfully acquire businesses, integrate them, and as I said, rewrite the whole product. And at each one of our acquisitions, you look back, has delivered significant value to our customers and to our shareholders, and importantly, further cements our relevance to the markets we serve. Now, this latest potential acquisition, it was significantly larger, but still less than, you know, 5% or 6% of our market cap. Now, I think it prevents us from disclosing any more. In the end, we demonstrated our discipline, and we didn't proceed.
I'd now like to just turn to the outlook for 2024. Every time you pick up the papers or watch the news, you can see the economic outlook and geopolitical issues that continue to create uncertainty. TechnologyOne has been in, seen difficult and challenging economic environments many, many times in the past 36 years, and we've continued to grow strongly during these times and will continue to do so. As we've seen over the last few years, the markets we serve, they continue to remain resilient with our mission-critical products, providing our customers the opportunity to reduce their costs, streamline their business, and improve their efficiencies in such challenging economic times. Our customers report to us that they save 30+% by utilizing our global SaaS ERP solution. The TechnologyOne global SaaS ERP solution is driving our continued success.
As a result, our sales pipeline of opportunities for FY 2024 is strong, and this positions us well for continuing strong ARR growth and strong profit growth in FY 2024. And just to remind you, we're on track to surpass AUD 500 million ARR by September 2025. We'll provide further guidance at both the AGM and with the first half results in FY 2024.... Finally, ladies and gents, none of these excellent results would be possible without the talented and committed people who make up TechnologyOne. We'd like to thank every member of TechnologyOne, every-
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to queue for a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star followed by two. If you would like to submit a question online via the webcast, please type your question into the Ask a Question box and click Submit. Edward, we'll now start with the questions from the phone call. Your first question comes from Bob Chen with JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
G'day, Bob.
G'day, guys. A few questions from me. Just on the ARR number disclosed, can you talk a little bit about the split between sort of SaaS ARR versus SaaS Plus ARR that sort of contributed to the numbers?
Yeah. Yes. Bob, probably at the outset, I'll start by saying SaaS Plus is a long-term strategy. So think about the transition that we did from on-premise to SaaS. It didn't happen overnight. It happens over many, many years, and that's the same with SaaS Plus. So while it's exciting and while it's resonating with the market, it's gonna take some time before it becomes a massive part of our business. So to be honest, from a impact on the PNL, this year, it was immaterial, but getting some significant traction moving forward.
Okay, great. And then just on the net revenue retention, yeah, obviously very pleasing number with that 119%. Can you unpack how much the price rises impacted that versus product uptake?
Yeah. I might hand to Cale. Before I go there, you saw the result was quite strong at 119%. Cale, can you talk to us about maybe the impact of additional inflation, if you like, over normal inflation? And then we don't really break down, Bob, the difference between SaaS transitions and product. But after Cale answers, I'll give you some guidance.
Sorry, yeah, Bob, I guess, high level, it... I guess it's no surprise that we're still in an inflated inflation environment in the markets that we serve. There is a tailwind there in the year, but even when you strip that out, I think we remain at the high end of that 115-120 range.
Mm.
It was probably smaller than, than one might expect, that tailwind there.
I might just add a little bit more color. I think if you look at the long-term CPI, 3%, this year might have been average 5.5 or something like that, Cale. So, to answer your question, Bob, there might have been a tailwind this year of 2.5, but even if you took that out of 119, it'd still be a very strong number.
All right, perfect.
Then, Bob, the second part of your question—
Yeah.
We don't, we don't break down the difference between, you know, transitions to product. You can probably just make some extrapolations from previous years. It was in there, but getting less and less every year. I suppose the reason Stuart spent so much time in introducing cohort analysis was to show that we don't rely on SaaS flips to drive our business as we see it as only just one product that the customers might take out of our 16 products going forward. As Stuart said, once you're on SaaS, they're two products more, aren't they, Stuart?
Yeah.
Yeah. Thanks, Bob.
Thanks for that.
Any more questions?
And just final one, just on SaaS Plus.
Mm.
How should we think about the margin, the margin?
Yeah
... in that sort of SaaS Plus business longer term?
Yeah. I think we'll provide more info as the strategy evolves. I think the strategy's really on its own in a number of years, then it becomes 100% margin, to be honest, because once the customer pays that fee, it continues for the life of their relationship with us. I'll... If I can just reiterate at the beginning, we take some short-term pain, just as we did with SaaS platform, just as we did coming off license fees, to be honest. That's why we put the first slide in the appendix, just to remind everyone that we've got history doing these business transformations. Over time, it will become hugely profitable, Bob.
Perfect. Thanks.
Thanks, Bob.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Chris Golla with Goldman Sachs.
G'day, Chris.
Please go ahead.
Sorry, guys, can you, can you hear me okay?
Sure can.
Beautiful. Hey, I just wanted to confirm a couple of things from the presentation. Just in terms of the SaaS ARR number, just note that, you didn't sort of disclose that this time around. Just wanted to confirm that you did meet that, that 40% guidance that you provided the first half result.
Yeah, you're right, mate. There or thereabouts. I think you could probably back solve it anyway if you used last year's closing SaaS ARR and put those numbers in, and then that added on a little bit for the remaining on-premise EAM , you get to AUD 393 million. So there or thereabouts.
Yep, sure. And then just on the 115% NRR number, just to confirm that that isn't, you know, like a, like a medium-term sort of aspiration to sustain that, that's something that you hope to sort of continue to achieve each year?
Yeah
... going forward?
Yeah, we'd be unhappy if we didn't achieve it, to be honest.
Yep. Cool. Understood. And then just given the growth in the UK and the NRR outlook that you're talking to, it seems like you've made the pretty conscious decision to, you know, to really reinvest back into R&D and sort of expansion is the historical runway, the guide.
Yeah. I would look at that, and you got to. We put it all in context, Chris, you know, we've moved the business now from on-premise to SaaS, so we don't have lumpy license fees. So it's very predictable. We've got a very clear pipeline, so that adds to the predictability of it. And then, to be honest, I think what Cale was saying is we could see the full year profit, you know, when we deliver the half year results. So that allows us to make investments. And going to your point, we invest for the long term.
We've got a good track record of our return on those investments we make, and so we invested in things like SaaS Plus, DxP, App Builder that Stuart talked about, but also in the UK as well, to make sure we can continue to double in size every five years beyond AUD 500 million ARR. And so full circle, come full circle. So context is we've just had a fantastic result, allowed us to invest. It is one of our metrics that we're also focused on. And going to your question, yeah, if you look at traditional run rates, in amongst all of those metrics, we expect to grow to 35% over the next few years.
Yep, sure. And then just one last question, just on the UK.
Yeah.
Strong result this year. I mean, how should we think about UK growth next year as sort of that high single digit, you know, million dollar that the ARR, you know, sort of something that you're hoping that you can replicate in 2024? Then how much visibility do you have into the pipeline in the UK?
Stuart, you want to handle?
Yeah, the pipeline in the UK is growing significantly. Our visibility is probably a little stronger than we actually have in Australia, because of the growth that we're taking, introducing the brand into the region. I would say the growth trajectory continues. So if you look at the growth we took over the last two years and you kind of follow that line, that's the line that I would continue to grow.
Okay, cool. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
G'day, Josh.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, sure can.
Great. A couple of quick questions. Firstly, just around this, I guess, the transition with some of the customers from, you know, Ci to Ci Anywhere. Can you just give us a bit of an update on how we should think about, you know, the uplift in ARR per customer and where you're at in that journey?
I might kick it off and hand to Stuart. We've always had in our programs, moving our customers from on-premise to SaaS, and then when they're on SaaS, to move them from Ci, which was the same generation they're on-premise, and it was frictionless, and there was no training needed to our latest generation, Ci Anywhere, and it's quite a nice program for us to move customers to the latest tech. Stuart, you want to just elaborate a bit further on that?
Yeah, it's a long-term strategy. We've got a lot of customers to move across, and so, we're doing very well with the program. It's probably being picked up a little better than we actually expected initially.
Mm-hmm.
I think it's resonating so well because of the power of CiA. So customers are trying to move there as quickly as they possibly can. So that CiA, CiA Live program is doing really well, but it's a long-term strategy. It will take us quite a few years based on the size of our portfolio of customers-
Mm-hmm.
to move them across, they're moving at a pace that has exceeded our expectation.
What's the uplift, Stuart, from-
It's about 100. So if you take what the ARR is today, add 15% on top, that would be what the uplift would look like.
Yep.
Okay, perfect.
Sorry, Josh, just to clarify, and that's ongoing. So that goes for the life of the contract.
Got it. No, that's, that's very helpful. I think at last count, it was sort of 100 or so of the sort of 900 customers were sort of on that, so still a fair runway, I guess, to go in terms of that.
Yep.
Yep, cool. Just next question. I know you mentioned you can't talk exactly about what the acquisition was, but I think, you know, people that follow the space or Ellucian sort of end up buying Tribal, you know, for, I think it was GBP 172 million. I guess my question on that would be more so just around the competitive dynamics in that student management space. Just what, what you guys, if you could make any comments on what you think that means.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I guess, is there any risk that you see in terms of competitive threats increasing within either Australia or the UK as a result of that acquisition?
It's, it's a really good question, Josh. So if you, if you look at the traditional players, you'd look at Tribal, you'd look at Ellucian, and you'd look at old Oracle, are really the ones that play in the space. Workday tried to come into the space, but left after they found out it was so complex, and they've got kind of stopped the whole development in student management. But if you look at all of the brands I just mentioned, they're all on-prem products that are putting it in the cloud. None of the products are SaaS, and so all they're doing is taking that old on-prem product and just lifting it to the cloud, but getting none of the benefits of cloud. So none of that security, none of that elasticity that you need for a cloud solution, for a SaaS solution.
So we see them as competitors. They have a feature function, but from a technology standpoint, they're really not a competitor anymore. And I think that's why we won the last two in the UK that we did. So yes, they're keeping us honest, but at the same time, our technology is years ahead of them. And what that's also done is it's kind of leapfrogging even further because now we're coming out with DxP Student-
Mm.
-which is leveraging that, that SaaS capability, which no other provider in the market has.
I might just add also, Stuart, we've got SaaS Plus.
Yeah.
You know, you'll never find an Ellucian or Tribal because they use third-party system integrators.
Yeah. Yeah, and then that will... That SaaS Plus will help the customers that are still on that traditional product, it de-risk their move across to the world of SaaS.
Mm.
So we'll be leveraging that in the near term.
Got it. That's super helpful. Final one, just quickly from Chris. So if we go back to the margins, should we think about historically, you've sort of talked about a, you know, 100 basis points is sort of what you'd like to target, and that gets you, I guess, to, you know, that sort of 35% mid near term. Is that a reasonable sort of assumption in terms of- sort of hoped sort of or targeted sort of growth in profit margins over the next few years?
Yeah, it's definitely reasonable, Josh, and maybe just a little bit more context I'll add is, you saw a very strong result this year and enabled us to invest. So, I would take stronger revenue growth and profit growth over margin growth. So I'm just signaling that there's... Margin's important, and it's very important we are focused on it. But if we can continue to deliver, you know, the revenue and ARR growth we've had and increasing profit growth we have, then we would do that and invest in R&D as well. Josh, I hope that's clear.
Yep. No, that, no that's very clear. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Appreciate it. Thanks, Stuart.
Thanks, Josh.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Apoorv Sehgal with UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys.
Good day.
My question is a little bit long, so I'll try and say it slowly. So total ARR grew 23% year-over-year.
Yep.
And if we're just trying to split that out between the SaaS conversions versus the underlying growth, you've said that SaaS ARR grew at 40%, right? Roughly. So that implies about AUD 9 million of on-premise ARR, which is down about AUD 37 million year-on-year. So that's effectively your conversion tailwind, right? Using a 2x multiplier. Which implies that you've got about a 12% tailwind from the on-premise conversion, leaving about 11% remainder for the underlying growth, to get you to 23% total. Now, that 11% underlying, it's pretty much consistent with FY 2022, so that's fine.
My question is, going into FY 2024, you're gonna get a pretty negligible tailwind from the further SaaS conversions, which means for you to keep doing that 15%-20% NRR growth, I guess the underlying momentum implicitly has to step up from that sort of 11% to, I guess, mid-teens, high teens. So firstly, does that sort of ballpark sound logical, what I'm saying? But other than secondly, what for our business to drive, you know, further product and module uptake in 2024?
I think you've probably answered all your questions in the same answer, Apoorv. But, yeah, so we spent a lot of time, or Stuart spent a lot of time going through that cohort and, you know, customer journey analysis to answer that question specifically. So firstly, probably your math is right. I can't follow just as quickly as you call it out. But, secondly, we've never seen it as a SaaS flip, Apoorv. That's what we're trying to show in these detailed cohorts analysis and individual, you know, customer journeys, is that it is just a project that's been happening over many, many years.
In that second cohort chart, as Stuart said, when we rebaselined their, their year and their dollars to zero when they moved to SaaS, it shows that the continued growth grows very strongly, and in fact, we know that they take more products when they're on SaaS. So, long-winded answer back at you, sort of answering your question along the way and just re-iterating that, that we'll continue to take more products and modules. Stuart?
Add a little bit.
Yeah.
I'd also look at it slightly differently. I would look at the SaaS Flip as a technology enabler.
Mm.
We had to go through that program to get into the world of SaaS so they can get those new products.
Good point.
You see it as kind of it ending, but we see it as enabling that next stage of growth. We had to go through this phase to get there.
Mm-hmm.
And so just, I would just change the optics a little on the view of it.
That's a good point, Stuart. You can't get DxP unless you're on SaaS. The technologies just aren't available for you on premise. And, you know, what Stuart didn't say is DxP LG is out there, and it's, as you said, at the last results, it's selling itself. We're not demonstrating it, and customers are talking to each other and, and moving to SaaS and taking the whole product suite, for example, OneCouncil, in order to get DxP. So there's a little bit of carrot and stick, but the carrot for here far outweighs the stick that might have been there before.
Just to tee off of that, that's what we're also seeing that's resonating in the U.K.-
Mm.
Related to the Student Management. They're knowing that they need to take our Student Management to get to the DxP Student, and so they, they're seeing that as the enabling tool to get there.
Mm. Mm.
Okay, thanks for the detail. One final quick question. It's a follow-up to Josh's question on the competitive dynamics in the UK. Just specifically, like Unit4, we're a pretty major player there, trying to bring customers onto the cloud by 2025, is my understanding. These processes obviously can be somewhat disruptive. Does that create an opportunity for TechnologyOne to maybe win new customers in the UK?
Absolutely. Yeah, we're being very, very successful against Unit4 in the U.K. Now, absolutely, that confusion, that disruption, that risk that they're seeing of, again, in Unit4, it's taking on-prem products, and they're putting it into the cloud. They haven't reengineered it-
Mm.
redesigned it, leveraging new technologies. And so customers are sitting back saying: Why am I gonna be paying more for the same thing that's just not on-premise? This is my opportunity to actually go through and look at the market, see what's out there that is better. And that's why SaaS Plus is resonating in the UK so well, because it's giving them that low risk-
Mm.
-that quick adoption of the product, so that return on investment is so much greater. Yes.
That's a good point.
Saying, "Why am I gonna be paying more for the same thing that's just not on-premise? This is my opportunity to actually go through and look at the market, see what's out there that is better." And that's why SaaS Plus is resonating in the UK so well, because it's giving them that low risk-
Mm.
And that quick adoption of the product, so that return on investment is so much greater. So, yes.
It's a good point, Stuart. Maybe I'll wrap up, like, just for in the U.K. The things that make us different in the U.K. is, one, we're enterprise. As Stuart said, there is no other provider like us. They're all single-point solutions. Two, we're true SaaS, with all the things that come with SaaS, that we've been selling our value proposition for a long time. Three, add SaaS Plus on that. From a strategy product delivery point of view, there is no one like us at all.
... And I'll geek out one more piece. We provide that mission-critical software.
Yeah.
It's not just your traditional ERP of just finance and HR. We have payroll, which is unique. We have student management, which is unique, and then we have the other 14 products-
Mm.
that sit behind it as well. So it's that depth and breadth of the offering.
Thanks, Stewie. Thanks, Apoorv.
Thanks, guys. Cheers!
Thank you. Your next question comes from Nick Harris with Morgans. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the questions. Keen to unpack SaaS Plus a little bit more. I appreciate it's a small piece-
Yeah.
of the overall pie, but just trying to unpack the cadence a little bit.
Yeah.
So, Ed, I think you said you were... You targeted 10 this year-
Yeah.
-and you got 34?
That's right.
Could you just give us some... So obviously, that's a great outcome. Can you just give us a bit of a flavor for how long that average implementation is?
Yeah.
Or did you get most of them migrated in this year?
Yeah.
Or how do we think about it?
Yeah, I think-
And then I'll ask a second question.
Yeah, yeah. Don't think of them as implementing in the year, because, you know, most of our deals sell, you know, pretty evenly through the year. As a starting point, Nick, and then it all depends on the size of the customer and the products they're buying. But implementations typically go between six and nine months.
Year-
Yeah.
-or how do we think about it?
Yeah, I think-
I'll ask a second question.
Yeah, yeah. Don't think of them as implementing in the year, because, you know, most of our deals sell, you know, pretty evenly through the year. As a starting point, Nick, and then it all depends on the size of the customer and the products they're buying. But implementations typically go between six and nine months. The beauty of SaaS Plus is it's not just the commercial offering of going, "Here's my SaaS Plus implementation." In our business, we look at the implementation time frames of every module or every piece of functionality or every business process, however you want to look at it. And we have teams of the best pre-sales person, consultant, support person, and R&D around each one of those pieces of functionality, call them a module.
And that team implements, you know, the first customer, just say, in 60 days, the next one gets done in 50 days, and we use R&D, and we use tech to continue to drive that down. So, it's a multifaceted strategy, which will take a whole lot of time to unpack, but we believe that, if it was as is to as is, we'd get significant margin in three or four years as an implementation... As the dollars catch up and the implementation rolls forward, and it's high-quality recurring revenue. But as we drive the efficiencies through our business, you can see the margins will be, be massive. So we will unpack that a lot more, Nick, in future presentations, but it, it... One, it resonates with the customers, and two, it will have fantastic impacts on, on our, bottom line as well.
Thanks, Ed. So, I mean, the key thing is obviously you're very comfortable with that risk, given-
Yeah
the implementations you've done
Yeah
-to date, yeah?
Yeah. One of the reasons, Nick, we put that chart in of moving from license fees to SaaS is if you look at what TechOne did, you know, we moved. Probably the only company in the world that moved from on-premise to SaaS without skipping a beat. Some of the P&L hits per year were AUD 20 million. You know, license fees went from AUD 60 million to AUD 40 million to AUD 20 million. This is nowhere near that scale, so we can manage that risk, as you, as you put it, and still deliver great outcomes for the customers and for our company.
Cool. That pretty much led into my next question. So thank you kindly for the segue.
Thank you.
I should say well done on that migration. As you say, I've seen pretty much every company trying to move from on-premise to SaaS slip up, and you guys have done it, fantastically. Well done.
Thank you.
Just my question, just the consulting impact from SaaS Plus, it was like AUD 1.7 million hit this year. Is that sort of the magnitude we should think about long term, or will it accelerate? And, and I appreciate the-
Yeah
NPV creative, you moving it from one
One to the other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's hard to know, but you, you're in the zone. If you use those type of numbers, you're in the zone. So we don't expect it to be like the license fee impacts are AUD 20 million.
Yeah.
But even otherwise, we'd see it, and we'd manage it carefully, just as we did with license fees.
Excellent. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Nick.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Gillies with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good day, Andrew. Oh, Andrew, you there?
Sorry, guys. Can you hear me?
Yep, sure can.
Yep, okay. No worries. Thanks. Just a quick one from me. Most of my questions have been asked. Given sort of the increased focus on R&D, can you maybe give us a little bit of insight into how you allocate R&D? Like, what's a good idea? Is it generally customer-led demand? And then maybe if you could, please, a split between how much of your total R&D cost is OpEx and, you know, how much of it's sort of maintenance versus growth.
Yeah. Yeah. We don't go into all that detail, but I can tell you how we make decisions in R&D. We have more ideas that you can poke a stick at, and every year our team comes to us with a whole laundry list and business cases for R&D. That's one input. There's also a big backlog from our customers of what they request. But there's also, I suppose, our ideas, if that makes sense, Andrew. Like the... I'd say to you, the world didn't need an iPhone until it got an iPhone. And so I suppose the world didn't know it needed DxP until we delivered DxP, or another way, the world didn't know it needed SaaS Plus until we delivered it. So it's a complex, it's a complex thing, isn't it?
So you add all these things in, and we make judgment calls on where we think we're going to get the biggest bang for your buck. In terms of OpEx versus CapEx, I think it's in the back of the slide deck there, and we capitalize some 54%, so the rest is OpEx. And then we don't go into disclosures, what's maintenance versus growth, Andrew?
... Yeah, no worries. So referring more to maintenance first, growth?
Yeah, yeah.
Then in terms of, you know, the customer value proposition, the cloud native strategy-
Yeah.
How are the conversations you're having with customers now changed relative to, say, 12-24 months ago, especially given, you know, you've signed 34 in SaaS Plus relative to the 10 expected?
Yeah. I think, can you just ask that question one more time, please?
How are the conversations you're having with customers, how are they different relative-
Oh, yeah.
-to sort of 12-24 months ago? Now, you're, you're delivering on SaaS Plus.
Yeah. Well, I suppose firstly, they're all on SaaS. That's your first part, and customers then can take out more products, modules, things like SaaS Plus, and DxP App Builder. Stu, would you add anything else on that?
Yeah, we've been trying for years for customers that are already in SaaS to be able to give them a frictionless experience for that new product or a new module. And now with SaaS Plus, we're not-
Cause firstly, they're all on SaaS. That's your first part, and customers then can take out more products, modules, things like SaaS Plus, and DxP App Builder. Stu, would you add anything else on that?
Yeah, we've been trying for years for customers that are already in SaaS to be able to give them a frictionless experience for that new product or a new module. And now with SaaS Plus, we're not only giving it to them frictionless, it's with low risk as well, because putting in an HRP solution is challenging, and so there's risk associated to that. So if we can de-risk that, that makes the buying cycle much faster. It also makes the decision-making internally for them much faster because we've given them that packaged proposal, so the back and forth is minimized. So you're seeing a faster uptake, not only because of the new technology, but the way that we're now packaging it within the SaaS Plus framework.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrew. Melanie, back to you.
Thank you. We'll now start with questions from the webcast.
Mm-hmm.
Your first question comes from Daryl Lynch, who asks: Can you please explain why ROE was less than the previous financial year?
Thanks for your question, Daryl. I might hand that to Cale.
Thanks for your question, Daryl. Yeah, if you think through the math of ROE, as we talked to, we brought forward some investments into FY 2023. And so the, you know, there was an impact there on the cost of doing that, and it... We're also expanding the balance sheet as we build those assets for the future. So, while there is a short-term impact on ROE, we're very confident that we'll see the return on that investment in future periods, as we have in the past.
Thanks, Cale.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jules Cooper. On SaaS Plus, it's been rolled out in UK and covers ECM. What products is SaaS Plus now available on in the ANZ region? For example, Financials, Student Management, Property and Rating, et cetera.
Thanks, Jules. Everything in the UK is SaaS Plus, so it's our only go-to-market approach in the UK. It helps us further differentiate. You know, like we said, we're enterprise. We've got the mission-critical products, and now we've got SaaS Plus in the UK, and we're the only true SaaS provider, we believe, in the UK. And in Australia, it's a gradual over time. So financial, supply chain, I think HRP-
Mm-hmm.
-is there.
EAM.
EAM, sorry. EAM is SaaS Plus, and so the remaining products will be done in the next 12-24 months, Jules. And then it's just a careful rollout and lessons learned through our customer base.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that's all the time we have for our question and answer session, which concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect.