I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Edward Chung, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good day, everyone, and thank you for the introduction. This morning we've got Stuart MacDonald, our COO, and Cale Bennett, our CFO, presenting directly with me, but from various different parts of our business. Welcome to our 2026 half year results presentation. These materials were lodged with the ASX this morning. The DNA of our business is that we set ambitious goals and we deliver, whether that's moving 1,200 customers from on-premise to SaaS without missing a beat for our customers or our growth, or whether that's entering the U.K. Passing our expectations. All of this also gives us confidence in the pipeline, and we don't guide up unless we can see it day in, day out, year in, year out. That building you can see behind us. I'm proud to present the following results. We're generally conservative by nature.
For those who know us, we talk about heartbeats and rhythms or that heartbeat and rhythm, increasing our guidance range from 10%-15% to 12%-16% in FY 2024 to 13%-17% in FY. We upgraded our profit guidance range because of the visibility and momentum of the business, which gave me confidence to guide up early. We reaffirm our ARR of 18%-20%, again, targeting the top end of the range. PBT margin, an expansion of two points from 30%- 32% and full year half. Our continuing strong results will be driven by the investments we're making today, such as our AI strategy, including Plus and Guide. There are no carve-outs. Our guidance is fully in H1 has come in exactly where we said it would.
ARR growth of 17% squarely within our 16%-18% full year guidance range, with strong momentum heading into H2 and beyond. PBT growth in the high single digits, that's in line with the phasing we flagged at our AGM. As TechnologyOne has landed exactly on plan with no surprises. Taken together, the half delivered exactly what we committed to at the AGM, and we remain confident in delivering the upgraded four and full year free cash flow equal to the net profit after tax. We have clear visibility and confidence through H2, and we will deliver the full year step up as we flagged. Currency into the underlying engine of the business, what we refer to the heartbeat of the business. This is our half one results on a constant currency basis, as well as normalizing profit.
Percent and profit before tax growth of 21% and margin improvements of 30%. On top of all of that, profit would have grown to AUD 105 million. Consistent growth and the confidence for the future, as I've already highlighted. Over the past 38 years, we at Tech One have ridden the economic waves and have seized because it was a simple way to deliver through that graphical user interface. The third generation leveraged the internet because it was a simple way to connect our customers with their customers. With one product all the way back in 1987, and we've built products or we've made numerous key IP acquisitions such as Property & Rating. Property & Rating run. Government also focused on health and community services, asset and project intensive industries, and corporate and financial services.
This allowed us to build deep, deep functionality out. Years of hard work in product localization, in customer reference, and scaling our business. The flywheel has turned in the U.K., and we are now the de facto partner in the U.K. Uni or the hundreds of thousands of residents of a council opening up a new and unserviced market for us. Then through the power of one, we became the world's first SaaS+ ERP in 30 days, not the thousands of days like our competitors. Now, this is our strategy in action. Long-term investments in R&D. In 1987 to 20 products today. Each product has over 20 modules. That's over 600 modules in total. We now have our AI strategy. They provide software that might help you automate your finance processes or human resource processes.
It's very generic functionality. It doesn't include the deep. Specifically for that function. Then you have to piece it together with sticky tape and chewing gum. It doesn't really work in a SaaS world. It's even worse in an AI world. Plus model. We've followed the path less traveled. We've carved out vertical niches and specialties that result in strong, consistent ARR , which has now carefully and slowly increased to 18%-20%, which I've discussed. We call it strategy. Some in the investment community call it a moat. We serve highly regulated industries. We've got the highest level of cybersecurity certification. You know, we serve some secret agencies. That highest level is built into all of our software.
A world's first SaaS+ model with fast go lives, removing the need for that traditional, long, complex and expensive consulting. 99%+ customer retention and 38 years of consistent execution. Okay, let me remind you of our pricing. The bear case is on the left of this slide, and it's a real bear case for many companies. AI agents replace knowledge workers. Customers need fewer seats. Vendors lose revenue per user. Multiple three rate downward. We sell ratable properties which scales with ratable numbers, not headcount. As communities grow, we grow with them. We sell on student numbers, as unis enroll more students. You can see it's very exciting. Stuart's gonna take you through this in further details, and I invite you all to a product demonstration and hosted by Chandan, our CTO, this Friday. AI agents do more work.
Remember, agents are faster, more complete, higher quality and cheaper for our customers. We grow with that too. Another new opportunity. We've introduced a new innovation to take friction away for our customers, and that's advertising revenue built- in and further advertising. Per seat world, every AI agent that replaces a human is revenue deletion. In our world, every AI agent that does work for a customer is a revenue event. Our in-product AI, new revenue from our resident and student conversations with interactions in Guide and new advertising revenue from Guide. We've this information right now. These investments enable us to continue to double in size every five years. Over to Cale in our hack space who will now take us through the financials. For the first half of the year.
Thanks, Ed. Once again, we are incredibly proud of the results we've delivered in the first half of FY 2026. The strength of our portfolio business came to the fore this period with local government in Australia a standout performer in the first half. A total of AUD 87 million in ARR was added over the past 12 months, resulting in ARR growth of 17%. Typically, ARR growth is always stronger in the second half, the strong performance in first half gives us great confidence in our path to the full year. U.K. ARR growth came in at AUD 2 million, with recurring revenue now representing 93% of total income, highlighting a 25% uplift in the quality of our revenue. Of high single-digit growth to deliver 9% PBT growth to AUD 89.1 million.
With such a strong result and great confidence in our future. By 2024. If we view this result on a constant currency basis, our first half of 2026 would have been a record half for any period over our 38. For FY 2026, we delivered strong profit and ARR growth, meeting guidance. We made the commitment in previous halves to keep our rolling 12-month Rule of 40%, above 40%. With another strong half of ARR growth up 17% and a free cash flow margin of 38%, we have again delivered an . SaaS and recurring revenue grew 13% to AUD 299.2 million in the first half of 2026. As mentioned, SaaS and recurring revenue growth at 13%. Decrease in revenue as expected as we work through the backlog of legacy contracts.
This revenue is primarily driven by implementations not sold as SaaS+, such as government work sold on the old framework prior to its updating to accommodate SaaS+. Within our total expenses, our net variable cost of EUR 42.7 million, an increase of 5% on the PCP. This increase was driven by an increase in our SaaS platform costs as customers leverage more of our products. Our operating costs are up 13% to AUD 190.9 million during the half. These are primarily people-based. We did not have a comparative marketing event, and as such, to get a like-for-like picture of the cadence of the business, it's important to factor that in when looking at the increased cost base. The effective tax rate for the half was 25%, which is where we expect it to land for FY 2026.
Turning to the balance sheet. Crediting to cash collections due to the annual billing alignment with contract anniversary dates. Capitalized development has increased by AUD 15 million in the half, which is. Tax asset attributable to share-based payments given the fall in our share price. Our deferred revenue has fallen AUD 42.3 million in first half 2026. Six was a big one for our R&D team. In the first half of FY 2026, we invested 26% of revenue or AUD 84.1 million in R&D. Going forward, we expect to target investment in R&D in the 20%-25% of revenue range, which we continue to believe is the optimal investment level. Crediting of our cash flow due to the annual contract anniversary date cycle. You will recall in first half 2025, we benefited from pulling forward creditors in to the second.
AUD 6 million or 16% to AUD 245.5 million over the past 12 months. We are incredibly proud of our results in the first half of 2026. Accordingly, our board has determined an interim dividend of AUD 0.08 per share, franked at 75%. This represents a record interim dividend with increased franking. We will maintain this franking level going forward. While the interim dividend is up 21%, this only represents a payout ratio of four. Clearly showing our confidence for the future growth in profitability. In summary, our past execution has afforded us a very strong and cle. Demonstrate.
Thanks, Cale. As announced at our Showcase kickoff event in October last year, 2026A marked a watershed moment for our AI initiatives and rollout strategy. It's important to note that we've been leveraging AI across these capabilities. Before I go any further, I thought I would take a moment and talk about Showcase and bring you up to speed about the events that have now all been completed. With Plus and in-product functionality and Guide forming the centerpiece of the strategy. I would also like to highlight the resounding success of the event across every increasingly relevant for the verticals we serve. Most importantly, the pipeline generated from Showcase has significantly exceeded both historical and opportunity. At the conclusion of the Melbourne Showcase event in October, we announced Plus, our agentic AI solution for the ERP market.
The boundaries we are prepared to push to better support our community. We also highlighted to investors that Plus was designed to be a Trojan horse, a platform that would encourage customers to adopt more Technology One product in order to unlock the full capabilities of Plus. We're already seeing the strategy play out. We also stated that Plus would achieve the fastest adoption rate of any product we have ever launched. That prediction is proving to be correct. Although Plus was announced in October last year, it has only become generally available to customers in early April this year. Despite this six-month wait, we're already seeing breaking Technology One adoption records with Plus. We are excited to see how far this product will go. In classic Tech One fashion, we did not stop there with Plus.
We pushed the boundary even further with the announcement of Guide at our U.K. Showcase in February. For more than six years, we've been developing products designed to empower our customer's customer, whether it be students or ratepayers, through what we call DXP or the Digital Experience Platform. Our goal is to extend our reach beyond supporting only our customers' back office and instead empower our community and the communities they serve directly. As you've heard previously, our DXP LG product has been well-received, and we've been running early adopter programs. We could have stopped there and realized that Guide using traditional, and release Guide with traditional consumption-based pricing models. Personalize this product. As a result, we took the road less traveled, and in fact, road never traveled in the ERP market. We proposed delivering Guide core values.
We asked ourselves, "If our customers are under pressure, how can we genuinely support their sector?" That led us to the decision to share our. With Guide for students scheduled for release in 2026B in August, we're already having universities compete to be the first institution globally to deploy a solution that not only empowers the students but is generating new revenue streams. Historically, I've highlighted three significant wins during our results presentation. Today, I would like to begin with James Cook University. We've been proud partners with James Cook University since 1993 when they first acquired our Financials solution. Since then, they've been on a journey with us through major phases of technology evolution, from on-premise client server all the way through to SaaS, while at the same time adopting our Student Management solution.
Over the past year, JCU conducted a comprehensive technology review and roadmap assessment focused on identifying their preferred strategic partner for the AI era. As a result, I am incredibly proud to share that James Cook University, a global leader in Great Barrier Reef and coral reef resilience research with more than 1,700 team members and 21,000 students, has fully embraced our AI strategy. Not only have they adopted Plus, but they have also acquired every product and module within our OneEducation suite to create a rich data lake so that Plus can leverage and help support the university's long-term strategic goals. Further, validating both the strength of our partnership and alignment of our innovation and strategic direction, JCU signed a 10-year agreement with Technology One.
This is the perfect case study of partnership, innovation, and the power of our vertical strategy, and it reinforces why we continue to grow and lead now into what I believe is the fifth era of technology innovation. Townsville City Council has been an on-premise customer for many years and were among a very small group who did not initially believe in our SaaS strategy. In fact, they invested in building their own data center to continue to host solutions. However, once we informed them that we could no longer support on-premise customers and they would need to transition to SaaS, they commenced a two-year evaluation program involving competitors such as Oracle and Infor, and in fact, selected Oracle.
Early in the Oracle implementation, they found that Oracle solution would not work, and I'm incredibly proud to say that during the first half, they not only returned to Technology One, they signed a 10-year agreement embracing SaaS and adopting full SaaS+ program as well as acquiring Plus. We also secured the University of Suffolk. Historically, the U.K. market only sees one Student Management RFP come to market each year. As we've highlighted previously, we have a strategic goal capitalize on our unique position in the U.K. market as the only SaaS provider serving the education sector with both traditional ERP capabilities and mission-critical Student Management, Curriculum, and Timetabling Solutions. To secure Suffolk University as our seventh Student Management customer in the past 2.5 years and the confidence customers are placing in our AI vision. SaaS+ is now embraced in everything we do.
It defines us. Solutions have transitioned to SaaS+, I'm pleased to report today that everything is SaaS+. We've achieved this transition faster than expected, driven one. Because it fundamentally disrupts traditional implementation models built around long, drawn-out projects. Some even joke, referring me as the chairman of. To consume additional products and drive greater operational efficiency. In the new world of AI, this also significantly increases the effectiveness and value digital growth. It is clear validation that our strategy is driving momentum. A 27% growth rate in Local Government is particularly significant and again validates that mission-critical SaaS+ solutions designed specifically for the verticals we serve are hitting the mark. Infor AI technology.
Education also remains another significant pillar of growth with 15%, the opportunities such as JCU for mission-critical solutions in our verticals in the U.K. and the enormous opportunity coming off of our U.K. Showcase events. Our pipeline continues to improve . Full-year results. We closely monitor NRR and churn. While NRR was 114, this was primarily impacted by foreign exchange movements, and we expect to return to our target range of 115-120 by the end of the finance year, notwithstanding any persistent strong Aussie dollar. Churn remains historically low at just 0.6%, which is industry-leading and further validation of both our strategy and the critical long-term role we play with our customers. Ultimately, it all culminates in our ARR performance. Overall ARR and ARR per customer continues to grow strongly.
With our FY 2026 guidance of 16%-18%, the first half results clearly demonstrate we're on track. In closing, our results demonstrate that we are continuing to invest heavily in our future and push the boundaries of both what the market expects and what technology can deliver. From being the only SaaS provider across our verticals to deliver mission-critical capabilities such as Student Management, Curriculum, Timetabling & S cheduling, Property & Rating, Strategic Asset Management, and so many more. We continue to differentiate ourselves through innovation and genuinely improving our customer's outcome. Combined with SaaS+, Plus, Guide, and our broader AI strategy, our R&D team continuously take the road less traveled because they remain deeply connected to our customers and the industries we serve. We could not be prouder of their direction they are taking Technology One, our industry, but most importantly, the customers every single day.
Thanks, Stuart. To wrap up the results, quite simply, our investments made in R&D, in AI, in Showcase, in SaaS+, they're delivering. We achieved our 17th consecutive half year record ARR, record revenue, record profit. Total ARR is up 17%, sorry, to AUD 598 million. U.K. ARR is up 23% with a very strong pipeline for half two, driven by our Showcase event in February this year. The flywheel is turning. Profit before tax of AUD 89.1 million, up 9% as flagged. These results enable us to continue our strong R&D investments for future growth, and that was AUD 84.1 million, up 22%, and a record interim dividend of AUD 0.08 per share, up 30%. We're on track to achieve our upgraded full-year guidance. Turning to our long-term outlook.
We've doubled in size every five years, and we're gonna continue to do so. As I've done in the past, I'd like to walk you through the key mechanisms on the how we achieve this consistently amazing outcome. We have a total addressable market of AUD 13.5+ billion, and it's growing. We have and will continue to deliver strong net revenue retention within that range of 115%-120%. Now, at 115% alone, we can continue to double in size every five years. We have significant white space in our existing customer base, and it continues to expand. With that continuous investment in R&D, we release new products, features, modules two times every year, therefore organically increasing the TAM.
Once we land a customer, there are many, many new products and modules that we can provide to those customers. Our pricing model is tied to a true partnership with our customers. As they grow, we grow. In summary, we benefit from population growth, and our contracts include CPI. Now, SaaS+ is a game changer. It was designed to differentiate us and to remove the long, complex, risky, expensive implementations. We benefit from a 40% uplift in our price book. We simplify our business again by removing one-off consulting revenue and replace it with high-quality recurring revenue. Leveraging AI to achieve our ERP in 30 days, you'll see significant margin improvement. We continue to target acquisitions in that very disciplined way that adds new IP to our business, such as CourseLoop.
The leverage we're delivering in our business provides us with significant headroom for inorganic growth. We have a great vision and a platform for the future of ERP. Now, as we enter the fifth generation, the AI generation, our total addressable market is exponentially turbocharged with the addition of Plus and Guide. As our customers take on more and more interactions and conversation bundles, they take on ad revenue, and I'm sure many, many more will emerge. This AI transaction-driven pricing will drive additional ARR and revenue from each customer and from the residents and the students of our customers. We say exponential because it's massive. We just don't know how big it can be yet. From the initial conversations and feedback we're receiving from our customers, the usage of conversations and interactions is significantly exceeding our expectations.
Now, all of this just increases the depth of our moat and significantly increases the opportunity ahead of us, underpinning our confidence that we'll achieve our next big goal of +AUD 1 billion ARR by FY 2030. Here's a summary of what that AI opportunity does for our business. One, our AI pricing model, to which I've already spoken, is tied to ratables, to students enrolled, and our interactions and conversations. Two, our AI enhancements provide better outcomes and value to our customers and their customers. Plus turns the ERP from thousands of screens into one single conversation. Thirdly, the data advantage. We've got 38 years of vertical workflow data, compliance with laws and regulations, best practice, tacit approvals. AI is only as smart as the data it leans on. Foundation models can't replicate this.
They might have the internet, but we've got the operating record of public sector in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. Four, Plus is a Trojan horse. As customers use Plus, they realize that more products represents more value for them and their customers. Five, the network effect. Guide extends Plus from staff to end users. With Guide, we're inside every conversation that a council has with a resident and every conversation that a uni has with a student. The customer surface area expands by orders of magnitude. The moat was wide before. With AI, it gets wider, and it gets deeper. You know, our people, they have a deep connection with our mission because they, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their family, we all live, work, and play in the communities we serve. They live and breathe the TechOne way.
They create and deliver the mission-critical products and solutions that power our customers. None of these results would be possible without the talented and committed people who make up Technology One. Our people are on a roll. They've got energy and momentum, we would like to thank every member of Tech One across the globe. Firmly on the path to achieve +AUD 1 billion ARR by FY 2030 from a current base of AUD 598 million. We will continue to invest for the long term in R&D to build platforms of growth. The economies of scale from our global size ERP solution will also drive continued profit before tax margin expansion through to 35% and beyond. We'll now hand over to the operator for questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question by the phone, you just press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to cancel your request, please press answer. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. If you would like to ask a question on the webcast, please type it into the ask question box and click submit . Your first question today from the phone comes from Lucy Huang from UBS. Please go ahead.
G'day, Lucy.
Thanks. Hi, Ed. Thanks for taking questions. I've got three, but maybe if I start off with the first one. Just interested in the extra color around Plus. I think in February you talked about 22 customers signing up. Any color as to what that number or penetration rate looks like today? You also made some comments around kind of conversations with customers suggesting usage is exceeding expectations.
Yeah.
Any color you can share on how are customers using Plus?
Uh-huh.
Are we seeing a large number of them exceeding their usage cap?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks, Lucy. There's two parts. I'll answer the first part then hand to Stuart. In terms of customer take-up, it is firmly on track to be the fastest product even. It's more than a product ever delivered by Tech One. We're just holding our powder dry to save some good news for the full year also. Rest assured, this is getting into. The second part of the question is that how is it exceeding our expectations to take up?
Yeah, it's a really good question. We should remember everybody that we released it with 22K, and that's only been available with Plus for about 3.5 , four weeks now. It's very early days, a lot of the customers are still in test, not in production with it. The feedback related to their modeling is very impressive. Far exceeds our modeling related to what we expected the usage to be. If we talk about JCU, it's orders of magnitude greater than we ever expected. It's more than 10 times more than we modeled that they would use. We don't really know yet because it's still early days, but we'll be able to give you ARR of the individual customer like JCU, but it's quite large, as you can imagine.
It's a large uni or medium university, Student Management and unis are big, it's got every product and module. When we modeled the interactions and conversation uptake, it was aggressive in our minds or strong. It is 10 times more than 10 times more. The ARR could double in that single customer base. We don't really know yet, Lucy. JCU bought everything. They literally bought everything. There's a new product we just announced called Invoice IQ, it's ability to scan your invoices. It's the competitor product that we're taking out. When we model things, we're just seeing so much more usage coming out of this functionality than we ever expected, we're just excited to see where it goes. That's just one very simple case study.
[audio distortion]
Break that out because everything is SaaS+, and just Plus is just another product that we put through the system. We don't break that out at all.
Yeah. Lucy, if you like, we've got what we call a very diversified model. You've got multiple products, multiple regions, multiple verticals. To be honest, some are gonna fire better in some halves and years, and some will fire even stronger in others. We use that diversification of revenue streams to, you know, ensure that we can hit that 18% compa. Proposal.
That was good. Maybe just the last one, just interested in Guide and your advertising revenue you're charging. Are you expecting to have to build a team of sales people to attract those ad AUD?
[audio distortion]
Very early in its evolution. We won't get too specific on costs other than to say that this is a fairly innovative approach to generating revenue for Tech One. It will be incremental revenue and incremental profit for us. Exactly how that's gonna fall through yet, we're yet to see.
The customer excitement related to it far exceeds our expectation yet again. We've got at least three customers that are trying to be the first ones to take it on board when it gets released in 2026B, which will be sometime in August. Related to the sales team, it's the same sales team, we're verticalizing the way we sell. We've got an education sales team that's selling that product, and we've been enabling them for the last six months ready to sell the product. We will also go through a kind of a crawl, walk, run phase related to the ad revenue side, as we're early into this phase as well. We've been talking to a lot of other providers of ad revenue to see how they grew into it, to make sure that we do it the right way.
It's very early days, but very exciting. It's got a real flywheel effect because the customer is servicing its customer better, so the student's getting more information, therefore decreasing the cost for call centers and improving the NPS. Exciting.
That's great. Thank you so much, Ed.
Thanks, Lucy.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Andrew Gillies from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, Andrew.
Hi, Ed. Hey, guys. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Look, just following on from Lucy's questions.
Focus on really two metrics, PBT growth, number one, and then closely followed by ARR growth. For us, it's total ARR. It doesn't really matter if it's. Land and over many, many, many years, you know, they've sort of second half skewed. I'll get Stuart to the U.K. in a minute. Now, when you look at new versus existing. So rry, including the Forex impact, then 114 for existing, including the Forex impact, then new logo is 3%, you know. It's just one minus the other. Way to go. Everything goes into NRR, typically, or most of it goes to NRR. If you go to higher education, you know, we bought Scientia back in 2021, I think. There's a lot of nuance in that conversation.
Our focus is on the entire market, that 18% day in, day out, you know. One of the DNA. Hallmarks of TechOne is we don't wanna shoot the lights out one year and have a really bad year the next year. It's just strong, consistent growth. Our commitment from a PBT point of view is that 18%-20% at the top end consistently and ARR growth 16%-18% at the top end consistently. Hopefully that just paints the picture, Andrew, firstly of the ARR, whether it's new or existing, and then Stuart there was, you wanna color in the sort of.
Sure.
What the dynamics of the year for U.K.?
Sure. One piece I also put together as well. Somebody's asked me, how did we get such growth and attendance at Showcase? We've always set Showcase up as a prospecting event.
Historically, it's been a lot more of our customers coming in, looking at new product and pulling it across. We had far more prospecting attendance than we've ever had before, and that's just a validation of our strategy and our brand in the regions we serve. You'll see that play through. Related to U.K., strong first half, great foundation for the second half. The pipeline is far exceeding what we expected it to have at this time of year. We've got some very healthy, exciting deals to talk through at the full year, and very excited where we're going, not only next year, but going forward as well. We are the de facto provider now for local government higher education in the U.K., and it's putting us in a very strong position.
Perfect. Thanks very much, guys. Just a quick follow-up. If I look at, kind of that pipeline opportunity, is that kind of both, U.K. and sort of ANZ? Are you willing to, kind of, provide some color on the splits there or, just think about it as kind of 10 times that AUD 9 million spend or the AUD 7.4 on the Showcase costs?
Yeah. Do you wanna take that?
Yeah. It's pretty even, to be honest, across the board. I mean, U.K. is far more new just because it's, you know, it's the time we've had there. Across the board, that growth of that pipeline is pretty even on both sides. I wouldn't really put any more to it.
Perfect. Thanks, guys. Just one last one on the AI products. Like, obviously, the shift to a consumption-based revenue model is a bit of a change for customers. Like, is there any kind of education required with that? Like, how do you balance, you know, the desire to grow transactional consumption-based revenues with the potential sticker shock of customers?
It's like every generation, to be honest. It was similar in Cloud. Our first approach is that in the AI world, it's bloody complex with tokens. I don't know if you or your friends have played with it. You know, I've personally played with it, you get millions of tokens, which means nothing to me, to be honest. At a first level, we've simplified it by just having you ask a question and you get an answer. That's a conversation. You press the button in product, you know, you get an answer. That's an interaction. We've already, one, taken away the complexity from tokens, which means nothing to anyone. Two, when you buy, you know, Plus or in- product AI, you get a whole lot of bundles, then you can buy on top.
Of course, it's gonna take education. Stuart, do you wanna add more to that?
Yeah. I think the exciting part of this whole phase is.
What they're realizing is the value they get from AI. We have to really e-enable them and educate them related to functionality. Once we've done that, and if anybody came to the Showcase, they would have seen how we showed that we were giving time back related to that functionality. It actually pays for itself because they can do the mental math of this interaction is gonna cost me AUD 0.30 compared to spending half a day to do the work. We don't have to really position anymore. We just have to inform them of the functionality, and then they adopt it quickly because they can see the efficiencies they're getting. We're really breaking down that old way of thinking, which is, I need to do a function.
I need to figure out how to do functions faster, and that's what AI gives them, and that's what we're getting the return from. We don't see. I've not had any pushback. In fact, almost the opposite from our customer base. They're pushing us to get more and more functionality into AI and leveraging those interactions.
Do you wanna talk about the research we've done for local government customer service call centers?
Sure.
And value difference?
Sure. If I take the U.K. as a case study, and we're working with the other product we really haven't talked much about, which is Guide for LG. When we released Guide for LG in 2027A. If I look at a council, a decent sized council in the U.K., they spend about GBP 2.80 for every call that comes through to their call center. Only 85% of those calls get answered, and only about 60% of those calls ever get resolved. We can actually do the vast majority of that work for a GBP 0.30 or GBP 0.15 cost. We can do all of their calls and actually push them through at an absolute fraction of what they're spending right now, so they can take that money and put it to more meaningful things.
Once they start to understand that orders of magnitude of saving and efficient, but also NPS results related to their students or ratepayers, everything just kinda takes care of itself. It becomes logical, and that's what's making that flywheel turn so quickly.
Thanks very much, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Mason from E&P. Please go ahead.
G'day, Paul.
Hey, thanks for taking the questions, guys. Just a couple from me. I just wanted to check, with the currency headwind, was that all on the U.K.? Would your ARR have been AUD 59 million if not for currency, or was there some New Zealand in that as well?
Thanks for your question, Paul. No, it does include New Zealand. If you're a close watcher of the Kiwi dollar, it's, it has, depreciated quite significantly over the half as well.
Yeah. Okay, great. Two other ones more on business. Just in terms of the rollout of Plus, I was just wondering if you could make some more specific comments on the level of upsell that's come from it with the customers that have taken it. You know, you've said most major deals are taking Plus now, but, like, are most major deals taking Plus and then something else because of Plus as well? Or, you know, how does that look?
I don't know the exact numbers, but some are, I would say probably about 25%-35% of the Plus deals are Plus standalone. Almost everything else has a pull through of some type. For, maybe not at a JCU level, but some type of taking advantage and looking at other products that they wanna take out and bring our product in, so Plus can actually evaluate that information. It's definitely the majority of the deals are bringing other products through.
I think on top of that, if you think longer term, once they get Plus and they start using it and see the value and see the interactions, the surfacing insights they never thought about, that the lights will turn on. It's no doubt it's a Trojan horse, not just for now, but for the dawn of time, you know?
Yeah.
They'll take more.
We can see it here.
We can.
If you look at CiA and what we're doing.
Our usage.
We can see the usage here of what we're doing. We're an early adopter, and the amount of information it's providing everybody is just fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.
It really is. Yeah.
Great. Just the last one for me will be, just on the consulting revenues you got application managed services business. Could you maybe like, just give us a bit of a overview of like what, how that line's gonna go through time? Should we see the absolute consulting revenues decline, or is that just gonna change nature to this more like ongoing consulting instead of like the implementation consulting as time progresses?
Yeah. Basically, you're right. We will see that migrate from that line from.
Oh, is there much margin difference between the two, or are they pretty similar in terms of how their economics work?
They're fairly similar. They're quite different businesses, but they're not materially different margins.
All right. Thank you.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Josh Kannourakis from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
G'day, Josh.
Hi. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. A couple of quick ones. Firstly, just with the route, there's been a lot of discussion and a few things that have come out over the last few weeks around sovereign AI and AI procurement in government.
It was very topical, tech sovereignty, in particular AI sovereignty. We are a firm believer of buying local to support. Not only for TechOne, but for the industry at large. Expect, you know, Albo's push for Team Australia and for sovereignty.
Obviously, you've signed a couple. I know, you know, James Cook, obviously a long-term customer of yours or coming back to you guys. 10-year deals obviously feel pretty significant.
Yeah.
Just keen to understand, obviously, there's a lot of change going forward, but, you know, when you look at your pipeline on a go-forward basis.
[audio distortion]
Customers really wanna take up AI and take the advantage of them and do the longer deals. Is there anything you want to add to that, Stuart?
Yeah, no, we always position with a five-year.
Consistent on that, I mean, I notice as well, you know, the capitalized commission costs are obviously a bit higher. I imagine is that just because you've signed those? You've obviously signed a couple of very large deals.
Per year. There's a little bit of nuance in that.
Oh, okay.
We did sign quite a lot of deals.
Yeah, it was a good sales half.
Yeah.
Salespeople like to get paid.
They deserve to be. I'll probably, Josh, I might just add a bit to that. It might be lost on people, if you think about a salesperson's commission, it is on the value of the deal they do for the first year, generally speaking.
Yeah.
They don't have the Forex impact. If you.
Yeah.
That slide that's on, I don't know, Gio, whatever that number of that slide is, it's really important because AAA, or bring back the constant currency. Are we, one of the things that gives us confidence, of course, we can see a very clear pipeline heading into half two. I think that message, you know, up until now, it might have been a little bit lost, but they've done really well. Yeah. Slide 25, Gio.
Got it.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that's great. I'll hold off the questions for now. That's cool. Thanks, guys. Cheers, bye.
Thanks, Josh.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Roger Samuel from Jefferies Australia. Please go ahead.
G'day, Roger.
Oh, hi, morning, guys. I've got a couple of questions. First one, could you outline your confidence in hitting the top 10 of the guidance range, which is for 18% in ARR growth.
Yes.
In FY 2026, given that you reported 17% in the first half, whilst your net retention rate has come down to 114%. Just to understand how much heavy lifting do you need to do in the second half? Maybe just to clarify. Those new contracts, as you mentioned in the slide pack, you know, the JCU, the Townsville stuff, did they land in the first half or the second half?
Yep. I'll start with that one first, Roger. They definitely landed in the first half. It's a good question you ask. I'm going back to slide 25, if I can find it. Okay. The whole point of slide 25, although subtle, is to say, if we didn't have Forex impact, Cale was AUD 6 million, we would've done AUD 50 million. Huge momentum going into the half, delivered solid results. I wouldn't say we're coasting, but there's, the team have done such a great job. Base and visibility in the pipeline, as well as the excitement for Plus.
Every time we show our customers Plus or get, you know, pre-sales people in front of them, it just drags the deal forward because the buying C-level sees the value in it, sees the value in that interaction or conversation, such as the, you know, GBP 0.23 compared to GBP 2.38. It's so significant, Roger, that we are firmly committed. We've got huge visibility in the pipeline. 27 in full recovery conversation, and that's the excitement we have.
Got it. Okay. Thanks. My second question is on margins. SaaS+ so far had an impact on margins, and yet you're still guiding to margin expansion.
Hmm.
In FY 2026. Is there any cost efficiency program that you're doing that drives that margin expansion? Also on Plus, when would you expect that margin dilution to give a fall away?
Yeah. I might start and then hand over to you, Cale. I think if you lifted the hood in TechOne, there's always cost outs. You know, we're always focused on the efficiency of the business. It's probably why we're in the top quarter globally of companies in the, you know, Rule of 40. It's just part of the DNA we keep pushing.
You know, get efficiencies in our business. You're seeing a whole lot of things play out. The DNA of the business to continue to focus on efficiencies, the use of AI inside our own business, as well as in the products for our customers. We'll continue to drive hard to slowly but carefully increase that margin.
Okay.
Yeah. In terms.
You know, we have good confidence that, you know, that 35% margin that we put out a number of years ago, you know, we have a, you know, we have a pretty solid path to that. We're pretty buoyed by how the business has gone with respect to cost through the first half of FY 2026.
I think if you look at us against our competitors, there's also another piece to look at too. We've got massive initiatives, and we're playing on multiple fronts to support our customers, and we're still hiring. Compared to our competitors that are actually downsizing, we'll still leverage AI and gain great efficiencies through AI. We're still looking for the people to help us deliver these amazing initiatives. We're very different to everybody else. We're still growing in that regard because there are so many things on our plate that we're delivering.
Yeah, that's a good point. We can scale faster and do more. We've always had more ideas than we can poke a stick at. You know, AI cost efficiency just allows us to do a bit of everything, to be honest.
That's great. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tom Beadle from Jarden. Please go ahead.
G'day, Tom.
G'day. Thank you for the opportunity. Just a quick first question on ARR, just to follow up on a few of the others. I mean, could you just clarify just to. Number, and I guess, is it fair to say it's probably too early to have seen any of that impact in the first half?
We can definitely see impact, no question. Again, if we started in October of last year, you'll start to see it flow through a little bit in the first half, but you'll start to see it in the second half. Our numbers remain the same. Again, what I'm trying to provide to you is the confidence related to the numbers. We would be at this time of year very focused on Q3, Q4 as we're finishing off the year.
We're very focused now on next year and the pipeline, the growth and the strategies and the campaigns for next year because of the foundation that we've built early in this year and through Showcase that's flowing through. I don't expect that at any time to increase the ARR numbers, but it's just more confidence and comfort of them that allows us to look further ahead. If that answers your question.
Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. Just second question on NRR. Obviously, it's at 114%. It's obviously very. More of large numbers possibly kicking in. Do you think that this is a sustainable target going forward? Just can you talk to what you believe can accelerate your NRR growth back to that range?
I think, to be honest, it's just a timing of the deals made. I think, you know, our full year guidance is AUD 16 million-AUD 18 million at the top end. If we do about the same new logo, that 3%-ish, then, you know, we will do in the range, and that's the AUD 115 million-AUD 120 million. We, it's part of the same story. We have that visibility of the pipeline, strong momentum of the business. We're not concerned about that at all.
Yeah. Gotcha. Just a final question on R&D costs. Obviously, they came in a little bit above your target range. Can you just talk to why that was the case? I mean, is it just as simple as your exit momentum into the second half is high, so your R&D stack to sales will naturally just fall back into that range? Or should we expect sort of a continued acceleration in R&D in the second half just to match that momentum you've got?
Yeah, no. The 26% in first half is really a denominator issue. Our, sort of the cadence, as Stuart mentioned, with respect to adding people to our R&D team hasn't changed. You'll notice that our revenue increase versus the PCP was 11% or 13%, depending on which one you're looking at. That was really driven by timing of.
Very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Unfortunately, that concludes our time for questions today. I'll now hand back to Mr. Chung for any closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone. Thanks for attending. Again, our people are on a tear. We'd like to thank each and every one of them around the globe and to thank you, our shareholders for their continuing support. Thanks again.