BILL will report earnings and hold a CC in about 2 weeks on February 2. This post will be a brief review of BILL’s 1Q23 report which was delivered on Nov 3, 2022. BILL’s CEO is Rene Lacerte, the CFO is John Rettig.
I find BILL to be a difficult company to follow. There are a lot of “moving parts” so to speak and I don’t have a solid understanding of how the parts fit together and interact. Despite that, I do understand some of the very positive factors. BILL has a relationship with BofA such that they get considerable referral business from the bank. Similarly, they have an accounting firm partnership program which includes something like 80% of the top US accounting firms. Their primary competitor is manual pen and paper along with spreadsheets. We also have “inside” information reported by Saul which has it that BILL is incredibly sticky. It’s unlikely that a customer of BILL would abandon them, even if cheaper, better competitor were to emerge. Once BILL becomes embedded in the back office operations of a company, transition costs and the time needed to convert to a different system are big inhibitors.
In any case, here are some links for last quarter:
Earnings presentation: https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/sa_presentations/615/88615/original.pdf
Press release: BILL Reports First Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Results | Seeking Alpha
CC Transcript: Bill.com Holdings, Inc. (BILL) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha
Following is the guidance that was provided last quarter for 2Q23:
2Q23 Revenue $241.5M - $244.5M reflecting 54% - 56% YoY growth
2Q23 Float apx $18M
2Q23 Non-GAAP income $14.5M - $17M
2Q23 EPS $0.12 - $0.14 based on 118.4M shares
And here’s the guidance for FY23
FY23 Revenue $994M - $1.007B
FY23 Income $57.5M - $70M
FY23 EPS $0.48 - $0.59 based on 119.4M shares
BILL reported total revenue of $229.9M for 1Q23. If they just meet the high end of their guide for the quarter it would represent YoY revenue growth of 56.3%. While that’s respectable growth, during FY22 the average quarterly YoY revenue growth for BILL was 169.3%. That’s going to be difficult to match.
I don’t like to speculate, but let’s allow for a 9% beat which they accomplished during the last two quarters of FY22. This projects revenue of $266.5M which yields 70.3% YoY growth. I don’t know the exact number we look for in order to assert that a company is in hyper-growth mode, but I’m pretty sure that 70% qualifies. However, be mindful that it’s based on speculation, and it compares to the 97.5% YoY growth they accomplished in 1Q23.
As of 1Q23, BILL had 172,000 customers. Customer growth has been 8% - 9% for that last three consecutive quarters. Assuming they continue to grow their customer count at approximately 9% we should expect them to report 187,000+ customers this quarter.
BILL reported non-GAAP operating expenses of $188.03 for 1Q23, that represents 81.8% of revenue. BILL had $12.01M free cash flow last quarter, but typically this is a negative figure. RPO for 1Q23 was $143.1M. Finally, Non-GAAP EPS was $0.14.
That’s a quick overview of some of the important numbers from last quarter which should help you determine what to expect from the coming report. Obviously, the macro environment is taking a toll on all businesses and I am confident that BILL will not be exempt from the damage. IMO, the most important information we will get from the report will be the guidance. If the guidance is up beat I expect the stock price to get a nice bump, but if it’s doom and gloom we can expect the stock price to take a big hit. I don’t buy or sell a company based on the daily gyrations of the stock price. But of course, I invest in order to profit from the activity. In the last year BILL’s stock has been over $260. That was probably overvalued, but IMO there’s little doubt that current ~$100 stock price is grossly under-valued. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say on February 2.