BlackLine, Inc.
Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 8 Aug 2020

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2020 BlackLine Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Alex Geller, Vice President of IR. You may begin.

[Alex Geller:]

Good afternoon, and thank you for your participation today. With me on the call is Therese Tucker, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BlackLine; Marc Huffman, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Mark Partin, Chief Financial Officer.

[Therese Tucker:]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As you know, the last several months have been unusual for companies and people everywhere. Given the challenges our customers and employees have been facing in this difficult environment, I was very pleased by our team's ability to stay focused, execute and drive performance in Q2. We saw the demand environment improved throughout the quarter as companies around the world once again began to fund their mission-critical initiatives. We believe the demand for back-end finance automation will benefit BlackLine as a market leader during this difficult COVID environment. As a result, BlackLine's performance in the quarter was better than expected. As the pandemic continues, it is becoming increasingly clear, there is a new normal for a distributed workforce. These circumstances have exposed the limitations of traditional manual processes and put a spotlight on the back office, an area that has historically been overlooked and underinvested in. This new environment is particularly challenging for accounting and finance professionals, who are now forced to manage manual and paper-based processes in a remote world.

[Marc Huffman:]

Thank you, Therese, and good afternoon, everyone. I am excited and humbled to assume the role of CEO at the start of the next year. One of the reasons that Therese and I have worked so well together is relying on the core values that make BlackLine so special. I look forward to continuing to work with this experienced and talented management team to execute on our largely untapped market opportunity and growth strategy. As Therese mentioned, we were pleasantly surprised to see the demand environment improved throughout the quarter. On the last call, I discussed how our biggest challenge from COVID was the impact of company budgets and the ability for customers and prospects to win budget amongst a long list of other mission-critical priorities. I'm happy to say that despite a slow start in April, budgets began to free up with increasing momentum in May and June, resulting in better-than-expected performance for the quarter. If you recall, through 2019 and early Q1, our growth strategy benefited from strong demand, great sales execution and a growing partner ecosystem. Following the outbreak of COVID, as you might expect, we did not achieve our original pre-COVID growth plan for Q2. The market we're in today has not yet returned to that level, but early indications give us confidence that financial back-end automation will remain a priority and possibly even accelerate when the economy begins to recover.

[Mark Partin:]

Thank you, Therese, and Marc, and good afternoon, everyone. On the Q1 earnings call, we discussed a number of COVID-related impacts to both the demand and risk side of our business. We were pleased to see the demand environment ramp and build momentum throughout the quarter, strengthening in May and June. While these demand drivers did not return to normal levels, they beat our internal COVID scenario expectations, driving positive results in key financial metrics. In the quarter, we were also pleased with performance on the risk side. We had less attrition and fewer customers requesting relief than modeled, resulting in better-than-expected renewal and retention rates. Total second quarter revenue grew 20% year-over-year to reach $83.3 million. Revenue was positively impacted by strong sales execution with large deals, better-than-anticipated services revenue and a consistent renewal rate despite the economic challenges for many of our COVID-impacted customers. A few other notes on revenue include

[Operator:]

Thank you. And our first question comes from Koji Ikeda with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

[Koji Ikeda:]

Great. Thank you for taking my questions. Therese, congratulations on your news. And congratulations to Marc Huffman on his promotion as CEO. Therese, I think we may have you for at least one more earnings call. So I'm not going to say any goodbyes just yet. I do have a question on the net new customer adds, the 82 number, really great number there in a tough selling environment. So congratulations on the sales execution there. And thinking about those strong adds and then balancing it against the billings in the quarter, how should we really be thinking about that delta there? Is it because the deals were more back-end loaded following that slow April? Were the deals mostly coming from smaller mid-market customers? Were there any enterprise customers out there that are starting at a much smaller contract value now during the pandemic or starting with shorter contract durations? And then I just have one follow-up.

[Marc Huffman:]

Yes, great. I think you hit it on the nail on the head with this was a record quarter for mid-market. Mid-market deals tend to be smaller. Our average enterprise deal is in the six figures and mid-market is in five figures. So that's in large measure, the reason for it. So yes, we were very pleased with the number of the – and the quality of the logos, but the vast majority of them were in the mid-market.

[Koji Ikeda:]

Great. And then my follow-up question is for you, Mr. Partin. Okay, I just want to be absolutely clear here on the customer release to the billings calculation, you said it was a 4% negative effect. Is that 4 point of growth negative effect? Or is that 4% absolute negative effect to calculated billings?

[Mark Partin:]

Of course. Thanks, Koji. Yes, it would have been 14% year-over-year, notwithstanding that billings release. And the billings release came in the form of delayed billings and reduced billings. So that's the impact.

[Koji Ikeda:]

Got it. Thank you.

[Mark Partin:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Thank you, Our next question comes from Rob Oliver with Robert W. Baird. Your line is open.

[Rob Oliver:]

Great. Thanks very much for taking my question. I'll just also echo my congratulations to both you, Therese and to Marc, and look forward to speaking with both of you. Just a couple of questions. Just so on the dollar-based net revenue retention number, it was kind of at the lower end of the range. I know, as expected, just curious, it seems the linearity in the quarter was more back-end loaded as Koji, I think, asked about. But it also seems like you guys were doing a lot more work with existing customers. So with cross-sell and upsell being a kind of natural move in a COVID environment, just curious if there was any pressure or what some of the dynamics were on that number? And then I just had a follow-up.

[Marc Huffman:]

Yes, of course. Look, that was within our expectation, primarily given the demand environment. We were pleased with what we saw, but it hadn't returned to normal. And not just in the new logos, but in our existing customer base. So we also saw, though, a slight impact from the risk side. We did have slightly higher attrition and churn within our range of expectations, but that also weighed on that number.

[Rob Oliver:]

Okay. And then my follow-up was just too juicy of a pitch not to swing it, but the large customer win in the quarter, obviously, very exciting. Racking my brain here, even having been around a while to name 23 ERP systems. So it seems like a very large meaningful win in a real sweet spot for BlackLine. Any other color you could provide on the land there? Which products were taken? I know you mentioned the sales process and competing on price makes sense. So congrats on that. I would appreciate any other color.

[Marc Huffman:]

Sure. And thank you for congratulations to both the Therese and I, Rob. Appreciate it. So we have a – as you might expect, when you're in the face of pandemic, you expect some of these things to sort of pause. And we had previously had that expectation as well. Companies reassessed, like this one example. And I would say they're a larger, more well-positioned global company with a very complex environment as our prepared remarks state. And they looked across that and their positioning and said, "Hey, we continue to want to invest in something that's this strategic, especially during this difficult time when it sort of makes you aware of how fragile environments can be when you have a distributed workforce." And so I would say that there was a pause. Companies reassessed. Those that were really strong companies and had big strategic plans executed on those. We saw a couple of those in the quarter, and we see a couple of those in our current pipeline moving along as well.

[Rob Oliver:]

Thanks Marc. Thanks guys.

[Marc Huffman:]

Thank you.

[Therese Tucker:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Matt Stotler with William Blair. Your line is open.

[Matt Stotler:]

Hey, guys. Congrats on results. Thanks for taking my questions. Therese, congrats on the announcement. And Marc, congratulations as well. Congratulations all around.

[Therese Tucker:]

Thanks Matt.

[Marc Huffman:]

Thank you.

[Matt Stotler:]

So I guess the first question, I thought, it was interesting that you guys mentioned, obviously, the customer adopting ICH and Transaction Matching in the quarter and strategic products as a whole, kind of remaining above that expected range as they have for a few quarters now. Figured in this tough environment, that would be one area maybe where you might see some weakness just given the size of those deals, especially the ICH and the complexity there. I would love to get just an update as you move through Q2 on kind of demand there and any progress with strategic products in terms of interest or deal flow in the quarter.

[Marc Huffman:]

Sure. Matt, thank you. It's a great question. And I think it speaks to some of the investments that we have been making in the past – the recent history, specifically investments in customer success and then some process expertise, our accounting innovation team, combined with building what I'm really proud of in the sales organization that really high-performance account management function. And so we think of our strategic products are the things that drive the most value and the most automation and just really dramatically change a customer's environment. And when you're able to bring together the great technology, the great process expertise, our experience of 3,100 companies that do business on BlackLine with account management, I think it's part of the reason why we continue to see strong performance in that area.

[Matt Stotler:]

Got it. That's helpful. And then just one more. It was great to hear the progress at SAP. Obviously, you guys have been financial close companies, something that they've been increasingly prioritizing in this environment. We'd love to get an update on what you're seeing outside of SAP and the rest of your partner channel progress there, especially kind of looking at the big four and your accounting firm partners?

[Therese Tucker:]

Yes. It's been really interesting, Matt, because we've seen sort of – our partners are positioning a quick start to things like tasks and reporting. And they've really come alongside our customer relief program to help our customers sort of get their remote closes in a place that's actually manageable. And so they're working on that same sort of nimbleness that our customers need right now. And I really love what I see out of them because they've been oriented towards serving our customers. We've had some great projects with them this last quarter.

[Matt Stotler:]

Got it. Thank you for having my questions.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Sklar with Raymond James. Your line is open.

[Alex Sklar:]

Great. Thank you. Mark, pardon, I wanted to ask about the second half – the implied second half guidance, basically looks like that you'd exit the fourth quarter with kind of a high single-digit growth rate, which is basically in line with your net retention. Given the billings so far in the first half of the year and the renewal rate you addressed, that continues to be really healthy. I was just wondering if you could help us walk through the puts and takes there?

[Mark Partin:]

Yes, of course. Look, we are happy to reinstitute our guidance. We've given incrementally more visibility in the full year and felt we could do that. However, we still have a very pragmatic approach to it consistently with what we've always done. And the demand environment is going to be driven by the macro economy for most of the customers. So we've taken a pragmatic approach for the demand for the remainder of the year, particularly given that Q3 has a tendency over the last several years to be seasonal for us. Q4 last year was one of the strongest quarters on record and creates a bit of a tough comparable. So that's really – as we've factored into our guidance, what we're looking at for the remainder of the year.

[Alex Sklar:]

Okay. Great. And then just another question on the partner channel. I think you said partners were involved in 90% of large deals, that's a little bit higher than the, I think, 70% plus, I remember historically. Has anything changed there in terms of kind of the relationships there with your partners? Or what drove that higher success?

[Marc Huffman:]

Alex, just a real strong focus. Those larger deals obviously are more transformative, have a lot more process change requirements. And the distribution organization as a whole and that would be our customer team as well as our sales team have a real heightened focused on making sure we have the right set of resources, including our partners involved in those larger, more transformative opportunities. So I think it reflects just good partnership skills and a focus by our team.

[Alex Sklar:]

Great. Thank you. And I also will echo my congratulations to you and Therese.

[Marc Huffman:]

Thanks.

[Therese Tucker:]

Thank you. See, we even talk at the same time.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Josh Beck with KeyBanc. Your line is open.

[Josh Beck:]

Congrats team on the new roles. I wanted to ask just a bit about sales efficiency. It's one of those metrics that's really difficult to see what's happening with COVID and everything. But it sounded like within the mid-market, you had some really good momentum and what you have done with MAP resonated really well. So if you look just in the mid-market segment, I'm just curious if you actually see maybe an improvement or maybe a new tactic that you would want to keep in kind of the post-COVID world.

[Marc Huffman:]

Yes. So I'll talk about sort of the observations of the business. And if there's any financial metric, then I'll let Mark sort of jump in. But – so we did have a record number of new customer wins in the mid-market. And if you recall, we were concerned about that specific segment, perhaps having difficulties in the face of COVID and in the economy. We accelerated some of our plans around our modern accounting playbook, which we've talked about being this proven method based on our 3,100 clients experiences to get people up. So we're focused on quicker time utility, which I think a lot of people are recognizing is valued in this particular economy and market space, and we focused on efficiency. And what we've developed and started to deliver there, our sales team has really become proficient at positioning in collaboration with our services organization. And it's really resonated with mid-market CFOs. And so we're really pleased with it.

[Josh Beck:]

Okay. Great. I also wanted to ask, sounds like there was some nice upside on the strategic products versus plan. Were there certain ones that stood out? Were there may be certain cohorts where maybe the adoption was better? Just any color you can share there.

[Mark Partin:]

Yes. Look, the Transaction Matching and ICH were both very strong in the quarter and Transaction Matching has been trending very positively at both the high end and low end of the market and in existing customers and new customers. It is a great tool for so many of our customers to drive value and efficiency in their software. So for us, it was really just a very robust around those two sales for the quarter.

[Josh Beck:]

Okay. Great. And if I could just squeeze one last one, and I'm not sure if you can comment on it, but it sounded like things progressed positively throughout the quarter. Is July looking a lot like June or is July maybe better or worse? Any other color you can share there?

[Mark Partin:]

Yes. What we did see, you're right, is that we saw an improving trend in the quarter in Q2. So we finished up the quarter very strong, and we're pleased with that. It's still too early to take that experience and that limited data set and apply it to our guidance in Q3 and Q4. So we haven't done that. And instead, what we're doing is being very pragmatic about what we think might be a continued COVID overhang on the demand side and on the risk side. So we've factored that into our guide.

[Josh Beck:]

Makes total sense. Thank you everyone. Appreciate it.

[Mark Partin:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

And our last question comes from Mark Murphy with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Matt Coss:]

Hey, good afternoon. This is Matt Coss on behalf of Mark Murphy. Thanks for taking my questions. And again, congrats to Therese and Marc on the new roles. A quick question for Mark Partin. Was there a change in contract duration? And also, as we think about paid user adds, I know in the past, you've said they're less critical for your growth, given an improvement or increase in the sale of strategic products. Any change in the thinking on paid user adds?

[Mark Partin:]

Yes, got it. Our average contract length remains consistent at about 23 months. And on the user adds, it is one proxy for growth. It's one measure. When we sell strategic products and have a strong quarter like we did in Q2, those don't add users. So we pay attention to it, and we report it because it's key to the expansion within our core platform and we did see good sales in Q2. But if you go back over the last two to three or four quarters, this number can vary on a quarterly basis. And we've been pleased with the last sort of six to nine months. It's tough to look at Q2 on a standalone, given the demand environment.

[Matt Coss:]

Got it. That's helpful. And then one for you, Therese. Since next year, you'll be getting more into full-time product development and customer focus, what do you think your areas of focus will be on the product side? And is there anything out there from an M&A standpoint that potentially looks attractive, if you were to – not exactly what you're going to buy, but if you're going to think of buying a technology, what sort of that technology might that be?

[Therese Tucker:]

Well, Matt, we serve the controller and the office of the CFO. And so that is always going to be our focus, whether we build or buy and is how do we best serve the customer base that we have and our future customers that work in this industry. I actually think a big part of my role going forward is not just sort of what's available now, but also how can technology change the entire industry of accounting and finance, right? How can you actually use some of the newer tools that are coming out? How can you shift so the pain that companies are feeling today from their trying to do a remote audit for the first time, that and so much more can be automated for them. It's pretty exciting to think about what the future can hold. And so I actually get to work on that, and that's pretty cool.

[Matt Coss:]

Thank you very much.

[Therese Tucker:]

Thank you.

[Mark Partin:]

Thanks Matt.

[Operator:]

And there are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to turn it back to Therese Tucker, Founder and CEO, for closing remarks.

[Therese Tucker:]

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Please stay safe and stay well. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.