Paychex (PAYX) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Date

Wednesday, March 25, 2026 at 9:30 a.m. ET

Call participants

• President and Chief Executive Officer — John B. Gibson
• Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer — Robert Lewis Schrader

Takeaways

• Total revenue -- $1.8 billion, representing 20% growth driven by both organic performance and the Paycor integration.
• Adjusted operating income -- Increased 22% year over year, with a margin improvement of approximately 80 basis points to 47.7%.
• Management Solutions revenue -- $1.4 billion, up 23%, with Paycor contributing roughly 19 percentage points of that growth.
• PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue -- $398 million, up 9% primarily due to high-single-digit growth in PEO worksite employees and an increase in insurance revenues.
• Interest on funds held for clients -- $57 million, a 33% increase attributed largely to added Paycor balances.
• Total expenses -- Rose 24% to just over $1 billion, mainly because of the Paycor acquisition; excluding Paycor, expenses grew in the low single digits.
• Diluted EPS -- $1.56, up 9%; adjusted diluted EPS was $1.71, an increase of 15%.
• Cash, restricted cash, and corporate investments -- $1.8 billion as of quarter end; total borrowings about $5 billion.
• Free cash flow -- Increased 27% year over year; operating cash flows nearly $2 billion year to date.
• Stock repurchase and shareholder returns -- $463 million returned this quarter; $1.5 billion year to date via dividends and buybacks; new $1 billion repurchase authorization announced.
• Return on equity -- Twelve-month rolling rate at 41%.
• Guidance update -- Fiscal 2026 guidance reaffirmed except raising interest on funds held for clients to a $200 million–$210 million range.
• Fourth quarter outlook -- Expected revenue growth approximately 12%, with adjusted operating margin of 41%-42%.
• Organic growth trajectory -- First-half organic revenue growth about 4%; back half expected near 6%; full year around 5%.
• Paycor integration -- On track to exceed fiscal 2026 synergy targets; expense synergies reached $100 million; revenue synergies trending at the high end of a 30-50 bps contribution.
• AI capabilities -- Over 500 AI-powered features deployed; AI-driven enrollment workflow leveraged employee-specific data for plan recommendations; agentic AI being scaled across sales and service teams.
• Paychex Perks Marketplace -- Over 25 benefit offerings with purchases from nearly 350,000 unique employees within 18 months.
• PEO bookings and retention -- Double-digit PEO bookings and record retention; high single-digit worksite employee growth; upmarket and broker-referred deal wins increasing.
• Industry recognition -- Paychex Flex and Paycor platforms received two Lighthouse Tech Awards; Ethisphere named Paychex one of the “world’s most ethical companies” for the 18th time.

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Risks

• Only sequential improvement was noted in agency bookings, and ongoing challenges remain in agency and workers’ compensation business lines.

Summary

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) reported double-digit revenue growth and double-digit adjusted earnings growth, fueled by core business acceleration and the successful integration of Paycor. Cross-segment momentum, especially in PEO, Management Solutions, and advisory services, contributed to margin expansion and improved cash flow performance. Management’s upgraded guidance for interest on funds held for clients, robust capital returns, and strategic investments in AI support the company’s forward outlook without altering other guidance items. Operational discipline and cost control, particularly outside Paycor, sustained high margins as Paychex navigated integration and business transformation.

• Management said the cross-sell opportunity from Paycor’s client base and the launch of Paychex Perks into the Paycor ecosystem represent next-stage revenue levers, while expense synergy realization has largely transitioned to business as usual.
• Adjusted margins benefitted from better price realization and lower discounting on annual form filings, which management described as “a bit better than what we assumed,” leading to higher margin realization in the reported quarter.
• Organic growth rates improved in the back half of the year, with underlying business performance in PEO and upmarket wins highlighted as primary drivers beyond timing differences.
• Management indicated sequential improvement in organic growth into the fourth quarter and reiterated comfort with consensus expectations for fiscal 2027, based on visibility from Q3 and Q4 performance.
• AI-based process automation and advisory tools generated significant productivity improvements, with ongoing scaling across all business units expected to foster future margin expansion and strengthen client retention.

Industry glossary

• PEO (Professional Employer Organization): An HR outsourcing arrangement where a provider co-employs a client’s workforce, delivering payroll, benefits, and compliance services while sharing some employer responsibilities.
• ASO (Administrative Services Organization): An HR outsourcing model where the provider handles HR, payroll, and benefits administrative tasks without taking on co-employment risk.
• Worksite employee (WSE): An employee of a client company whose HR, payroll, and benefits are managed by a PEO through a co-employment relationship.
• At-risk 40 MPP Medical Plan: A medical plan structure for worksite employees, referenced as a driver of PEO segment revenue; “MPP” denotes Major Medical Premium Plan.
• Agentic AI: AI systems or agents that operate autonomously across workflows to complete tasks, often leveraging both structured and unstructured data, sometimes described as “agent swarm architecture.”

Full Conference Call Transcript

John B. Gibson: Thanks, Bob. Hello, everyone. I will cover this quarter's operational highlights, and Bob will come back and discuss our financial results and outlook, and then we will open it up for your questions. We delivered a strong quarter with revenue up 20% and adjusted operating income up 22% year over year, driven by effective execution and progress advancing our strategic priorities, most notably the Paycor integration and acceleration of our transformational AI initiatives. In this very dynamic environment, financial strength is important, and our free cash flow generation continues to be robust, as Bob will highlight later.

Amid a dynamic macro backdrop, our clients' workforce levels remained stable, supported by our solutions that help manage costs and source talent in a tight labor market. In a highly regulated industry, our compliance depth, advisory expertise, and award-winning platforms provide a clear competitive advantage in navigating a constantly changing and complex regulatory environment. As we embed AI into our expert-enabled technology, we are strengthening that advantage by leveraging our vast data to scale our expertise, enhance productivity, and elevate client outcomes. As you all know, we operate in HR, benefits, and payroll, some of the most mission-critical aspects of a business. And we are honored that 800,000 clients rely on us for trusted support and advice.

For many of our clients, we effectively serve as their HR department, managing a foundational part of their business. Their people. Errors paying employees, withholding taxes, administrating benefits carry significant regulatory and reputational risk, driving demand for trusted compliance solutions where accuracy matters most. Demand for our comprehensive advisory and benefit solutions remains strong, differentiating us from the tech-only providers. Clients are increasingly turning to our HR professionals for strategic advisory expertise and assistance over routine transactional support. Robust revenue growth in retirement, ASO, and PEO highlights the durability of our model, and reinforces our expectations of a long secular growth runway for these businesses.

Our ASO and PEO worksite employee growth continues to outpace the industry, reflecting our value in navigating regulatory complexity and ensuring compliance, often for clients with no or, as I said, limited HR support. Our PEO business remains strong with high single-digit worksite employee growth, driven by robust demand and record retention rates. Our PEO solution empowers small businesses to offer competitive benefit packages on par with Fortune 500 companies, aiding talent attraction and retention in a tight labor market. January enrollment in our at-risk 40 MPP medical plan went well and in line with our expectations, helping drive sequential revenue growth. We received positive feedback on the new AI-driven benefits intelligence we embedded in the enrollment workflow this year.

It leverages employee-specific data to recommend plan choices and streamline benefits selection. We continue extending our SMB benefit leadership with Paychex Perks, our award-winning digital marketplace offering affordable, transferable benefits to our clients' employees. Perks is a compelling growth opportunity that empowers our clients to offer meaningful benefits with no added cost to the employer or administrative burden. In the first 18 months, Perks has grown to over 25 benefit offerings, with purchases from nearly 350,000 unique employees, creating a direct end user relationship with portable benefits that they can keep if they change employers. By bringing enterprise-level benefits down market, we are enabling our clients to better compete for talent, and addressing a historically underserved market.

The Paycor integration continues to progress well. We remain on track to exceed our fiscal 2026 synergy targets we discussed last quarter. Leading indicators such as bookings and broker referrals have reaccelerated to pre-acquisition levels, and we are adding sales headcount to capture the demand we see. We are gaining momentum cross-selling Paychex, Inc. ASO, PEO, and Retirement Solutions to Paycor's clients, and we continue to win larger-than-expected ASO deals and broker-referred PEO opportunities. This momentum reflects the hard work and alignment of our teams and positions us well going into fiscal year 2027. Our Paychex Flex and Paycor platforms were recognized as industry-leading HCM solutions with two 2026 Lighthouse Tech Awards.

This achievement underscores our commitment to empowering businesses with modern AI-powered solutions that simplify HR processes and drive business outcomes. Integral to our growth strategy, we continue to accelerate embedding AI into our workflows. This amplifies our expertise with human-in-the-loop oversight, and strong governance. We now have over 500 AI-powered capabilities and agents that can drive higher productivity and smarter decisions and outcomes. Our generative AI-powered employment law and compliance platform processed tens of thousands of inquiries this quarter, helping clients and Paychex, Inc. HR experts navigate complex and always-changing wage and employment law. Internally, we are expanding AI use cases to enhance the client experience and sales effectiveness.

Following successful pilots last quarter, we are scaling the use of our voice and email agents for payroll processing, enabling service teams to focus on proactive higher-value advisory support. We also expanded our agentic AI sales and service tools to the entire sales team with a goal to drive revenue growth and efficiency. AI agents orchestrated real-time information across service and product systems, equipping thousands of service personnel to support clients more effectively. This agent swarm architecture really removes prior friction and serves as a foundational capability to future agentic developments. Our strategic AI investments are bolstering our leadership in HCM innovation.

We are moving from insight and efficiency tools to proactive agents that leverage our vast and growing dataset to complete work to drive business success. Payroll and HR, as we know, are mission-critical and highly regulated functions where accuracy and compliance matter more than automation alone. We believe Paychex, Inc.'s proprietary payroll data, regulatory expertise, and advisory relationships create a sustainable advantage that will enable us to responsibly embed AI into our solutions while maintaining a durable competitive moat. In our business, trust is critical. It is not just what you do, but it is how you do it that matters to prospects, clients, partners, employees, and key stakeholders.

That is why I am proud that Paychex, Inc. was once again named one of the world's most ethical companies by Ethisphere for the 18th time. This rare achievement highlights our unwavering commitment to ethical operations and corporate responsibility. Supporting communities is also integral to our identity, and I am pleased that Paychex, Inc. was recognized as a leading corporate partner by United Way Worldwide, reflecting our commitment to making a positive impact where we live and work. Lastly, I would like to thank our team for the exceptional hard work during this busy year-end season and through a very, very challenging year of integration.

The work that they have done to support our clients to come together is truly exceptional, and I think really is positioning us well as we move into fiscal year 2027. I will now turn the call over to Bob to discuss our financial results and outlook.

Robert Lewis Schrader: Thank you, John. I will start with our third quarter financial results, then provide an update on our outlook. Total revenue increased 20% over the prior year to $1.8 billion. This represents an acceleration in the organic growth of the business relative to the first half of the year. Management Solutions revenue grew 23% to $1.4 billion, driven by product penetration and price realization. Paycor contributed approximately 19 percentage points to growth. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue increased 9% to $398 million, driven primarily by strong growth in the number of average PEO worksite employees as well as an increase in PEO insurance revenues.

Interest on funds held for clients increased 33% to $57 million, largely due to the addition of Paycor balances. Total expenses increased 24% to just over $1 billion, primarily driven by the Paycor acquisition. Excluding Paycor, we estimate that expenses grew in the low single digits during the quarter. Operating income margin was 43.8%, and adjusted operating income margins increased approximately 80 basis points to 47.7%, driven by increased productivity and cost discipline while increasing our investments in AI. Diluted earnings per share increased 9% to $1.56 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 15% to $1.71 per share.

Our financial position remains strong with cash, restricted cash, and total corporate investments of $1.8 billion and total borrowings of approximately $5 billion as of the quarter close. Our cash flow generation continues to be a strength of our model. Operating cash flows were nearly $2 billion year to date, and our free cash flows increased 27% year over year. After the quarter closed, we did repay the initial $400 million tranche of debt from our Oasis acquisition that matured in March. Our recent $1 billion stock repurchase authorization underscores our commitment to delivering long-term shareholder value.

We returned $463 million this quarter and over $1.5 billion year to date to shareholders in the form of cash dividends and share buybacks. And our twelve-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 41%. Shifting to our guidance for FY 2026, which is based on current market conditions, we reaffirm our prior fiscal 2026 outlook except for raising our interest on funds held for client expectations. Interest on funds held for clients is now expected to be in the range of $200 million to $210 million. All other guidance metrics remain unchanged.

Turning to the fourth quarter to provide you a little bit of color, we would anticipate fourth quarter growth to be approximately 12% with an adjusted operating margin of 41% to 42%. The fourth quarter growth rate reflects a couple of dynamics. First and foremost, I think most of you know we anniversary the Paycor acquisition during the quarter, and to a lesser extent Q3 benefited modestly from the timing of certain items relative to Q4. However, our second half outlook remains consistent with our expectations and the organic revenue growth acceleration we saw in Q3. We believe Paychex, Inc. has never been better positioned to succeed in the AI era of HCM and deliver shareholder value.

Our business fundamentals remain strong. As the best operators, we have unrivaled operating and free cash flow margins with an opportunity for further expansion. Our financial strength and the durability of our business model are evident in our consistent performance as a Rule of 50 company. We are committed to returning capital to shareholders and confident in our ability to deliver sustained value through continued revenue and earnings growth. I will now turn the call back over to John for questions.

John B. Gibson: Thank you, Bob. We will now open the call to questions.

Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, press 1. To leave the queue at any time, press 2. We do ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Once again, that is 1 to ask a question. And our first question comes from Bryan C. Bergin with TD Cowen. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Bryan C. Bergin: Hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you. Bob, can you put some finer points, just first on the level of organic growth in the third quarter and then bridge that forward to your commentary on the fourth quarter. If you can kind of unpack that 12% growth across the business, I think that would help.

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. Bryan, I think consistently, even if you go back to Q4 of last year, the organic growth of the business has been a bit weaker. I think a lot of that had to do with comparability issues, particularly in the PEO business, with our MPP plan in Florida. But if you go back to Q4 of last year, I think we have seen sequential improvement each quarter in the organic growth of the business. So if you look at first half total revenue organic growth, it was roughly 4%, and that improved from Q1 to Q2.

And then when you look at the back half, whether it is Q3 or Q4 combined, we would expect it accelerated in Q3, and we would expect to see similar organic growth performance in Q4. And so you are now getting to a back-half organic growth rate that is closer to 6%. And then when you put the two of those together, it is roughly 5% on a full-year basis. And so again, I think there are a couple drivers of it. You know, one, to be fair, is the easier compare on the PEO business. I mean, I think you will see that the headline PEO number sequentially went from 6% last quarter to 9%.

There are some timing things there, but, you know, there is certainly strength in the underlying operating performance of the business, particularly in the PEO, and we can get into that probably in maybe some later questions. But we did anniversary the headwind from the MPP enrollment. So that is why you are definitely seeing the combination of an easier compare and stronger operating performance driving accelerated organic growth in the back half of the year.

Bryan C. Bergin: Okay. As far as the 4Q exit rates that are implied, as we think forward into fiscal 2027, any important considerations that you want to share?

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. I will maybe head off the question that I am probably going to get. As it relates to next year and guidance, we are in the early stages, I would tell you, of our operating plan and going to finalize that over the next six to eight weeks. And I know we kind of established a precedent coming out of COVID in providing maybe some more details around what we were thinking for the year. I think we needed to do that given some of the uncertainty in the environment back then.

Our preference now is to kinda build the plan, come out in Q4 like we historically did and consistent with what our competitors do, and provide guidance at that point in time. That being said, we obviously have visibility to what is out there in the models and FactSet. And when I look at that, I really do not see any reason that I need to steer you in one direction or another. I am fairly comfortable with what is out there.

And I think, Bryan, what you will see is the organic growth rate, whether it is Q3 or Q4, we are really looking at the back half because there are some timing differences, particularly in the PEO, between Q3 and Q4. When we look at the organic growth rate in the back half of this year, it pretty much aligns with what is assumed from a consensus standpoint for next year.

Operator: Thank you. And we will take our next question from Mark Steven Marcon with Baird. Your line is now open.

Mark Steven Marcon: Thanks for taking my questions. And nice performance this quarter. I am wondering if you could talk about a couple of things. One, just you did mention that, you know, Paycor was seeing new broker engagements or a renewal of some of the broker engagements and that pipeline. I was just wondering if you could just talk about new sales generally speaking during the core selling season, what did you end up seeing this year, and how would you describe the competitive environment, win rates, etcetera?

John B. Gibson: Hey, Mark. This is John. I would say the competitive environment is stable and the same. It is competitive. I would not say I have seen much change there. From a sales perspective, look, very pleased with our performance in Q3. Not only in line with our expectations, but, you know, quite frankly, we were accelerating PAR and bookings growth in the third quarter. And we have kind of seen that sequentially as we come out of the disruption, as you know, at the start of the year with the integration of teams, continuing to grow there. PEO, double-digit bookings; Paycor, double-digit bookings as well. We actually see bookings in the PAR referral continuing to accelerate back to pre-acquisition levels.

We are actually adding headcount in the enterprise space. Again, remember, Paycor for us is a brand for the enterprise market, 100-plus, and we think that is a great opportunity for our HR outsourcing services as well as technology solutions. And so we are going to continue to go after that as well. So we continue to gain momentum, I think, across the board, and we feel good about where we are positioned going into '27, both in terms of our competitive positioning and our headcount. And I think you really look at it.

I mean, we are entering '27 with all of the integration work behind us that we did early in the beginning of this fiscal year, and we are entering with not only an aligned team, but really the most comprehensive and, I think, flexible and innovative set of solutions in the marketplace. And so I feel good about where we are.

Mark Steven Marcon: That is great to hear. And then I thought the gross margin performance was particularly impressive. You know, when we take a look before defining gross margin as revenue minus the direct costs, and part of that was obviously the higher interest income off of the float. But beyond that, it looks like it is doing extremely well.

How much of that is related to some of the AI initiatives that you have put in place in terms of embedding AI across your service infrastructure and making them more productive versus, you know, other initiatives that you put in place in terms of, you know, perhaps shifting some of your costs to lower-cost labor markets like India, and how much more can we do there? Because it has been fairly impressive. I am wondering if this is basically setting us up for, you know, continued margin expansion for multiple years.

John B. Gibson: Mark, I think that we have a long track record of being able to drive, as the best operators, margin expansion as we grow revenue in the business. And I think you are going to continue to see that. We use every lever imaginable to do that. I think that when you look at AI, as you know, we have been using AI in predecessor type of models for many, many years, since I have been here. And now with this new technology that almost every day something new is coming out, what we are seeing is pretty impressive. It is pretty incredible.

Some of the things we are doing in terms of generative AI models, which we have now released to scale after the pilots, doing voice payroll, doing email payrolls. What we are seeing early stages in our beta groups in sales using our Sales Guru tool and what we are seeing from a service perspective. So I feel good about what the opportunities are. Look, if we grow the top line, we are going to be able to grow margins and expand margins over time. Then when you look at these new tools that we can put in our arsenal, as the best operator, I really feel good about where we are.

And I would say that on '27, we are just getting in. That is a big debate right now. I think that is the big question, is how much, how do you begin to quantify the real positive impact from sales productivity, the way we are using it in marketing, what the potential is from a service perspective. So I can assure you we are going to have some very lively discussions next week during our planning sessions about exactly the potential that this technology has both to drive the top line but also to continue to expand margins. So I think there is more room ahead. And every year, something new comes out.

And we are innovators in that regard. We are going to grab every tool we can to continue to drive efficiency. Thank you.

Operator: We will go next to Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Tien-Tsin Huang: Hey, thanks. Hi, John and Bob. I wanted to ask on the advisory work that you talked a little bit about. I think that is probably underappreciated in terms of what Paychex, Inc. does there. How AI-proof is the advisory side of the business? You know, because I get the question quite a bit that, you know, can rules-based advice from AI come in and supplant what Paychex, Inc. does on the advisory side? But I am guessing that a lot of your advisory work is centered around compliance and very complex data issue that only Paychex, Inc. has. Can you maybe elaborate on that?

John B. Gibson: Yeah. Look, Tien-Tsin, I think this is something I think is extremely interesting for people to understand. For the vast majority of our clients, we are their HR department. Right? So not only do we provide them the advice, we literally are talking to them and holding their hand when they are making some of these decisions and supporting them. You look at our PEO, the most comprehensive part of our model, we are actually in a co-employment arrangement. We are actually helping represent them and deal with their employee situations, which are numerous, I may add, in today’s world.

And so we are actually doing so much more that there is no way that I think technology is going to replace that, at least that I see in the short term. Now your point is we actually own the patent on using agentic AI in a mesh form and structured and unstructured data to answer HR and compliance status. Why is that? Because we have a huge compliance regulatory team that is constantly keeping that system up to date. What I will tell you is the changes in Akron, Ohio are not automated.

Someone has to go on to Akron's website, has to look at it, has to interpret it, has to watch what is going on in Ohio courts to understand how it is being interpreted, and then put that into a system to be able to respond to a client who is asking a question about whether or not they can terminate a client in Akron, Ohio or not. So I think that part of both the—we have got the AI-embedded tools now. We have actually launched those tools inside of our—with our HR generalists. We are actually seeing pretty significant productivity improvements since we have done that.

Our clients, we are embedding that into our platforms so our clients can gain access to that. I think that is going to drive more efficiency. But at the bottom line, for most of our clients, and increasingly upmarket, we are becoming the HR department and HR partner for helping people manage people. So as long as our clients have people, they are going to need Paychex, Inc. holding their hand and helping them understand how to work with those people, in my opinion.

Tien-Tsin Huang: Yeah. Well, I will say your opinion is very important, John. That is why I am asking. And so thank you for going through that. Maybe just as a follow-up, thinking about these agents as they get deployed, and, as you said, the proprietary data that you have, does this get monetized through your normal way—pricing that you typically would put through in the spring—or do you think of this as a new monetizable opportunity for Paychex, Inc.?

John B. Gibson: Well, I think we have been monetizing our data and providing insight going back to the early days. We won the 2022 best use of AI in HCM with our retention insights. That was before all this AI madness fell us. And the fact of the matter is that we have been doing that. We monetize that with our clients and actually provide them insights about how to retain their clients. I think what you are seeing today is we are applying it into our products and services to improve the user experience. We are putting it in there to be able to improve, really, insights that we can provide in other areas such as benefits.

We mentioned what we are doing in the PEO, which was just phenomenal, the way the tool helped advise clients’ employees on what benefits package was right for them. So I think you are going to continue to see us use it to really drive better outcomes. And you made a critical point. In order for AI to work, you have to have a large, robust dataset. And the other thing that we have learned, and particularly when we are building the agentic AI models for payroll, you had to have a constantly moving set of data. And so the way I look at it is this flywheel effect.

Now that we are capturing every interaction that we have from an HR, payroll, and compliance perspective with our clients, through every form of communication, every interaction we have with them or one of their employees adds to our dataset. And with our tools constantly looking and doing the analysis around what are common trends, we are getting more insights. And those insights are allowing us to be more proactive with our clients.

So as the transactional work gets automated, it frees up our time to be able to gain more insights, and then the system is proactively giving our HRGs a list of insights that they can then call clients and make recommendations on, whether that is compensation, whether that is retention, whether that is workplace trends that we are seeing in specific geographies, that they need to be aware of. So I think it is just going to continue to improve the value that we have. And I think it is also going to improve the outcomes that our clients see.

Operator: Thank you. We will move next to Brian Keane with Citi. Your line is now open.

Brian Keane: Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Was hoping you guys could just talk a little bit about the strength of PEO insurance. It jumped above the range at 9%. Can you talk a little bit about some of the drivers and some of the sustainability as we head into the fourth quarter?

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yes. Maybe I will start and then John can add some color. I think it is twofold, Brian, as I alluded to earlier. Think strength in the underlying operating performance of the business. So we saw double-digit demand for PEO. We continue to see record WSE retention in PEO. We saw high single-digit worksite employee growth—you know, this business is all about worksite employees—and we continue to outpace the competitors in that space with our ability to drive worksite employee growth. So the underlying operating performance is strong. January is the big annual enrollment, so we anniversary two things. We anniversary the tougher compares from the prior year when MPP was down. We got through that annual enrollment.

And I would tell you, you know, enrollment in our MPP is up modestly. So you have an easier compare. We drew the enrollment. And then when you zoom out a little bit, and you look at medical enrollment across all the PEO, not just the at-risk business in Florida, but across the entire PEO space, our medical enrollment was up high single digits, near double digits, as we went through this annual enrollment period.

And I think that is the strength of the PEO value proposition, the ability for us to offer to our, you know, small business clients the ability to offer, you know, medical insurance and workers' comp insurance leveraging our scale to be able to offer affordable benefits to them. You know, we had a pretty good year-end enrollment related to that. So it is really a combination of all those factors. I would also just say, and I have alluded to this a little bit, on the agency side we had some timing benefit. You get some timing between Q3 and Q4 between carrier bonuses.

SUI revenue can be a little bit stronger in Q3, a little bit weaker in Q4. And so, you know, relative to our expectations, there was a little bit of timing that came into Q3, but all in all, you know, really strong performance and, you know, pretty much what we planned in the back half of the year, and it is nice to see that coming to fruition.

John B. Gibson: Yeah. I just want to add to this. I mean, the PEO performance is amazing. Outpacing the industry, I think, rather significantly. Double-digit revenue growth, double-digit bookings. Seeing success upmarket, I think this is another point—again, I will make it. It is going to be interesting. We are having success with the Paycor sales team into the broker channels positioning PEO upfront. So this is one of those what I call revenue geography problems. So a Paycor rep is out, and they are talking to a broker, what would it normally have been—because all they have was HCM to sell—it is going to be an HCM sale.

All of a sudden, the discussion comes about what the problem is, and we have got multiple solutions. And now we are selling a PEO. And we had some, and it is larger deals than what we typically would see coming in. So in January, that was another big positive that, quite frankly, I think is going to continue to help us and move forward. I would also say, because I do want to say this, look, the agencies were certainly still a drag in the quarter to the segment. But we saw sequential improvement. And I would actually say even in bookings, which is the precursor to revenue moving, we actually saw solid bookings there in the quarter.

And so I am pleased with the teams. They made a lot of changes there. We have made some changes in the agency. We are trying to be more innovative because the market is the market. Health care issues are health care issues. Soft workers' comp is soft workers' comp. We are building strategies to work around those situations. And the team is making some progress there. So that also contributed a little bit as well.

Other thing that I think I would point out for you guys to go back and look at—and I think it is probably a story that we plan on duplicating in the enterprise space—if you go back and look at our PEO success, and you go back to 2020 to 2025 and look at those five years, I think you are going to find that our CAGR of worksite employee growth is in the double digits and far surpasses any of the other providers that I am aware of, both public and private, in terms of growth. Now what was the setup for that? 2018, we make an acquisition of Oasis.

Prior to that, we made a decision that strategically we were going to position the company as an HR advisory company—that we believe there was more than technology that our clients were going to need and want. We started to really grow our business organically. We then went and made an acquisition. One year after that acquisition, we are growing that business at industry, and we are gaining share in that industry. I think that is exactly what you should expect us to try to do, and we are doing, with the Paycor acquisition. We saw the opportunity to take HR advisory solutions upmarket. We wanted more capability to be able to do that, more distribution.

And now we are a year into it, and I think we are well positioned to duplicate the story that we did in PEO in the enterprise space.

Brian Keane: Got it. Got it. And just a quick follow-up, Bob. The 12% revenue growth you called out for Q4, I think that is a point below the Street. Yeah. But it sounds like some timing—maybe there was a slight benefit, some of the stuff you just talked about, obviously, in the PEO business from Q3 to Q4. But organically, the organic growth does not move much. Maybe just talk about the some of the benefit—maybe if Q3 should be stronger organically than Q4.

Robert Lewis Schrader: No. I think you would probably see a slight uptick, a continued acceleration in the organic growth of the business in Q4 relative to Q3. So we should see sequential improvement there. And, I mean, as you guys know, we do not give quarterly guidance. I am trying to give you some color each call to help you with your models going forward. I would tell you, we were intentionally conservative last quarter when we kind of provided some color on Q3. Obviously, Q3 is a big quarter for us. You have year end. You have selling season. We have our year-end processing fees, which is a lot of money and margin that hits in the month of January.

We had our large enrollment in the PEO. So we were intentionally conservative. I would tell you Q3, you know, was in line, a bit better than our expectations. And as I mentioned, there were some puts and takes between Q3 and Q4, and largely the back half of the year was in line with our expectations. And again, you will continue to see some sequential improvement in the organic growth of the business, assuming we deliver the forecast and guidance. You will continue to see some sequential improvement in the organic growth of the business, which I think positions us well, as John mentioned, as we move into FY 2027.

Operator: Thank you. We will move next to Andrew Owen Nicholas with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Andrew Owen Nicholas: Hi, guys. Good morning. This is Daniel on for Andrew today. Thanks for taking my questions. Real quick, just turning back to the revenue timing. It sounds like that was mostly concentrated in PEO. Is there any way you can size how large that was? And looking forward, can sequential growth in PEO specifically continue into the fourth quarter off of that?

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. I think the growth rate in Q4 will be lower because of some of those things. I do not have the exact percentage. And I think when we—again, if we look at it, the two quarters combined, Daniel, you will see a sequential—or if you look at back half, because of some of those puts and takes between the quarter, you will see a fairly significant lift in the organic sequential growth of the PEO and insurance in the back half relative to the first half.

But the overall growth rate, I think, when you start doing the math, you will see that the math is going to show you that the growth rate is going to be a little bit lower in Q4 than Q3. But when you put the two of them together, it is a fairly big step up in the sequential organic growth relative to the first half of the year.

Andrew Owen Nicholas: That is helpful. And then for my follow-up, going back to the mention of a reacceleration of referrals and bookings to pre-acquisition levels. Can you add any incremental detail on specific areas of momentum there and maybe just level set, after a few quarters of integration, where the lion's share of the synergy opportunities now sit, whether that is on the revenue or the cost side.

John B. Gibson: Yeah. Yeah, Daniel. What I would say is very pleased with the acceleration we have seen each quarter as we came through the first quarter when we did all of the reorganization. As we talked about, we made a conscious decision when the deal closed almost a year ago now, April a year ago, that we were going to get the hard work out of the way. And we saw the opportunity rather than dragging it out. So we took—we did that.

And, of course, from the time you announced the deal in January of last year to the time that we closed the deal in April, as you can imagine, a lot of competitive noise in the market, a lot of questions from brokers about what is going to happen. And we could not say much. As we have gotten our story out there and gained momentum, continued to build momentum each of the quarters. And as we said, we have gotten ourselves back to where we were pre—both in terms of bookings volume—was double digits, again, year over year—and broker engagement.

So I would say it is getting back to kinda where we were except for now we have the cross-sell opportunity. So I would say, you know, expense synergies are pretty much behind us at this point in time. We have taken those actions. We have exceeded the expectations that we laid out, part of the deal model. Now you are in what I call normal DNA—best operators—continuing to improve the model of both companies and look for opportunities. Where the opportunity is now, and we continue to build momentum on, is around the cross-sell inside the client base—401(k)s, ASO, PEO, all of our other products and services.

You will be seeing us putting our Perks product into the Paycor ecosystem as well. So that is where we see the opportunity as we roll into fiscal year 2027.

Operator: Thank you. We will go next to Kevin McVeigh with UBS. Your line is now open.

Kevin McVeigh: Great. Thank you so much. Hey, I wonder, can you just remind us what the initial Paycor revenue and expense synergies were and where we are today on those? Because it seems like you have been doing a nice job on the kind of the integration. But just remind us what the, again, the revenue and expense synergies were. I guess we are bumping up on a year. I think that would help.

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. Kevin, if you go back to, I think, when we originally announced the deal, and now I am kinda losing track of the quarters. But at one point in time, I think the expense synergies were in the $80 million to $90 million range. I think the last update that we gave was that we expected those to be in the $100 million range. And as John said, now we are kinda moving into BAU. We will continue to look for opportunities, and we have not stopped even though we kinda exceeded our target. And I think we have ideas, certainly in areas around procurement and things like that. I think there are additional opportunities.

But that was kind of the last update on the expense synergy. And then I think the update we gave on revenue synergies was a current-year update. We expected it to contribute 30 to 50 basis points of growth this year. I would say we are probably on the high end of that. And as John said, we are building momentum. And really, listen, I think the expense synergies are not why we did the deal. I think they probably justified the purchase price, but really the value creation opportunity longer term with this deal is the cross-sell.

We know we are extremely effective and have driven a lot of growth in our model by selling and expanding the share of wallet within our existing client base. When we look at where that growth has come from, our higher-value solutions—ASO, PEO, retirement solutions—you know, those are that John mentioned play well more upmarket. And so, listen, I think we are excited about the opportunity. Paycor average client size is quite a bit larger than ours, and those clients are more apt to have some of the needs that those solutions meet. We are trying to be intentional and cautious and thoughtful in going after the opportunity.

We know that while we are extremely effective at doing it, it might not always be the best client experience, and so we are trying to go after it the right way, and we are building a lot of momentum there. And as we move forward, we expect to continue to be able to capitalize on that opportunity.

Kevin McVeigh: Helpful. And then just a real quick follow-up. John, you had some great commentary on AI opportunity. As you think about AI across a 100-person client as opposed to an eight, is the go-to-market strategy on that different in terms of the consumption patterns, or, you know, how are you positioning for—because, obviously, you know, you serve a terrific market from kinda micro to medium. Just any thoughts on, you know, the shift in the go-to-market through an AI lens?

John B. Gibson: Well, I think, Kevin, I will take a shot at it. As I said, for the vast majority of our clients, we are their HR department. And you mentioned the eight-man company. They do not have an HR director. Right? Probably do not have any payroll person. I think the thing that you find with our ASO and our PEO business is that a lot of the clients are foregoing building that capability. Right? So what they are saying is, why would I build a department when I can leverage Paychex, Inc. at scale—their technology—now you get their datasets and our insights and our HR expertise and depth of knowledge.

And, oh, by the way, we have actually employment lawyers on staff that support those people. So you are getting, you know, a lot more capability. So people are avoiding building HR departments. So I think the value proposition there is I am going to leverage something at scale. And AI really makes—if you are a scale player—really makes a big difference, is what I will tell you. Because I have a lot more insights about what restaurants are paying in Rochester, New York or San Francisco. I have got that data. I can bring that together and now present it in a way to give you advice.

If you had your own HR director, you are not going to get that. So those are things we can do. When you get into 100-plus, and I would actually say even larger than that, what has been a pleasant surprise to us as we have had more conversations with the Paycor client base is how much they are looking for our support. So now you are talking a 250- or 500-person company that does have an HR department that is probably understaffed and underequipped, and we can bring our expertise, our technology, our additional support staff, and begin to augment their HR organization and allow their people to spend more time on strategic HR activity.

So I think when you start looking at companies trying to figure out how do I become more efficient, what I think you are going to find companies ask themselves is, yeah, do I apply AI into my HR department and try to make it a little more efficient? Or should I really radically think about my HR department differently? Right? Should I go and leverage someone who can provide both the tools and the people and have the breadth of the data we have to provide the insights? Is that a better alternative? And that is a, you know, traditional enterprise HR outsourcing value proposition.

I think AI allows us to do that at scale and do it at all sizes of market. So one of the things we have actually begun to introduce at Paycor that they have is a managed payroll and a managed benefit offering. So now, you know, where typically the tech players say, here is the tool, knock yourself out, we are now, and we are getting clients that are asking us, would you mind doing it for us or doing it with us? And so now we are approaching that market with either you can buy our tech and get technical support or you can come and we can do it for you.

So I am really excited about the opportunity here. And I think, at scale, AI takes large datasets. We have large datasets, and I think we can add value to our clients and their HR departments regardless of whether they are eight people or 100 people.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Samad Saleem Samana with Jefferies. Hi, good morning and thanks for taking my questions.

Samad Saleem Samana: Good to hear it sounds like trends are getting pretty good. You had mentioned recently that maybe the initial land per client was a little bit smaller than historical or, like, fewer add-on modules at the point of sale. I am curious if you have seen that trend change as well. Was that a onetime kind of occurrence, what you saw last quarter, and if that has improved? And then I have one question. Thank you.

John B. Gibson: Yes. So I would say that the market has been relatively stable in that regard. I think we probably had higher expectations going into the year about the number of modules that we would be able to, you know, add. And I would say that did not change much in Q3 selling season from what we saw before.

Samad Saleem Samana: Understood. And then in the PEO business, I think that as we all try to figure out what is happening under the hood in terms of different verticals and what the employment outlook looks there. Can you remind us what the kind of vertical exposure inside of the PEO business is, broadly speaking, versus, let us call it, white collar, blue collar? And then related, just as you think about that high single-digit PEO WSE growth, how much of that is driven by net new deals versus headcount growth within the installed base? Thank you again.

John B. Gibson: Yeah. So on the industry thing, again, as big as we are, we are very broad in terms of where we are. Now I would say that when you look at our aggregate business—because we did an analysis on this—and you look at the actual job codes of our employee bases across the business, and I would say there is not a major variance in the PEO business. We skew a little bit more towards the blue and gray than what you would see in the general workforce. Again, some of that has to do with your large enterprises are more white collar. So you get up 5,000–10,000, you have more white collar type of jobs.

So a little bit more blue and gray across the business, and I think that applies to the PEO. We had good net new client and worksite employee gain in the PEO. I would say that is the entire driver. I mean, the installed base has been relatively flat, and it is most years. I mean, it is driven by the double-digit demand that we talked about, Samad, as well as the record retention. So it really is net new that is driving the growth in worksite employees.

Operator: Thank you. We will go next to Ramsey El-Assal with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

Ramsey El-Assal: Hi. Thank you for taking my question this morning. I wanted to ask about something you mentioned, which was that Paycor bookings had reaccelerated to pre-acquisition levels. How should we think about the bookings conversion to revenues for Paycor relative to legacy Paychex, Inc.? Do the larger clients translate into sort of a slower conversion process or not so much?

John B. Gibson: Yeah. It is a little longer than what we are used to. I think that is a fair—so there is a couple-quarter lag, as near as I can tell. Again, just what I see in the data is a couple quarters. Yeah. Obviously depends on the size of the client, but it is much longer than ours where you could sell them and implement them in the same day, same week. So yep.

Ramsey El-Assal: And is that the same for—I mean, I would understand that would be the case for sort of a new client implementation, but does that also apply to cross-sell or new product attach? Or is that something that you can kind of turn on more quickly?

John B. Gibson: Yeah. That is far more quickly. I mean, again, those cadences—if you recall, one of the things, again, that we did is to drive all the disruption upfront. And we integrated all of our ancillary products within, I think it was probably the first quarter post the acquisition. So those things are very similar to the legacy Paychex, Inc.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from James Eugene Faucette with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

James Eugene Faucette: Great. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask a quick macro question and, I guess, tie it to a margin question. You mentioned that you still see kind of a tight labor environment. Just wondering if you can provide any anecdotes or color on that comment. And then as it relates to margins, I know you said that you expect there is some margin expansion to go. Just wondering how we should think about the Paycor integration and how that matures and, you know, getting past some of these acquisition-related costs because they still look elevated. Just looking for a little color on the timing around those couple things. Thanks a lot, guys.

John B. Gibson: Okay. Well, I think on the macro side, I think what we said is and what we see is that it has been relatively stable. It is really a low-fire and a low-hire type of environment right now. We have not seen a significant change in this fiscal year in terms of the small business index that we report. And, again, I think we are in a dynamic environment right now where, again, what we hear from clients, particularly in the small end of the market, less than 50, is continued inability to find qualified people for the jobs that they have open. We are doing a lot of things to try to support them there.

Then I think you have got a degree of potential hesitancy to add in this uncertain environment as you move up market. But, again, when we look across the business, it has been relatively flat in payment levels.

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. And just on the integration-related stuff question as it relates to margin, James. I mean, we are backing a lot of stuff out, so that is really not included in the adjusted operating margins that, you know, I think if you were to look at our margins from a GAAP standpoint, they are still pretty high, probably in the 40% range. But I think John hit on it. I think we still think there is room as we move forward. As we continue to embed AI in all of our processes across the company, we feel like there is still plenty of room to expand margins.

That is certainly part of our DNA, and we are always trying to make that trade-off of trying to find ways to be more productive, more efficient so we can, you know, expand margins, continue to deliver the strong, you know, earnings growth that our investors have come accustomed to, and at the same time make sure that we are investing back into the business, which is a priority for us to make sure we have a sustainable model as we move forward. So, you know, we will continue—that has been our model. That is how we go about our business here.

And I think today, adjusted margins are high from a non-GAAP standpoint, but given some of the advancements in technology, we feel like we still have a runway to be able to shuffle all those different priorities and expand margins.

James Eugene Faucette: Thanks so much, John. Thanks, Bob.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Jester with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Daniel Jester: Hey, good morning. This is Kyle Aberastry on for Dan Jester. Thank you for squeezing me in here. Just a quick one from me. I was wondering if you guys quantified how much impact the annual form filing revenue had on the business in the quarter? Thank you.

Robert Lewis Schrader: How much impact it had? I mean, it is always a large number in Q3. I would say probably consistent with maybe where it was in prior years. Obviously, it is pretty high-margin revenue, so that is why you see the higher margins in Q3 relative to the rest of the year. I would say the one comment related to the year-end filing, definitely saw a little bit better price realization. The discounting on that was better than what we had seen historically and certainly a little bit better than what we had assumed in our forecast.

That is a lever that sales reps can use, particularly as they are getting towards the end of the calendar year and selling new deals—that is kind of a discounting lever that they use. And we fly a little bit blind in finance because we do not really know how that is going to come through until it actually bills in January. I would tell you that the discount on it and the price realization was a bit better than what we assumed. But, you know, not a big growth driver year over year and similar performance probably to what we have seen in past years.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from David Grossman with Stifel. Your line is now open.

David Grossman: Good morning. Thank you. I think last quarter, your bias was the low end of the revenue growth range. And I am just wondering, in reiterating the guide, are we still favoring the low end or just given some of your commentary about the third quarter and going into the fourth quarter, are you feeling better about the business and feeling maybe we are better than the low end?

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. I think we would stay where we are at, David. That is why we reiterated, as we mentioned. Listen, I think we were a little bit conservative in what we guided towards in Q3. There were some puts and takes. I mean, obviously, we feel good about the business. We felt good about the business last quarter as well. It is nice getting through Q3 and throwing up the quarter that we had. John mentioned a lot of positive momentum. I would have to say it is probably one of the stronger selling seasons that I have seen in a while, and we have a lot of momentum in a number of businesses. So we feel good.

Obviously, that translates into the P&L, you know, further down the road, particularly when you are talking about, you know, the enterprise space. And so I would say largely the back half, as I mentioned, is in line with our expectations, and that is why we are kinda leaving it where we had said it was going to be last quarter.

David Grossman: Got it. And sorry to kind of stick on the financials here, but just—you did make a general comment about a certain level of comfort with where consensus was for next year. And I know you do not want to make any specific comments about next year, but is there anything now that you are a combined company in how we should think about pays or pricing in Management Solutions going into next year, particularly given now that we have got Paycor in the base? I know it sounds like pays look like they are, you know, pretty stable, but thought I should just ask the question. Anything you want to call out there in either pays or pricing?

John B. Gibson: No. David, I do not think there are any changes that we are making in any of our assumptions. I think, as you know, we had clients of all sizes before we had Paycor. We have added more upmarket. But I think relative to our assumptions and what we are expecting, we are expecting a very similar macro environment that we are seeing right now in a very uncertain time. And that is the other thing that I am sure Bob and I are going to be having a lot of conversations about.

And by the time we, you know, consult with the board in a few months and we come back to you, hopefully, we have even more certainty about the external environment and what the risks are going into '27. So we are trying to be prudent here. As you can imagine, this is a very unique time on a macro basis. And, you know, every day something could change that could impact where we are. Right now, we feel in good shape. What we are seeing is a stable macro environment, no signs of recession in any of our data or indicators.

Nothing that would indicate that we would change what we are thinking in terms of pays on any of our segments at this point in time.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jacob Smith with Guggenheim Securities. Your line is now open.

Jacob Smith: Quick one, just—you are a second company in the mid-market through Paycor really talking about expanding headcount to capture opportunity. Just what are you seeing out there that is giving you conviction?

John B. Gibson: Well, I think the key thing is going into that, we, you know, we have a list of—we know who the clients are and prospects are, and we have territories, and we have open territories that we want to fill. And we are continuing to expand that. I think before we bought Paycor, they were expanding headcount because they saw more opportunity. And we believe now, with our comprehensive offerings that we have, the opportunity has expanded. And so that is what gives us confidence to be able to expand the headcount and go after and capture the upmarket, not only for HCM but, as I said, really bringing our entire HR advisory value proposition to the enterprise market.

Jacob Smith: Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Ashish Sabadra: Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could provide some color on the year-on-year growth in Paycor in the quarter. And if you could quantify the contribution for form filings for Paycor in the quarter? Thanks.

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah, Ashish. I mean, I think as we have talked about in the past, you know, the lines are somewhat blurred and have become increasingly blurred between what is Paycor and what is Paychex, Inc., you know, based on our early-on decision to integrate those two businesses. And so I think if we look at it, our best estimate is if you were to look at the organic growth of the Paycor business, it was consistent in Q3 with what we saw in the first half of the year, which is in that upper single-digit range.

I would tell you what is less blurred—and this is how we will talk about the business as we move forward—is when we look at our enterprise business. So when we look at our client base above 100, irrespective of whether, you know, which sales organization sold it, which platform that it was on, that business has been growing. I would tell you in the first half of the year, it was growing upper single digits. And in Q3, it grew around 10%. And so that is how we are managing the business. That is how John and I are thinking about it. That is how we are going to market.

And as we move forward, after we anniversary the acquisition and we provide color on, you know, the different areas of the business and how they are performing, that is how we are going to be looking at it. And, again, I think that is, you know, similar and maybe not too different than what the other assets in that space are growing at. And our expectation would be that we would prospectively be growing at or above the other assets in that segment of the market. And that is currently where that space performed in Q3.

Ashish Sabadra: That is very helpful color. I was just wondering if you had some initial thoughts on pricing for next year and how does that trend compare to your historical range? And also maybe a quick one on discounting. You made some comment around discounting was much lower. I think that was specifically for forms filing. I was wondering if you could comment on discounting for ASO in general.

John B. Gibson: Thanks. Yeah. So I want to say this. We are going into our budget meeting. This is where we discuss competitively how we want to position ourselves going into the next market. We have a tradition of being able to drive value to our clients and get price accordingly. So I am not going to make any comments on how we are going to set pricing going into next year at this time. So I do not want to give anybody a heads up. But I think our model and our long-term model is still in existence and viable. But we are not going to talk about the exact ranges we are looking at.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Darren Wurtzel with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Scott Darren Wurtzel: Hey, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. I will limit it to one. Just going back to the PEO, I mean, it sounded like your commentary on enrollment sounded pretty positive. And I remember, I think, you guys made some changes to benefits offerings and everything. But I also wonder, is there any elements of—you think that employees are maybe just sort of adjusting to this higher health care premium inflation environment, and that could also be, you know, kind of helping to drive some of this enrollment growth that we have seen as well. Thanks.

John B. Gibson: Yeah. Yeah, Scott. I think everyone is adjusting. I think we adjusted our plan designs. I think employees are adjusting in terms of what they are going to do, and employers are adjusting how they are going. You know, I mentioned the use of AI. I will say this. In tests where AI was used and where it was not, the choices that employees made, I think, improved their outcomes and improved our outcomes. So that—and what do I mean by that? As you know, you can immediately go to the cheapest plan.

But given your circumstances or what you spent last year or changes that may have happened in your life relative to, you know, dependents, that may not be the most economic plan for you to participate in. These AI tools' ability to model that for you—for you to maybe make the middle plan choice versus the lower plan choice—is, like I said, a better outcome for the participant and, of course, that impacts benefit for us as well because it is a higher-priced plan.

Scott Darren Wurtzel: Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Kartik Mehta with Northcoast Research. Your line is now open.

Kartik Mehta: John, you talked about Paycor revenue synergies as we go into FY '27, and the opportunity to really take advantage of that. I am wondering how the Salesforce alignment is going because I am guessing, you know, that is part of the revenue synergies that you would be able to capture.

John B. Gibson: Yeah. So on the alignment question, just so everyone is kind of clear, Kartik—and this is, I think, the challenge, and that, you know, hopefully, we do not talk about Paycor anymore going forward. Because Paycor for us is a brand that we are using to go and target the enterprise market, as we are designing 100-plus. And we have taken all the assets of the company regardless of where they were and we have placed them in that business unit for that unit to focus on that particular market. We are doing marketing there specifically for that target segment. So now we are spending marketing money in that segment.

We are putting sales reps into that segment to go after that segment. And we are going to capture as much of the market as we can at 100-plus. Now once, let us say, a lead comes in, digitally, from marketing spend at Paycor, and we look at that lead and we go, hey. That looks like a great PEO opportunity. We are going to move that over to the PEO. Right? And so now all of a sudden, you have got an expense that is on the Paycor side of the equation. Same thing is happening with our reps as well. So we have got this segment—if this is your question—the segmentation of the Salesforce is clear.

How we are going to market from a brand perspective is clear. And then what we are doing is both in terms of using our AI and also our incentives for all of our sales reps is making sure we have every sales rep in the market looking and representing the entire capabilities of the company. And so that goes back to every rep is representing the comprehensive capabilities of the company, whether that is technology, whether that is the platform, whether that is do it yourself, do it for you, or do it with you. We are offering every rep in every market the capability to do that, if that makes sense.

Kartik Mehta: Yeah. And then just a follow-up question, Bob. And this might be crazy considering it is Paychex, Inc., but I thought I would ask anyways. Any thought about potentially using a little bit of leverage to buy back stock considering the stock price is?

Robert Lewis Schrader: Yeah. I mean, Kartik, listen. I think you saw we just recently announced a new share buyback authorization, significantly larger than what we have had in the past. And when you look at, you know—there is obviously, at least in my opinion—there is a disconnect between the underlying fundamentals of the business and the valuation. And that obviously, you know, I was always taught to, you know, buy low and sell high. And so you have seen us be a little bit more opportunistic there.

I would tell you, I do not think we have necessarily changed our overall philosophy around share buybacks, but we know we are going to have to buy shares back in the future to offset dilution. And we have done more of that this year than what we normally would have, as you guys can see in some of the disclosures. So, you know, I do not ever want to say never. Our leverage is pretty low. That is obviously a board-level decision. And as you can imagine, I am assuming a lot of CEOs and CFOs in this market are having these with their board on a regular basis, and John and I are certainly doing that.

And so we will continue. We have lots of priorities from a capital allocation standpoint. Certainly, we want to continue investing in the business. But we will continue to have those conversations. So I do not want to say never, but, you know, it is something that we will continue to evaluate.

Operator: And our next question comes from Jason Alan Kupferberg with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Jason Alan Kupferberg: Thanks, guys. Good morning. I wanted to ask about Management Solutions specifically. I think the organic growth was 4% in the quarter. I think that is the same as we saw last quarter. Do we expect that to accelerate in Q4? And if so, is that because you will start to lap Paycor during the quarter? Or would there be other accelerants we should be considering? Thanks.

Robert Lewis Schrader: Hey, Jason. Yes. I would say, you know, I think it was 4% in Q2 and 4% in Q3. I would tell you, one was around up and one was probably around down. So you are also seeing sequential improvement in the organic growth of Management Solutions as well. Part of it is when you get to Q4, we would expect that to continue and maybe accelerate a little bit. To the point that you are making, you are anniversarying the acquisition, so now we have a scale business that is growing faster than the overall growth of the business. So that would be accretive to the organic growth.

And then we are continuing to build momentum on the synergy opportunity, and I think that showed up in the Q3 selling results, and that will eventually make its way into the P&L. And so you should see improvement in Management Solutions organic growth as we move into Q4 as well.

Jason Alan Kupferberg: Okay. Understood. And then just a clarification. I know we are not changing EPS guidance, but we did up income guide a little bit, which I would have thought would have lifted the EPS, I do not know, maybe a percent or so. I mean, there is only a quarter left in the year. So just curious, is it just some conservatism there leaving the EPS guide as is? Or are you going to reinvest some of that upside? Slightly a combination of both.

Robert Lewis Schrader: I think we are certainly going to look for opportunities as we move through the balance of this year to invest. We want to get out of the gate strong when we get into next fiscal year. So it is always balancing those trade-offs, Jason. You know, John and I will manage through that as we go through the quarter and see where the opportunities are. But it is really, you know, a combination of maybe a little conservatism and where we may potentially want to take advantage and make some investments as we end the year.

John B. Gibson: Yes. The great position we find ourselves in is we have plenty of opportunities for investment coming out of the third quarter that have the opportunity to both accelerate growth and accelerate margin expansion. And that is—you know, we have got a lot of decisions to make over the next couple weeks as we go through our planning process. And anything that we are thinking is a good investment in the first quarter in '27, I do not think with that we want to wait to make that investment. So we are certainly trying to contemplate that as we go into our planning session next week.

Operator: Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions in queue. I will now turn the meeting back to John B. Gibson.

John B. Gibson: Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. Just to highlight, we delivered strong double-digit revenue and earnings growth, continuing just really to reflect, I think, very strong execution and focus of the teams. I do want to call out, you know, we are approaching a one-year anniversary mark of the acquisition of Paycor. And I want to call out the Paycor team in particular. The group has been through a lot.

If you think back a year ago this day and what we were starting to prepare for and take the organization through, and I think the way that we have responded and the way we have continued to come together and build momentum throughout this fiscal year has come together and has been just really impressive. I said it a year ago: we will be better together. And we are better together. And, you know, I point to you the example of what we did in the PEO industry and how we focused on that strategically many years ago.

I think that is a good model for us to replicate as we go into fiscal year 2027 and beyond in the enterprise space. So I think Paychex, Inc. has never been better positioned than it is today. I think we have differentiated ourselves in the marketplace repeatedly. I think in this new AI era, our scale, our breadth, our capabilities from an expertise perspective, and the fact that we are dealing in mission-critical type of work where errors are costly, I think that you are going to continue to find more and more clients of all sizes turn to Paychex, Inc. to be their HR department and to provide them leading-class technology and advisory solutions in the years ahead.

So I like where we are positioned, and I want to thank you for your interest in Paychex, Inc.

Operator: Thank you.

John B. Gibson: We appreciate your time and participation.

Operator: This brings us to the end of today’s meeting. You may now disconnect.

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