自動資料處理 (ADP) 2021 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Crystal, and I'll be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to ADP's Third Quarter Fiscal 2021 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions)

早安.我叫克麗絲塔爾，我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表ADP公司歡迎各位參加2021財年第三季財報電話會議。（操作說明）

I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Danyal Hussain, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

現在我將把會議交給投資者關係副總裁丹尼爾·侯賽因先生。請繼續。

Thank you, Crystal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining ADP's Third Quarter Fiscal 2021 Earnings Call and Webcast. Participating today are Carlos Rodriguez, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kathleen Winters, our Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝你，克麗絲塔爾。各位早安，感謝各位參加ADP 2021財年第三季財報電話會議及網路直播。今天出席的有我們的總裁兼執行長卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，以及我們的財務長凱瑟琳·溫特斯。

Earlier this morning, we released our results for the quarter. Our earnings materials are available on the SEC's website and our Investor Relations website at investors.adp.com, where you will also find the investor presentation that accompanies today's call.

今天早些時候，我們發布了本季業績報告。我們的收益報告資料可在 SEC 網站和我們的投資者關係網站 investors.adp.com 上查閱，您也可以在那裡找到今天電話會議的投資者簡報。

During our call, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures which we believe to be useful to investors and that exclude the impact of certain items. A description of these items, along with the reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release.

在電話會議中，我們將提及我們認為對投資者有用的非GAAP財務指標，這些指標排除了某些項目的影響。這些項目的說明，以及非GAAP指標與其最可比較GAAP指標的調節表，可以在我們的獲利報告中找到。

Today's call will also contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risks. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations.

今天的電話會議還將包含一些前瞻性陳述，這些陳述涉及未來事件和一些風險。我們建議您查閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以獲取有關可能導致實際結果與我們目前預期存在重大差異的因素的更多資​​訊。

And with that, let me turn it over to Carlos.

那麼，現在讓我把麥克風交給卡洛斯。

Thank you, Danny, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. This morning, we reported another strong set of quarterly results that were ahead of our expectations, with revenue growth of 1% and adjusted EBIT margin down 90 basis points, combining for a modest adjusted diluted EPS decline of 2%.

謝謝丹尼，也謝謝各位參加我們的電話會議。今天早上，我們公佈了另一組強勁的季度業績，超出預期，收入增長 1%，調整後 EBIT 利潤率下降 90 個基點，兩者合計導致調整後攤薄每股收益小幅下降 2%。

This, of course, was the final quarter before we begin to lap the impact of the pandemic. And I'm very proud of our organization's ability to have delivered positive revenue and earnings growth for the first 9 months of the fiscal year despite unprecedented challenges in the economy and the labor markets.

當然，這是疫情影響逐漸消退之前的最後一季。儘管經濟和勞動力市場面臨前所未有的挑戰，但我為我們公司在本財年的前 9 個月實現了正的收入和利潤增長感到非常自豪。

I'll start with a review of some of our key performance drivers and an update on the operating environment we've been experiencing. This quarter, our Employer Services New Business Bookings reaccelerated, and we delivered 7% growth, a strong result for the team. The improved year-over-year growth compared to the second quarter was driven by every business unit. Importantly, we ended the quarter on a particularly strong note, with record March sales performance that was well above pre-pandemic fiscal 2019 levels, which we see as a positive signal for client engagement in the quarters ahead.

我將首先回顧我們的一些關鍵績效驅動因素，並介紹我們所處的運行環境的最新情況。本季度，我們的雇主服務新業務預訂量重新加速成長，實現了 7% 的成長，這對團隊來說是一個強勁的成績。與第二季相比，年成長率的提高是由所有業務部門共同推動的。重要的是，我們以特別強勁的勢頭結束了本季度，3 月份的銷售業績創下歷史新高，遠超疫情前的 2019 財年水平，我們認為這是一個積極的信號，預示著未來幾個季度客戶參與度將有所提高。

The selling environment will likely continue to evolve month-to-month and with differences on a regional basis, as COVID cases and the reopening trajectories stabilize. We are optimistic that with vaccine deployment progressing steadily, our clients are in the best position since the pandemic started to begin making buying decisions again. Also encouraging is that we started to hold more in-person sales meetings, with over 1/3 of our field sales force having conducted at least 1 in-person meeting this quarter. We expect in-person engagement to pick up over the coming quarters as well.

隨著新冠病例和重新開放軌跡趨於穩定，銷售環境可能會繼續逐月變化，並且因地區而異。我們樂觀地認為，隨著疫苗部署穩步推進，我們的客戶目前處於疫情爆發以來最佳的購買決策階段。令人鼓舞的是，我們開始舉行更多面對面的銷售會議，超過三分之一的現場銷售人員在本季至少舉行過一次面對面會議。我們預計未來幾個季度線下互動也會增加。

With our Q3 performance and the trajectory we see in Q4, we're pleased to narrow our bookings range around a higher midpoint. We now expect growth of 20% to 25% for the year versus 15% to 25% prior. Achieving this growth rate would put us at full year sales productivity close to 90% of pre-pandemic levels, which would be an incredible achievement for our sales associates.

鑑於我們第三季的業績以及第四季的發展趨勢，我們很高興將預訂範圍縮小到更高的中點附近。我們現在預計今年的成長率為 20% 至 25%，而先前的預期為 15% 至 25%。實現這一成長率將使我們的全年銷售效率接近疫情前水準的 90%，這對我們的銷售人員來說將是一項了不起的成就。

Our retention, which has been a key driver for our strong results this year, was a positive development once again and performed slightly ahead of even our revised and elevated expectations. Retention remains at record levels.

今年，我們的客戶留存率一直是推動我們取得強勁業績的關鍵因素，而今年的客戶留存率再次取得了積極進展，甚至略微超過了我們修訂和提高後的預期。用戶留存率仍維持在歷史最高水準。

Many of you have been asking about how sustainable this improved retention performance is for ADP. It's a great question and hard to answer with precision given the unpredictable environment we're all in. But our belief is that during the pandemic, there have been some temporary benefits from client hesitancy to make major decisions, plus lower out-of-business losses given government support in North America and Europe. But we also believe there will be enduring benefit resulting from the record client satisfaction we've seen as our product and service both have continued to improve.

很多人都在問，ADP 這種顧客留存率提升的局面能否持續下去。這是一個很好的問題，但鑑於我們所處的不可預測的環境，很難給出精確的答案。但我們認為，在疫情期間，由於客戶不願做出重大決定，加上北美和歐洲政府的支持，企業倒閉造成的損失減少，這帶來了一些暫時的好處。但我們也相信，隨著我們的產品和服務不斷改進，客戶滿意度屢創新高，這將帶來持久的益處。

Next quarter, we expect to be in a better position to talk about retention expectations for fiscal 2022. But clearly, we feel very good about what we've achieved this year. On the back of our record Q3 performance, we're pleased to raise our guidance and now expect full year retention to be up at least 125 basis points from 2020 versus our prior guidance of up 100 basis points. As a reminder, this guidance would put us in record territory for the year.

下個季度，我們預計能夠更好地討論 2022 財年的員工留存預期。但很顯然，我們對今年所取得的成就感到非常滿意。鑑於我們第三季創紀錄的業績，我們很高興上調業績預期，現在預計全年客戶留存率將比 2020 年至少提高 125 個基點，而我們之前的預期是提高 100 個基點。提醒一下，按照這個指導方針，我們將創下今年的最高紀錄。

Moving to the overall employment picture. Our pays per control metric performance was softer than expected as it improved only modestly from Q2 and rounded again to a decline of 6% for Q3. But that said, we are encouraged by the recent trends in employment data, particularly in the U.S., as more of the economy reopens. As of April, we've now started to lap the pandemic-affected pays per control figures and have been pleased with the positive year-over-year growth we've seen so far in Q4. So we're making no change to our full year pays per control outlook of down 3% to 4%.

接下來我們來看整體就業情勢。我們的按控制付費指標表現不如預期，僅比第二季略有改善，第三季又下降了 6%。但即便如此，我們對近期就業數據的趨勢感到鼓舞，尤其是在美國，因為越來越多的經濟活動正在重新開放。截至 4 月，我們已經開始擺脫疫情影響下的每股盈餘數據，並對第四季迄今所看到的同比成長感到滿意。因此，我們對全年每股收益預期仍維持不變，預計將下降 3% 至 4%。

I'd like to now provide an update on some of our key product and strategic initiatives. In February, we announced the launch of Roll, a new payroll and tax filing product for small businesses. Roll combines the simplicity of an AI-driven, chat-based interface with the power and scale of our payroll and tax filing expertise, sold digitally and delivered through an app-only interface.

現在我想就我們的一些關鍵產品和策略舉措提供最新進展。今年二月，我們宣布推出 Roll，這是一款小型企業的全新薪資和報稅產品。Roll 將 AI 驅動的聊天介面的簡潔性與我們強大的薪資和稅務申報專業知識相結合，以數位化方式銷售，並透過僅限應用程式的介面交付。

With this offering, we believe we can expand our reach into the U.S. small business market beyond the businesses we've historically targeted with RUN, as the target clients for Roll users have simpler needs who prioritize a mobile-first, fully chat-based interface. This is a different set of users compared with the target clients for a more comprehensive RUN solution. We look forward to sharing Roll's progress with you in the quarters ahead.

我們相信，透過這項服務，我們可以將業務拓展到美國小型企業市場，而不僅限於我們過去透過 RUN 瞄準的企業，因為 Roll 用戶的目標客戶需求更簡單，他們更注重行動優先、完全基於聊天的介面。與更全面的 RUN 解決方案的目標客戶相比，這是一組不同的使用者群體。我們期待在接下來的幾個季度與您分享 Roll 的最新進展。

Parallel to this, we're also making great progress in increasing the amount of digital onboarding we're conducting with RUN. And we've continued to scale up this capability since we discussed it with you during our Innovation Day in early 2020. This quarter alone, 15,000 or over 1/3 of our new RUN clients onboarded themselves digitally, enabling a better experience for the clients as well as cost savings for ADP.

同時，我們在增加使用 RUN 進行的數位入職培訓數量方面也取得了巨大進展。自 2020 年初我們在創新日與您討論以來，我們一直在不斷擴大這項能力。僅本季度，就有 15,000 名（超過三分之一）新 RUN 客戶透過數位化方式註冊，不僅為客戶帶來了更好的體驗，也為 ADP 節省了成本。

This initiative is just one of many digitally enabled efforts we are making to drive improved efficiency at ADP. And as we've mentioned in the past, we have more to look forward to as our digital transformation continues.

這項措施只是我們為提高ADP效率而採取的眾多數位化措施之一。正如我們之前提到的，隨著數位轉型的不斷推進，我們將迎來更多值得期待的前景。

Our Next Gen Payroll engine also continues to scale up and demonstrate success in the mid-market. In this quarter, we sold hundreds more clients and continued to expand our capability set to accommodate more complex payroll needs. We now have over 400 clients live on Workforce Now with our Next Gen Payroll engine, and we expect to accelerate this further in the coming quarters.

我們的新一代薪資引擎也不斷擴大規模，並在中階市場取得了成功。本季度，我們新增了數百名客戶，並繼續擴展我們的能力範圍，以滿足更複雜的薪資需求。目前，已有超過 400 家客戶在使用 Workforce Now 的下一代薪資引擎，我們預計在接下來的幾個季度裡，這一數字將進一步加快成長。

In addition to its improving position in the mid-market, Workforce Now continues to scale nicely into the enterprise market. In this quarter, ADP was recognized as a customer's choice leader in Gartner's Voice of the Customer for cloud HCM suites from North American companies with 1000-or-more employees. This is a great milestone for the team and strong validation of the flexibility of Workforce Now, as we've continued to sell it to larger clients in recent years while, of course, concurrently scaling implementation and service of our Next Gen HCM platform.

除了在中階市場地位不斷提升之外，Workforce Now 也持續穩定拓展企業市場。在本季度，ADP 在 Gartner 的「客戶之聲」調查中被評為北美擁有 1000 名或以上員工的雲端 HCM 套件的客戶選擇領導者。這對團隊來說是一個重要的里程碑，也是對 Workforce Now 靈活性的有力驗證，因為近年來我們一直在向更大的客戶銷售 Workforce Now，當然，同時，我們也在擴大下一代 HCM 平台的實施和服務。

Ultimately, these product enhancements are all designed to drive growth. And I'm happy to report that this quarter, our client count reached 900,000, a remarkable achievement, particularly during the pandemic. This is a testament to both the strong retention we've experienced this year as well as better-than-expected year-to-date sales performance.

歸根究底，這些產品改進都是為了推動成長。我很高興地報告，本季我們的客戶數量達到了 90 萬，這是一個了不起的成就，尤其是在疫情期間。這既證明了我們今年客戶留存率的強勁成長，也證明了年初至今的銷售業績好於預期。

We're very proud of our execution so far this year. And we look forward to putting the impact of the pandemic behind us. On that front, we recognize there's a lot of interest in our potential growth and earnings profile for next year. As you can appreciate, it's still early to discuss fiscal 2022 with any precision given the dynamic environment and the fact that we're still going through our operating plan process for next year. But Kathleen will share some additional perspective on fiscal 2022 in a moment.

我們對今年迄今的執行情況感到非常自豪。我們期待將疫情的影響拋在腦後。在這方面，我們意識到大家對我們明年的潛在成長和獲利前景非常感興趣。正如您所理解的，鑑於當前環境瞬息萬變，而且我們仍在製定明年的營運計劃，現在就精確討論 2022 財年還為時過早。但凱瑟琳稍後將分享她對 2022 財年的更多看法。

I'd also like to share that we plan to host a virtual Investor Day later this calendar year, where we plan to update you on our strategy and discuss our post-pandemic aspirations. We are tentatively aiming for November, and we'll share a date shortly. For now, we remain focused on maintaining our very positive momentum as we close out this fiscal year.

我也想告訴大家，我們計劃在今年稍後舉辦線上投資者日活動，屆時我們將向大家介紹我們的策略，並探討我們後疫情時代的願景。我們暫定於11月舉行，具體日期我們會盡快公佈。目前，我們仍專注於保持目前的良好勢頭，以順利完成本財年。

And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Kathleen for more detail on the quarter and the outlook.

接下來，我會把電話交給凱瑟琳，請她詳細介紹本季業績和展望。

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone. Q3 represented another strong quarter for us, with our performance on both revenues and margins driven by excellent execution across the organization. Our revenues grew 1% on both a reported and organic constant currency basis. which represented a slight acceleration versus Q2. We delivered this growth despite incremental drag from client funds interest versus Q2 as well as some incremental pressure related to our usual seasonal Q3 revenue drivers, such as annual W-2 forms. I'll share more on these in a moment.

謝謝你，卡洛斯，大家早安。第三季對我們來說又是強勁的一個季度，公司在營收和利潤率方面的出色表現得益於整個組織的卓越執行力。無論以報告數據或以固定匯率計算，我們的營收都成長了 1%。這比第二季度略有加速。儘管客戶資金利息較第二季有所增加，以及我們通常的第三季季節性收入驅動因素（如年度 W-2 表格）帶來了一些額外的壓力，但我們仍然實現了這一增長。稍後我會詳細介紹這些內容。

As anticipated, we also experienced a margin decline as we continued to make additional growth and productivity investments and as we experienced a more significant client funds interest revenue decline compared to prior quarters. But the 90 basis points of margin decline was better than our expectations.

正如預期的那樣，由於我們繼續進行額外的成長和生產力投資，以及與前幾季相比客戶資金利息收入出現更大幅度的下降，我們的利潤率也出現了下降。但利潤率下降90個基點好於我們的預期。

Combining this revenue and margin performance, our adjusted EBIT was down 2% to $1.1 billion. Our adjusted effective tax rate increased slightly compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2020, as we had less contribution from excess tax benefit on stock comp. But our share count was lower year-over-year driven by share repurchases. And as a result, our adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.89 was down a modest 2% versus last year.

綜合考慮營收和利潤率表現，我們調整後的息稅前利潤下降 2% 至 11 億美元。與 2020 財年第三季相比，我們的調整後實際稅率略有上升，因為股票補償的超額稅收優惠貢獻減少。但由於股票回購，我們的股票數量較去年同期下降。因此，我們調整後的稀釋每股收益為 1.89 美元，比去年略微下降了 2%。

For our Employer Services segment, revenues declined 1% on a reported basis and 2% on an organic constant currency basis, demonstrating steady growth rates compared to last quarter despite additional pressure from 2 sources, as I just mentioned, both of which were fully anticipated.

就我們的雇主服務部門而言，按報告基準計算的收入下降了 1%，以有機固定匯率計算的收入下降了 2%，與上一季度相比，儘管受到我剛才提到的兩個方面的額外壓力（這兩個方面都在預期之內），但增長率仍然保持穩定。

First with greater pressure from client funds interest. Our Q3 has a seasonally larger client funds balance than other quarters of the year. And as a result, it skews more to cash and cash equivalent investments, where interest rates have been pushed down to near 0. As a result, our client funds interest declined 32% versus last year, with average yield down 70 basis points, more than offsetting our strong balance growth, which improved to 6%.

首先是來自客戶資金利息的更大壓力。由於季節性因素，我們第三季的客戶資金餘額通常比其他季度高。因此，投資組合更偏向現金及現金等價物，而這些投資的利率已被壓低至接近於零。結果，我們的客戶資金利息較去年下降了32%，平均收益率下降了70個基點，完全抵銷了我們強勁的餘額成長（成長至6%）。

Second, with a headwind related to seasonal Q3 revenues, like the annual Form W-2, which effectively makes our Q3 slightly more sensitive to pays per control and employment turnover trends than other quarters.

其次，由於季節性第三季收入（如年度 W-2 表格）帶來的不利因素，我們的第三季實際上比其他季度更容易受到控制人薪酬和員工流動趨勢的影響。

Looking past these 2 headwinds, underlying ES performance showed sequential improvement driven in part by continued record level retention that was partially offset by slightly lower-than-expected pays per control.

撇開這兩個不利因素不談，ES 的基本業績顯示出環比改善，部分原因是持續創紀錄的留存率，但部分被略低於預期的每位控制者的薪酬所抵消。

Employer Services Q3 margin was down 120 basis points compared to last year, ahead of our expectations. We continue to invest in headcount to support our growing client base. We also started lapping lower incentive costs from last year. And we experienced greater pressure from the lower client funds interest revenue compared to the first half of this year. But at the same time, we kept our focus on prudent cost control and continue to execute on our transformation initiatives.

雇主服務第三季利潤率較去年同期下降 120 個基點，優於我們的預期。我們將繼續增加員工人數，以支持我們不斷成長的客戶群。我們也開始逐步降低去年的激勵成本。與今年上半年相比，客戶資金利息收入下降，給我們帶來了更大的壓力。但同時，我們始終注重審慎的成本控制，並繼續執行我們的轉型計劃。

Our PEO also had another very strong quarter. Average worksite employees increased sequentially to 594,000 . This was flat on a year-over-year basis. And this strong result was supported by retention outperformance and a slight sequential improvement in pays per control, which was more impactful than what we experienced in our ES segment. Although PEO sales growth still lags that of our ES segment, we did see an improvement in sales performance in Q3 and are encouraged that unit sales growth for the PEO was positive.

我們的PEO部門也取得了另一個非常強勁的季度業績。工作場所平均員工人數較上月增加至 594,000 人，與去年同期持平。這一強勁的業績得益於客戶留存率的超額表現以及每控制人支付額的略微環比改善，這比我們在 ES 業務板塊所經歷的更為顯著。儘管 PEO 的銷售成長仍然落後於我們的 ES 業務，但我們在第三季確實看到了銷售業績的改善，並且令人鼓舞的是，PEO 的單位銷售成長為正。

Our PEO revenue growth, meanwhile, was very strong at 7%. And revenues, excluding zero-margin benefits pass-throughs, grew 10%, both ahead of our expectations. Once again, this strong performance benefited from higher payroll per WSE supported by employee mix.

同時，我們的 PEO 收入成長非常強勁，達到了 7%。不計零利潤的福利轉嫁，收入成長了 10%，都超出我們的預期。再次強調，這項強勁業績得益於每家WSE更高的薪資總額，而這又得益於員工結構的變化。

Additionally, this quarter, our revenue per WSE was further supported by a more favorable SUI rate environment as some states have started to increase SUI rates. Workers' comp rates remained a headwind in the quarter. PEO margin increased 100 basis points in the quarter driven by revenue growth and continued expense discipline as well as roughly 50 basis points of contribution from workers' compensation reserve true-ups.

此外，本季度，由於一些州開始提高 SUI 費率，SUI 費率環境更加有利，這進一步支撐了我們每 WSE 的收入。本季工傷賠償率仍是一個不利因素。本季 PEO 利潤率成長了 100 個基點，這主要得益於收入成長和持續的費用控制，以及工傷賠償準備金調整帶來的約 50 個基點的貢獻。

I'll turn now to our updated guidance for fiscal 2021. With only 1 quarter remaining, we're pleased to raise our guidance midpoints for several key metrics and narrow our guidance ranges for others.

接下來，我將介紹我們更新後的 2021 財年業績指引。距離年底僅剩一個季度，我們很高興上調幾個關鍵指標的預期中位數，並縮小其他指標的預期範圍。

Beginning with the ES segment. We now expect revenue to be up about 1% for the full year versus our previous expectation for flat to up 2%. There's no real change in our revenue expectations. And this revised outlook includes the impact from the following drivers.

從ES段開始。我們現在預計全年營收將成長約 1%，而我們先前的預期是持平或成長 2%。我們的營收預期並沒有實質變化。而這項修訂後的展望包含了以下因素的影響。

We now expect our ES new business bookings to be up 20% to 25% compared to our prior forecast of up 15% to 25%. This reflects Q3 sales performance that came in slightly ahead of our expectations and our better line of sight into Q4. We're very happy to raise our bookings guidance again. And although this doesn't materially change our revenue expectations for this fiscal year, it does add to our optimism about next year.

我們現在預計 ES 新業務預訂量將比先前預測的 15% 至 25% 成長 20% 至 25%。這反映了第三季銷售業績略高於我們的預期，也讓我們對第四季有了更清晰的認識。我們很高興再次提高預訂指導價。雖然這不會從根本上改變我們對本財年的收入預期，但確實增強了我們對明年的樂觀情緒。

We now expect our ES retention to be up at least 125 basis points versus up 100 basis points prior. Similar to our updated bookings guidance, this improvement is driven by our Q3 performance and encouraging visibility into Q4 retention.

我們現在預計 ES 的留存率將至少提高 125 個基點，而先前預計將提高 100 個基點。與我們更新後的預訂指引類似，這項改進得益於我們第三季的業績以及對第四季度客戶留存率的積極展望。

We are raising our client funds interest expectations slightly and now expect $415 million for the full year. We have seen the interest rate environment improve compared to what we had contemplated last quarter. However, those improvements only apply to our new fixed income purchases over the last few months of the year. There is no material change to our expectation for 1.6% average yield in our client funds portfolio for fiscal year 2021.

我們略微提高了對客戶資金利息的預期，現在預計全年利息收入為 4.15 億美元。我們看到利率環境比我們上季預期的要好。然而，這些改進措施僅適用於我們今年最後幾個月新購買的固定收益產品。我們對 2021 財年客戶資金投資組合平均報酬率 1.6% 的預期沒有實質變化。

We are encouraged by the signs of improvement in the U.S. labor markets. But as we mentioned, over this last quarter, pays per control did underperform our Q3 expectations modestly. We have tempered our Q4 expectations slightly as a result, but our full year fiscal 2021 outlook remains a decline of 3% to 4%.

美國勞動市場出現改善跡象，這令我們感到鼓舞。但正如我們之前提到的，上個季度，每個控制項的付費情況略低於我們第三季的預期。因此，我們略微下調了第四季度的預期，但我們對 2021 財年全年的展望仍然是下降 3% 至 4%。

For our expected Employer Services margin for the year, we are narrowing to a decline of 50 to 75 basis points. While we experienced stronger-than-expected margin performance in Q3, we will reinvest some of this on discrete projects in Q4 to further accelerate our growth, investing, for example, in our Next Gen rollout, Wisely card program and additional marketing and advertising.

我們預計今年雇主服務利潤率將下降 50 至 75 個基點。雖然我們在第三季度獲得了超出預期的利潤率，但我們將在第四季度將部分利潤再投資於特定項目，以進一步加速成長，例如投資於我們的下一代產品推廣、Wisely 卡計劃以及其他行銷和廣告活動。

For our PEO segment, we now expect revenue up 5% to 6% versus our prior forecast of up 3% to 5%. And we expect average worksite employees to be up 1% to 2% versus our prior forecast of flat to up 2%. We also expect our revenues, excluding zero-margin pass-throughs, to be up 5% to 6% compared to our prior forecast of up 3% to 5%. Our top line raised for the PEO is driven primarily by the strong Q3 performance we experienced and slightly higher payroll per WSE assumptions for Q4.

對於我們的 PEO 業務板塊，我們現在預計收入將成長 5% 至 6%，而我們先前的預測是成長 3% 至 5%。我們預計工地員工平均人數將成長 1% 至 2%，而我們先前的預測是持平或成長 2%。我們也預計，不計零利潤轉嫁收入，我們的收入將比先前預測的 3% 至 5% 成長 5% 至 6%。PEO 的營收成長主要得益於我們第三季強勁的業績以及第四季度每 WSE 薪資總額略高的預期。

Last, for PEO margin, we now expect to be up about 75 basis points in fiscal 2021 versus our prior forecast range for up 50 to 100 basis points. Our visibility into Q4 has improved. And year-to-date, we've seen stronger revenue performance and better-than-expected contribution from workers' compensation true-ups, offset by greater pass-through revenue.

最後，對於 PEO 利潤率，我們現在預計 2021 財年將成長約 75 個基點，而我們先前的預測範圍為成長 50 至 100 個基點。我們對第四季的預測更加清晰。今年迄今為止，我們看到收入表現強勁，工傷賠償金的調整貢獻也超出預期，但被更高的轉嫁收入所抵銷。

For our consolidated outlook, we now anticipate total ADP revenue to be up 2% to 3% in fiscal 2021 versus up 1% to 3% prior. And we anticipate our adjusted EBIT margin to be down 50 to 75 basis points, an improvement of our prior guidance of down 50 to 100 basis points. There is no change to our expected effective tax rate of 23% for the year. And we continue to assume a net share count reduction in our guidance. Net of all these changes, we are updating our adjusted diluted EPS guidance to be flat to up 1% versus our prior guidance of down 2% to up 2%.

根據我們的綜合展望，我們現在預計 ADP 2021 財年的總營收將成長 2% 至 3%，而先前的預期為成長 1% 至 3%。我們預計調整後的息稅前利潤率將下降 50 至 75 個基點，比我們先前預測的下降 50 至 100 個基點有所改善。本年度預期實際稅率仍為 23%，維持不變。我們繼續在業績預期中假設淨股數量將減少。綜合所有這些變化，我們將調整後的稀釋每股收益預期更新為持平或增長 1%，而我們之前的預期為下降 2% 或增長 2%。

As you know, with Q4, we will begin to lap the impact of the pandemic. And we recognize there is a lot of interest in what our growth rate will look like as conditions continue to normalize. With that said, we're still going through our planning process. As usual, we will provide fiscal '22 guidance when we report our fourth quarter results, but I'd like to share some preliminary considerations.

如您所知，從第四季開始，我們將開始逐漸擺脫疫情的影響。我們意識到，隨著情勢逐漸正常化，大家都很關注我們的成長率會是什麼樣子。儘管如此，我們仍在進行規劃過程。像往常一樣，我們將在公佈第四季度業績時提供 2022 財年的業績指引，但我想先分享一些初步的想法。

The most important factor for us in accelerating growth is driving strong new business bookings. And we expect our sales productivity to improve further next year as in-person visits increase and clients and prospects continue to reengage more fully. As that productivity continues to progress toward pre-pandemic levels and beyond, the contribution it makes to our revenue growth will likewise continue to build.

對我們而言，加速成長最重要的因素是推動強勁的新業務預訂。我們預計明年銷售業績將進一步提高，因為隨著面對面拜訪的增加，客戶和潛在客戶將繼續更充分地重新參與。隨著生產力持續向疫情前水準甚至更高水準邁進，它對我們營收成長的貢獻也將隨之不斷增加。

Pays per control should provide a tailwind. And the magnitude of contribution will depend on the pace of global employment recovery. We've provided sensitivities to pays per control in the past and will share a pays per control assumption next quarter.

按控制次數付費應該會帶來利多。貢獻的幅度將取決於全球就業復甦的速度。我們過去曾提供每控制權支付的敏感度分析，下個季度我們將分享每一個控制權支付的假設。

Client funds interest will likely remain a headwind if the current rate environment holds, though it should be much less of a headwind than we are experiencing in fiscal 2021.

如果目前的利率環境持續下去，客戶資金利息可能會繼續構成不利因素，儘管這種不利因素應該比我們在 2021 財年所經歷的要小得多。

And on retention, improving economic activity could mean greater client switching levels compared to this year. But we're not seeing pressure yet and will remain focused on holding on to the gains we've achieved. We'll share our assumption about it next quarter.

在客戶留存方面，經濟活動的改善可能意味著與今年相比，客戶流失率會更高。但我們目前尚未感受到壓力，並將繼續專注於鞏固已取得的成果。我們將在下個季度公佈我們的假設。

Clearly, there are a number of moving pieces, but the net effect should be favorable. The 2% to 3% revenue growth we expect to deliver this year demonstrates the resilience of our business model. And we look forward to building from this higher revenue base and accelerating our growth back to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as we can.

顯然，其中涉及許多變數，但最終結果應該是有利的。我們預計今年將實現 2% 至 3% 的收入成長，這證明了我們商業模式的韌性。我們期待以此更高的收入基礎為基礎，盡快將成長速度加快到疫情前的水準。

We are going into next year from a position of strength. And our aim is to deliver an improved market position, stronger top line growth and margin expansion while maintaining the steady cash flows that have allowed us to increase our shareholder distributions consistently for more than 7 decades. More on all this will come next quarter, and we look forward to updating you then.

我們以強大的實力邁入明年。我們的目標是在保持穩定現金流的同時，提升市場地位，實現更強勁的營收成長和利潤率擴張，而正是這種穩定的現金流，讓我們得以在過去 70 多年中持續提高股東分紅。更多相關資訊將在下個季度公佈，屆時我們將向您報告最新進展。

I'll now turn it back over to the operator for Q&A.

現在我將把問題交還給接線員，進行問答環節。

(Operator Instructions) And we will take our first question from Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays.

（操作員說明）我們首先來回答來自巴克萊銀行的拉姆齊·埃爾-阿薩爾提出的問題。

I wanted to ask about the increase in, in-person engagement with the sales force. Can you kind of contrast for us the productivity you're seeing from those in-person meetings relative to the remote meetings? Is that something that we should consider to be an incremental sort of driver of productivity, maybe beyond what we were expecting as we go forward?

我想詢問一下與銷售人員面對面交流增加的情況。您能否為我們比較一下您認為面對面會議和遠距會議的效率有何不同？我們是否應該將此視為漸進式的生產力驅動因素，或許會超越我們未來的預期？

Yes. I think that that's right. I think you would look at it really as incremental because if you recall, like our first quarter, we had pretty robust sales results really with almost 100% of our sales force working virtually at that point. So we expect that the increased activity, if you're listening to the tone of our comments, that it's really incremental and hopefully gets us quickly back to the same productivity levels we were pre-pandemic, which we were approaching in the third and fourth quarter here and then hopefully beyond that because, obviously, part of our model before was that we expected some incremental improvement in productivity each year in addition to increases in headcount.

是的。我認為沒錯。我認為你應該把它看作是一個漸進的過程，因為如果你還記得的話，就像我們第一季一樣，我們的銷售業績非常強勁，當時我們幾乎 100% 的銷售人員都在遠距工作。因此，如果您仔細聽我們發言的語氣，就會發現我們預計，業務活動的增加實際上是漸進式的，希望能夠讓我們迅速恢復到疫情前的生產力水平，也就是我們在第三季度和第四季度接近的水平，並希望能夠在此基礎上繼續保持下去，因為很顯然，我們之前的模型中就包含著每年生產力逐步提高的預期，同時員工人數也會增加。

And when you combine those factors, in addition to kind of new products and other things, that's what kind of drove our new business bookings growth, the combination of increases in headcount and increases in productivity. So you're right, that's the path, this will help us get quickly back to our previous productivity and hopefully allow us to get above that, which is, I think, important for us in terms of our long-term growth expectations.

將這些因素結合起來，再加上新產品和其他因素，正是人員增加和生產力提高的結合，推動了我們新業務預訂量的成長。所以你說得對，這就是正確的方向，這將幫助我們迅速恢復到以前的生產力水平，並有望超越以前，我認為這對於我們實現長期成長預期來說非常重要。

Okay. And I wonder if you could comment, too, on the environment around potential tax reforms? As I recall, when the corporate tax rate fell, that was translated into lower client interest balances for you or client funds balances for you. I know it's early days and everything needs to move through Congress, but can you comment on the degree to which some of these changes may or may not be factored in your budgeting process or what you're expecting here in terms of tax changes going forward and the impact on your business?

好的。我也想請您談談對潛在稅改環境的看法？我記得，當企業稅率下降時，就表示您的客戶利息餘額或客戶資金餘額會減少。我知道現在還為時過早，所有事情都需要經過國會批准，但您能否就這些變化在多大程度上可能會或不會納入您的預算流程，或者您對未來的稅收變化及其對您業務的影響有何預期發表評論？

I think -- for corporate, I think, what you're referring to, really -- what's currently on the table. We do know there's a lot of discussion about a lot of different things, including an increase in the kind of tax rate for the higher-income individuals. But right now, from what I -- and there's obviously discussion about capital gains taxes as well.

我認為──對於企業而言，我認為，你真正指的是──目前擺在桌面上的那些事。我們知道，目前有很多關於各種不同事情的討論，包括提高高收入者的稅率。但就目前而言，據我所知——而且顯然也有關於資本利得稅的討論。

But right now, the thing that is probably most prevalent in discussions is corporate income tax rate. And I'm trying to think through -- I don't believe that, that has really any direct impact on our balances. They obviously have an impact on ADP corporate itself, but I don't know, Danny, if you have...

但目前討論中最普遍的議題可能是企業所得稅稅率。我正在努力思考——我不認為這會對我們的資產負債表產生任何直接影響。它們顯然對ADP公司本身有影響，但我不知道，丹尼，你是否…

Yes. Ramsey, you're definitely right about the individual tax brackets having an impact on our float balance. So back when we had the previous corporate tax reform and the individual bracket changes, it was a headwind of, I think, about a percentage point or in that ballpark.

是的。拉姆齊，你說的完全正確，個人稅率確實會對我們的資金餘額產生影響。所以，回想之前我們進行企業稅改革和個人稅級調整的時候，我認為當時的阻力大約是百分之一或差不多這個數字。

So in theory, what will drive a tailwind to our growth will depend on the actual change in rates here and what that means for overall individual income taxes. So it would be a contribution. It's not factored into our outlook at this time, but obviously, it's something we would benefit from.

因此，理論上，什麼會推動我們的成長，將取決於這裡的稅率實際變化以及這對個人所得稅整體意味著什麼。所以這算是一種貢獻。目前我們還沒有將此因素納入考慮範圍，但顯然，如果我們能從中受益，那將是一件好事。

Our next question comes from Dan Dolev from Mizuho.

下一個問題來自瑞穗銀行的 Dan Dolev。

I got just a quick housekeeping and then a longer-term strategic question. You're guiding, I think, to 4Q EPS slightly below the Street. Is there any margin pressure to call out in the fourth quarter?

我先簡單問了一些家務事，然後又問了一個更長期的策略問題。我認為，您預計第四季每股收益將略低於華爾街的預期。第四季是否存在需要指出的利潤率壓力？

Well, I think if you -- from our prepared comments, you would probably see that the pressures are what I would call self-inflicted in the sense that we believe there's an opportunity for us to make some investments that improve our long-term growth prospects, both for '22 and beyond. And I think Kathleen, in particular, mentioned the 2 or 3 things that we're investing in.

嗯，我想如果你從我們準備好的評論中可以看出，這些壓力可以說是我們自己造成的，因為我們相信我們有機會進行一些投資，以改善我們2022年及以後的長期增長前景。我覺得凱瑟琳尤其提到了我們正在投資的兩三件事。

So the answer is no, there's no kind of mysterious margin pressure. In other words, the business continues to move in the right trajectory, like almost every metric we have has improved. In fact, I'd say every metric we have has improved sequentially, even the pays per control. Even though it was modest, it's still rounded to 6% down. We know now, after watching the data at the beginning of Q4, that that's heading in the right direction. And we can all tell from what's happening in unemployment that that's going to also continue to improve fairly quickly here.

所以答案是否定的，不存在什麼神祕的利潤率壓力。換句話說，公司業務繼續朝著正確的方向發展，我們幾乎所有的指標都得到了改善。事實上，我認為我們所有的指標都逐一得到了改善，甚至包括每次控制的報酬。雖然幅度不大，但向下取整也只有 6%。在觀察了第四季初的數據後，我們現在知道，這正朝著正確的方向發展。從目前的失業率來看，我們都能看出，這裡的失業率也會持續快速改善。

So when you really kind of add it all together, like we're in a very strong position to have very strong momentum. And people who've known us for a long time know that when we experience that, we try to reinvest some of that. And I think that's exactly what you're seeing in the fourth quarter. So I would say that those are conscious decisions that we are making.

所以當你把所有因素綜合起來考慮時，你會發現我們處於非常有利的位置，可以擁有非常強勁的發展勢頭。認識我們很久的人都知道，當我們經歷那種挫折時，我們會努力把其中的一些經驗重新投入工作。我認為這正是你在第四季看到的情況。所以我認為這些都是我們經過深思熟慮後才做出的決定。

Yes, that's exactly right. And I'll just add in, in addition to what I think is smartly doing those investments in the fourth quarter and accelerating some of that, we've also got some year-over-year comping going on, right, as you would expect, with selling having been down Q4 last year versus Q4 this year. We'd see incremental year-over-year selling expense in Q4 as well.

是的，完全正確。我還要補充一點，除了我認為在第四季度進行這些投資並加快其中一些投資是明智之舉之外，我們還有一些同比比較的情況，正如你所預料的那樣，去年第四季度的銷售額比今年第四季度有所下降。預計第四季銷售費用也將年增。

Got it. And just my follow-up is it was very impressive to see bookings kind of back to fiscal '19 levels, really strong. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how Next Gen Payroll engine is helping bookings?

知道了。我的後續補充是，看到預訂量基本上恢復到 2019 財年的水平，這非常令人印象深刻，表現非常強勁。您能否簡要談談新一代薪資引擎是如何幫助處理預訂的？

It's a relatively modest contribution because despite our level of excitement about, really, all of our Next Gen platforms and even Roll, which you could argue that that's a Next Gen solution as well, again, it's just because of the size and scale of our company, like right now, from a dollar impact standpoint, it's really not -- that's not what's moving the needle. It's really across the board. Really, in every business unit, in every channel, in every category, our bookings have been improving, again, sequentially every quarter. And they continue to do that this quarter.

這只是相對較小的貢獻，因為儘管我們對所有下一代平台，甚至 Roll（你也可以說它也是下一代解決方案）都感到非常興奮，但僅僅是因為我們公司的規模，就目前而言，從美元影響的角度來看，它真的不是——這並不是真正能帶來改變的事情。這種情況普遍存在。事實上，在每個業務部門、每個管道、每個類別中，我們的預訂量都在逐季成長。他們本季繼續這樣做。

So we believe that medium to long term, that's the key to us sustaining kind of our multi-decade growth rates is these Next Gen platforms. But I just continue to caution everyone too because we want to give you the updates and we want to continue to focus on Next Gen. And I like -- I appreciate the question because it's important to kind of separate what's driving the quarters and what's driving the next fiscal year versus what's driving the next 3 to 5 years.

因此，我們認為，從中長期來看，這些下一代平台是我們維持數十年成長率的關鍵。但我還是要提醒大家，因為我們想帶給大家最新消息，也想繼續專注於下一代產品。我很欣賞這個問題，因為區分推動季度業績的因素、推動下一個財政年度業績的因素以及推動未來 3 到 5 年業績的因素非常重要。

And I would say that Next Gen Payroll is going to be increasingly important in the next year or two from a bookings standpoint and will start to probably make a difference. And we'll then give you that color in terms of what difference it's making. But we should be cautious about revenue impact just because of the recurring revenue model. It just takes a while for that to get into the revenue growth numbers. But it was positive but really not what really moved the needle.

我認為，從預訂的角度來看，下一代薪資系統在未來一兩年內將變得越來越重要，並且可能會開始產生影響。然後我們會根據這種顏色所帶來的差異，向您解釋它的作用。但我們應該謹慎看待收入影響，因為這是經常性收入模式。但這需要一段時間才能體現在營收成長數據。但這雖然是正面的，但並沒有真正產生決定性的影響。

And I would just add that we shared that we sold hundreds of clients on our Next Gen Payroll engine with Workforce Now. Just for context, that compares to typically a few thousand clients that we sell in the mid-market.

我還要補充一點，我們分享了我們透過 Workforce Now 向數百家客戶銷售了我們的下一代薪資引擎。僅供參考，這與我們通常在中端市場銷售的數千個客戶相比，數量相當。

So It's still a piece of the overall puzzle. But as that scales to become the majority and then ultimately all of our mid-market sales, then you would truly feel the incremental benefit.

所以它仍然是整個拼圖中的一塊。但隨著這種模式逐漸發展成為主流，最終成為我們全部的中端市場銷售，那時你會真正感受到這種漸進式的好處。

That is yet to come is really the message there.

那才是真正想傳達的訊息：未來還沒到來。

Our next question comes from Eugene Simuni from MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 MoffettNathanson 公司的 Eugene Simuni。

So I wanted to ask about downmarket. Great to see the introduction of Roll to target the micro customers. I was hoping you can speak a little bit more broadly about evolution of competitive landscape through the pandemic, downmarket, how RUN has done and, kind of coming out of the pandemic, what opportunities exist for ADP to continue gaining share in this segment as I believe it has done prior to pandemic?

所以我想問關於低端市場的問題。很高興看到 Roll 的推出，旨在瞄準微型客戶群。我希望您能更廣泛地談談疫情期間競爭格局的演變、市場下滑、RUN 的表現，以及在疫情結束後，ADP 有哪些機會繼續像疫情前那樣在這個細分市場獲得市場份額？

Well, I mean I think there's a number of moving parts. And I think it probably depends on people's kind of business model. So as you know, our business model is really more about providing not just the software (inaudible) the support, right? You can call it support. You can call it service. You can call it compliance. And I think what we saw this year with all of the activity that the government had around the various stimulus programs to help companies and individuals and so on, that created a lot of complexity for employers.

嗯，我的意思是，我認為這裡面有很多環節需要協調。我認為這可能取決於人們的商業模式。如您所知，我們的商業模式實際上更多的是提供軟體（聽不清楚）以及支持，對嗎？你可以稱之為支持。你可以稱之為服務。你可以稱之為合規。我認為，今年政府為幫助企業和個人等而推出的各種刺激計劃，為雇主帶來了許多複雜性。

It appears that we're entering into an environment where, despite the pandemic hopefully fading, there will be increased levels of government activity around employment and incentives and that kind of thing. I think that's a good environment for ADP and for our downmarket business because most small businesses don't have the time or the inclination to really focus on these things and to take care of these things.

看來我們正在進入這樣一個環境：儘管疫情有望消退，但政府在就業、激勵措施等方面的活動水準將會提高。我認為這對 ADP 和我們的低端市場業務來說是一個很好的環境，因為大多數小型企業沒有時間或意願真正關注和處理這些事情。

So it works for some clients, and we believe that. That's why we're rolling out Roll, no pun intended. But once you get to even a little bit slightly larger, you do end up running into issues that you need help with and you need support and need advice. And much of that can be automated, but you still need it.

所以它對某些客戶有效，我們也相信這一點。這就是我們推出 Roll 的原因，絕無雙關之意。但是，一旦你的規模稍微大一點，你最終就會遇到一些問題，需要幫助、支持和建議。其中許多工作都可以自動化，但你仍然需要人工參與。

So for example, a lot of our PPP support reports were automated. So it doesn't mean that somebody has to get on the phone and have a discussion about your PPP report. But you have to be focused on providing the support and the compliance in addition to just the software. So I think that helped us this year.

例如，我們很多 PPP 支援報告都是自動化的。所以，這並不意味著一定要有人打電話來和你討論你的PPP報告。但是，除了軟體之外，你還必須專注於提供支援和合規性。所以我認為這對我們今年的工作有所幫助。

And again, so to answer your question, how do we believe we're set up competitively right now, I think we're set up excellently, competitively, because we now have very simple solutions for the micro market where people want to self-buy, self-install and don't have complexity and maybe don't have issues with taxes or compliance or don't want to ask questions because it's not priced or built to ask questions. But we also have the ability to provide this assistance that is important for even small clients.

再次回答你的問題，我們認為我們目前的競爭地位如何？我認為我們的競爭地位非常出色，因為我們現在為微型市場提供了非常簡單的解決方案，人們可以自行購買、自行安裝，無需面對複雜的問題，可能也不會遇到稅務或合規方面的問題，或者因為產品定價或設計初衷並非為了方便用戶提問，所以他們也不想問問題。但我們也有能力提供這種對小型客戶同樣重要的幫助。

For sure, it's important for midsize clients and for larger clients. But I think what really got highlighted this year is that small clients need a lot of help and need a lot of assistance. And you can see in our growth rates, in our retention, in our client satisfaction, like in all of our metrics in our small business division, that we happen to be in the right place at the right time, I think, to be able to help our clients and then hopefully now benefit from the tailwind of the demand that that's going to create on a go-forward basis. So anyway, long-winded way of saying I think we're in a great position because of our business model.

當然，這對於中型客戶和大型客戶來說都很重要。但我認為今年真正凸顯的是，小型客戶需要很多幫助和支持。從我們的成長率、客戶留存率、客戶滿意度，以及我們小型企業部門的所有指標中可以看出，我們恰好處於正確的時間和地點，能夠幫助我們的客戶，並希望能夠從未來由此產生的需求成長中受益。總之，說了這麼多，我的意思是，我認為由於我們的商業模式，我們處於非常有利的地位。

Got it. Excellent. And then a quick follow-up from me on the global business. So just thinking about what we're seeing now, I think, is a strong kind of bifurcation of the recoveries in the U.S. and abroad, strong expectations for U.S. recovery in your business. In global, is it growing -- is it going slower? And is the implication that global might be kind of a headwind to growth over the next couple of quarters?

知道了。出色的。然後，我再簡單跟進一下全球業務的狀況。所以，仔細想想我們現在看到的情況，我認為，美國和海外的經濟復甦出現了明顯的分化，貴公司對美國經濟復甦抱有很高的期望。在全球範圍內，它是在成長還是在放緩？這是否意味著全球經濟狀況可能在未來幾季對經濟成長構成一定的阻力？

As usual, for us, things are a little more -- when you peel the onion back, there's a little bit more complexity because you -- the image you have is correct, but it hasn't really translated into the results. Our results have actually been quite good internationally, both in terms of bookings as well as just the performance of the business overall, in terms of revenue, pays per control, et cetera.

像往常一樣，對我們來說，事情要複雜一些——當你一層層剝開洋蔥時，你會發現事情更加複雜，因為你——你所看到的圖像是正確的，但它並沒有真正轉化為結果。實際上，我們在國際上的業績相當不錯，無論是預訂量還是整體業務表現，例如收入、單次控制付費等等。

Some of that is that a large portion of our business is in Europe. And there were a lot of government programs there as well to help companies and to prevent high levels of unemployment. And so for example, our pays per control metric never got to the negative levels that we saw in the U.S. and Europe. So that was a benefit.

部分原因是我們大部分的業務都在歐洲。同時，政府也推出了許多計畫來幫助企業，防止高失業率。例如，我們的每次控制付費指標從未達到我們在美國和歐洲看到的負面程度。所以這是個好處。

At the same time, our bookings have been quite strong. And I have to admit that I've been looking for kind of the explanation for that other than really good execution on the part of our sales force as they moved into a virtual environment because they had to sell virtually there as well. But I would say it's strong differentiation of our products. Again, the service aspect to our solutions, the ability to provide support and to provide compliance and help, all of those things probably helped our bookings performance internationally as well.

同時，我們的預訂情況也相當不錯。我必須承認，除了銷售團隊在過渡到虛擬環境後執行得非常出色之外，我一直在尋找其他解釋，因為他們也必須在虛擬環境中進行銷售。但我認為這是我們產品的一個顯著差異化優勢。再次強調，我們解決方案的服務方面，包括提供支援、合規性和幫助的能力，所有這些因素可能也有助於提升我們在國際上的預訂表現。

So I would say that our global business actually is probably one of the bright spots, I would say, despite what is obviously a very difficult environment. And we obviously feel for our businesses in not just Europe, which now happens to be improving again, particularly in the U.K., but we're having challenges now in Toronto. We're having -- in Canada, in Brazil. We're having challenges obviously, as you know, in India as well. But it has not translated into negative results.

所以我覺得，儘管環境顯然非常艱難，但我們的全球業務實際上可能是亮點之一。我們當然也對我們在歐洲的業務感到擔憂，歐洲的業務現在恰好又開始好轉，尤其是在英國，但我們現在在多倫多也面臨挑戰。我們在加拿大和巴西都有這種情況。如你所知，我們在印度也面臨挑戰。但這並沒有轉化為負面結果。

So I think it's a testament to the resiliency and the strength of the business model. But I don't want to take anything away from the fact that it also obviously shows great execution by our international leaders as well.

所以我認為這證明了該商業模式的韌性和實力。但我也不想忽略這樣一個事實：這也明顯反映了我們國際領導人的出色執行力。

Our next question comes from Bryan Bergin from Cowen.

下一個問題來自 Cowen 公司的 Bryan Bergin。

Question for you on ES versus PEO performance. It seems like pays per control appear to be a key difference. So can you just dig in more on the mix aspects that seem to drive a pretty notable disparity of performance between those two? And should we expect that difference to persist in 4Q? Or do you expect more even performance?

關於ES（員工服務）與PEO（專業雇主組織）的績效，我有個問題想請教您。按控制次數付費似乎是關鍵差異所在。那麼，您能否更深入地探討一下導致這兩者之間表現差異如此顯著的混合因素？我們是否應該預期這種差異會在第四季持續存在？還是您期望表現更加穩定？

I don't believe we've provided like that data. So I'm surprised you came to that conclusion, but we -- maybe it's part of our tone. So there isn't a huge difference between ES pays per control performance and PEO. They both have been improving every quarter sequentially.

我不認為我們提供了這類數據。所以我很驚訝你會得出這樣的結論，但是——也許這是我們語氣的一部分。因此，ES按控制績效付費和PEO之間並沒有太大差異。他們兩季的成績都在逐季提升。

And remember, the PEO doesn't -- we generally stay away from very, very small clients. So we don't have a lot of clients that are 1 to 2 employees or 5 employees. The average size client in the PEO, I think, is somewhere around 40. And so by definition, it tends to skew a little bit bigger than maybe our average client size, for sure, for small business.

請記住，PEO 不會——我們通常會避開規模非常小的客戶。所以我們沒有很多只有 1 到 2 名員工或 5 名員工的客戶。我認為，PEO（專業雇主組織）的平均客戶規模約為 40 人。因此，從定義上講，對於小型企業而言，它往往會比我們的平均客戶規模略大一些。

So actually, I was looking at these figures last night. It makes perfect sense kind of where we are, which is that the PEO is performing a little bit better in terms of absolute level of pays per control and has been improving sequentially just as ES has as well.

實際上，我昨晚一直在看這些數據。從我們目前的情況來看，這完全說得通，因為就每位控制人的薪酬絕對水準而言，PEO 的表現略好一些，並且像 ES 一樣，一直在逐週改進。

So -- and again, I'm probably not allowed to say this because I'm going to get in trouble. But last night, I got a note from the PEO that we experienced the first positive pays per control week. Now the problem with pays per control is that it does vary based on payroll cycles. So if you have weekly payrolls or biweekly payrolls, so you and I can't read anything into that. But it's the first time we've had a positive pays per control in any week over the last 12 months. So that's a very positive sign.

所以——再說一遍，我可能不被允許說這些話，因為我會惹上麻煩。但昨晚，我收到 PEO 的通知，我們迎來了第一個正收益週。現在按控制次數付費的問題在於，它會根據薪資週期而改變。所以，如果你的薪水是按週發放還是雙週發放，那麼你我無法從中得出任何結論。但這是我們在過去 12 個月中首次在任何一周內實現正的單次控制收益。這是一個非常正面的訊號。

Okay. And then just on margins, you showed outperformance here again in the quarter. But at the same time, you've called out incremental headcount investments, higher incentive comp and I think elevated implementation costs. Can you just talk about the drivers there? And then how do we connect the elevated implementation cost with more efficient digital onboarding commentary?

好的。而且就利潤率而言，你們本季再次表現出色。但同時，您也提到了增加人員投入、提高激勵薪酬，我認為還有更高的實施成本。你能談談那裡的司機嗎？那麼，我們如何將增加的實施成本與更有效率的數位入職指導連結起來呢？

Well, the efficient digital onboarding, I think we were pretty clear, was in SBS. We would love to, at some point in the future, extend that into the mid-market and maybe someday into the upmarket. But as you know, like -- you know better than us because you talk to a lot of our competitors, there's not a lot of digital onboarding going on, for example, with large, complex ERP installations. Not to pick on any competitors, but it's pretty -- I know the image is that this stuff all kind of gets installed itself, but most of -- many of our competitors use third parties.

嗯，高效率的數位入職流程，我想我們已經很清楚了，就是 SBS。我們希望在未來的某個時候，能將這種模式擴展到中階市場，甚至有一天能擴展到高端市場。但如您所知，您比我們更了解情況，因為您與我們的許多競爭對手交流過，例如，在大型、複雜的 ERP 系統中，數位入職流程並不多見。並非有意針對任何競爭對手，但事實是——我知道人們普遍認為這些東西都是自動安裝的，但我們的大多數競爭對手都使用第三方服務。

So there's still quite a lot of implementation activity and expense, whether it's done by the seller of the solutions or if it's done by a third party. We happen to have a model where we do a lot of it ourselves. And so as bookings pick up and demand picks up, we need to add to our capacity for implementation, in particular, in the mid-market, the upmarket and also global, which as I mentioned, has been strong.

因此，無論是由解決方案的銷售商實施，還是由第三方實施，仍有相當多的實施活動和費用。我們恰好採用的是一種很多事情都由我們自己完成的模式。因此，隨著預訂量和需求的增加，我們需要增加我們的實施能力，尤其是在中端市場、高端市場以及全球市場，正如我所提到的，全球市場一直表現強勁。

So that doesn't mean that we're not adding in the downmarket also. But in our small business segment, as we alluded to and as I think you pointed out, the digital onboarding capabilities obviously reduce the need to grow headcount as much as we otherwise would have. But even in small business, we have a lot of growth in bookings. And so it's a matter of the trade-off of how much can we onboard digitally versus how much we still need some help with in terms of people being involved in.

所以這並不意味著我們不會同時涉足低端市場。但是，正如我們之前提到的，也正如你所指出的，在我們小企業領域，數位入職功能顯然減少了我們原本需要增加的員工人數。但即使是小型企業，我們的預訂量也實現了很大的成長。因此，這是一個權衡的問題，即我們能夠透過數位化方式實現多少用戶參與，以及我們仍然需要在人員參與方面獲得多少幫助。

In terms of some of the other items that we alluded to, I mean some of this is just kind of natural to the business model. As we bring on more clients, we obviously expect productivity improvements every year, whether it's in sales or implementation or everywhere. But we are seeing a recovery of our business and very strong GDP forecast.

至於我們提到的其他一些項目，我的意思是，其中一些對於這種商業模式來說就是自然而然的。隨著客戶數量的增加，我們顯然期望每年都能提高生產力，無論是在銷售、實施或其他任何方面。但我們看到業務正在復甦，GDP預測也非常強勁。

And so we're anticipating improved prospects for bookings and for revenue and for growth. And we need to make sure that we have the right staffing levels based on the productivity metrics that -- and the productivity goals that we have to be able to handle that business so we can maintain our high clients of -- level of client satisfaction that we've experienced.

因此，我們預計預訂量、收入和成長前景將有所改善。我們需要確保根據生產力指標和生產力目標，配備合適的員工，以便能夠處理這項業務，從而保持我們一直以來所擁有的高客戶滿意度。

And then we have some natural growth in expenses like -- I think Kathleen alluded to sales expense is clearly something that grows as you have sales success and as grows -- sales grow year-over-year. So I wouldn't read too much into it, other than that we made some conscious decisions to reinvest in some specific things in the fourth quarter to really position us well for '22 and beyond. But most of this is just kind of natural stuff where, again, as our revenue growth picks up over time, we still have a great incremental margin business, where we would expect to have good operating leverage as we grow those revenues.

然後，我們還有一些自然增長的費用，例如——我認為凱瑟琳提到過，銷售費用顯然會隨著銷售的成功和銷售額的逐年增長而增長。所以，我不會對此過度解讀，只是我們在第四季度做出了一些有意識的決定，對一些特定領域進行再投資，以便真正為 2022 年及以後的發展做好充分準備。但大部分都是自然而然的事情，隨著我們的收入成長，我們仍然擁有巨大的增量利潤業務，我們預計隨著收入的成長，我們將獲得良好的營運槓桿。

Our next question comes from Mark Marcon from Baird.

我們的下一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 Mark Marcon。

Wondering if you can talk a little bit about the investments in Q4 just in terms of Next Gen, Wisely, marketing and advertising. Just how much incremental spend will there be? And are you seeing signs with regards to Wisely that the interest is picking up and, therefore, that's a great place to invest?

想請您談談第四季在 Next Gen、Wisely、行銷和廣告方面的投資情況。新增支出究竟會有多少？您是否注意到 Wisely 的發展勢頭正在增強，因此這是一個不錯的投資機會？

I don't -- it doesn't feel like it's appropriate to give you -- I think you asked for the numbers. I don't know how -- you can probably do the math yourself, like in terms of -- when you look at the trajectory that we're on, you could probably back into some rough -- this is not in the hundreds of millions of dollars, again, but again, I respect the short-term orientation that we have here and that you guys are trying to -- but I would not read as much as you may be reading into these fourth quarter investments because we've done this all the way back to my -- Gary taught me everything I know. And you knew Gary, I think, as well, Mark.

我不——我覺得不方便告訴你——我想是你問你要這些數字的。我不知道該怎麼做——你可能自己就能算出來，比如——當你觀察我們目前的軌跡時，你大概可以反推出一些粗略的數字——這並非數億美元，再說一遍，我尊重我們這裡的短期導向，以及你們正在嘗試的——但我不會像你們那樣過度解讀這些第四季度的投資，因為我們一直以來都是這樣做的——加里教會了我所知道的一切。我想你也認識加里，馬克。

And we are a long-term-oriented company. And we -- when we see opportunities to improve and to invest in things that are either going to drive our bookings or drive our client satisfaction or drive our efficiency, that's what we're going to do. And we've been doing that all along.

我們是一家著眼於長遠發展的公司。當我們看到有機會改善並投資於能夠推動預訂量、提高客戶滿意度或提高效率的事情時，我們就會去做。我們一直以來都是這麼做的。

So this is -- it's not like we hadn't invested. We've been telling you that we've been investing for the last 3 quarters, and that was a conscious decision. We took a little bit of a beating for that at the beginning of the year. Fortunately, we had positive surprises on the revenue side and on pays per control and other things. But we committed that we were going to invest through the downturn, and that's what we've done.

所以，這並不是說我們沒有投資。我們一直告訴大家，過去三個季度我們一直在進行投資，這是我們經過深思熟慮後的決定。年初的時候，我們因此受到了一些批評。幸運的是，我們在收入、按控制付費等方面都獲得了意想不到的正面結果。但我們承諾在經濟低迷時期繼續投資，而我們也確實做到了。

And now we feel like there are a few things that we can do that I would call -- I don't want to call them housekeeping items. But they're not -- these are not in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but they put some pressure on our fourth quarter margin. And we knew that it would create some questions even though it really has nothing to do with '22 or kind of our future expectations of either revenue growth or operating leverage.

現在我們覺得我們可以做一些事情，我稱之為——我不想稱它們為家務事。但這些損失並非數億美元，但它們確實給我們的第四季利潤率帶來了一些壓力。我們知道這會引發一些問題，儘管它實際上與 2022 年或我們對未來收入成長或營運槓桿的預期沒有任何關係。

But again, I understand the question, but I don't think that -- maybe Danny can give you a little bit more color. But I'm not sure giving you an exact number is probably the right approach.

但我明白你的問題，不過我覺得——或許丹尼能給你更多資訊。但我不太確定給你一個確切的數字是否是正確的做法。

I mean you could tell...

我的意思是，你看得出來…

Sorry, Danny. I would just say think about it as kind of -- these are tweaks to the amounts we're spending in Q4 versus kind of wholesale changes to the program here. So it's somewhat modest. And as Carlos said, it's not in the hundreds of millions of dollars here.

對不起，丹尼。我只想說，你可以把它看作是對第四季度支出金額的微調，而不是對整個計劃的徹底改變。所以它還算低調。正如卡洛斯所說，這筆錢並沒有達到數億美元。

And in terms of your Wisely question, Mark, the one thing we did see was the stimulus drove some uptick in the card, spend per card. Other than that, during the pandemic, there haven't been any real notable changes in the Wisely growth trends. So really, it's the per card economics that has -- seems like to tick up recently.

至於你提出的 Wisely 問題，Mark，我們確實看到刺激措施推動了信用卡消費額和每張卡消費額的上升。除此之外，在疫情期間，Wisely 的成長趨勢並沒有任何真正顯著的變化。所以實際上，是每張卡的成本——似乎最近有所上升。

Yes. And I think it's something that we've been excited about. But again, it was hard to get excited about. There was a lot of natural tailwind because people wanted more digitally-oriented payment methods in the last 3 quarters.

是的。我認為這是我們一直很期待的事情。但話說回來，這很難讓人感到興奮。過去三個季度，人們希望更多地採用數位化支付方式，這帶來了很大的自然利好。

But from a focus standpoint, like for the first couple of quarters of the year, we were focused on a lot of things. And this may not have made it all the way to the top of the list, but it was on the top of the list kind of pre-pandemic, if you recall.

但從關注點來看，例如今年前兩個季度，我們關注了很多事情。雖然這可能沒有最終排到榜首，但如果你還記得的話，在疫情爆發前，它幾乎一直名列前茅。

And so I think I would see this as more of a reemergence of some of the themes and some of the things that we had been talking about that excite us because I think the Wisely opportunity is a big one. So I'm glad that the team brought this forward in terms of as an investment opportunity because we were excited about it, call it, 12 to 18 months ago. We should be just as excited about it today. But admittedly, it wasn't our #1 focus in the middle of the pandemic, if you will, or at the beginning of the pandemic.

所以我認為這更像是我們一直在討論的一些主題和一些讓我們興奮的事情的重新出現，因為我認為 Wisely 的機會很大。所以我很高興團隊將這個專案作為投資機會提出來，因為我們在大約 12 到 18 個月前就對此感到興奮。今天我們同樣應該為此感到興奮。但不得不承認，在疫情期間，或者說在疫情初期，這並不是我們的首要關注點。

Yes. And then just one last comment is we always look very hard at the timing and amount that we spend on marketing and advertising. But with economic activity continuing to have momentum and pick up and client engagement picking up, we felt this was the right time to increase that a little bit as well.

是的。最後補充一點，我們始終非常重視行銷和廣告投入的時間和金額。但隨著經濟活動持續成長動能與回升，客戶參與度也在提高，我們認為現在也是適當增加投入的適當時機。

I really appreciate that color, and it is completely consistent with the long-term track record, going back to Art, even before Gary. Can you talk a little bit about just -- Danny, can you just remind us what the sensitivity on the pays per control to revenue is?

我非常喜歡這種顏色，它與 Art 的長期風格完全一致，甚至在 Gary 之前也是如此。丹尼，你能稍微談談嗎？可以提醒我們一下按控制付費對收入的敏感度是多少嗎？

It's a 25 basis points of revenue impact for every 1 percentage point change in pays per control.

每增加 1 個百分點的按控制付費，就會對收入產生 25 個基點的影響。

Our next question comes from Kevin McVeigh from Crédit Suisse.

下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的凱文麥克維。

Great. Carlos, I think you alluded to kind of a record high client count, 900,000 or so. Can you give us a sense of where that splits across enterprise, mid-, downmarket? And how that fits relative to historical trends in the business?

偉大的。卡洛斯，我想你暗示過客戶數量將創歷史新高，大約 90 萬。您能否大致介紹一下企業級、中端市場和低端市場之間的劃分？這與該產業的歷史趨勢有何關聯？

Yes. I can give you some color. We don't -- I don't think that's something that we've disclosed in terms of the actual breakdown by business, but I can give you general ideas. So we had -- that 6% growth, the 900,000 -- and we had, call it, growth of somewhere around that for RUN. Our WFN growth was around that as well. And GlobalView was around that as well. So from a client -- pure client growth standpoint, if you look at our strategic platforms, they grew in kind of that neighborhood from a client growth standpoint, which we see as really great news given the very difficult environment that we're in.

是的。我可以給你一些色彩。我們沒有——我認為我們還沒有披露按業務劃分的具體細節，但我可以給你一些大致的想法。所以，我們實現了 6% 的成長，90 萬用戶——可以說，RUN 的成長也差不多是這個水準。我們的WFN成長也與此相關。GlobalView當時也差不多是那個時候成立的。因此，從客戶——純粹的客戶成長角度來看，如果你看看我們的策略平台，它們在客戶成長方面確實取得了類似的成長，考慮到我們所處的非常艱難的環境，我們認為這是一個非常好的消息。

Obviously, when you look at, mathematically, the overall growth rate and the overall number, it's driven in large part by our small business division because that's where we have the bulk of the absolute number of clients. But I wanted to give you a little bit of color around -- if you look at Workforce Now across our multiple channels because, remember, we sell Workforce Now just in the -- not just in the mid-market but we sell it in the upmarket, and we sell it in the PEO platform as well. We also have that platform in Canada. And so that gives you some sense of kind of how well that platform is growing, which is really satisfying to us. So hopefully, that helps a little bit.

顯然，從數學角度來看，整體成長率和總數很大程度上是由我們的小型企業部門推動的，因為我們的小型企業部門擁有絕大多數的客戶。但我想給你補充一些背景資訊——如果你透過我們的多個管道了解 Workforce Now，因為記住，我們不僅在中端市場銷售 Workforce Now，還在高端市場銷售，並且也在 PEO 平台上銷售。我們在加拿大也有同樣的平台。因此，這可以讓你大致了解該平台的發展情況，這讓我們非常滿意。希望這能有所幫助。

No, that's helpful. And then just on the retention real quick, I think you took it up to 125 basis points from 100. Can you just refine that a little bit? Is that kind of a Q4 run rate? Or is that the full year number? Does that mean the fourth quarter is even higher than that? Or was that a TTM number? And then just any thoughts, if you could just maybe frame out a little bit more because it's obviously a big development?

不，這很有幫助。然後，關於客戶留存率，我想你們把它從 100 個基點提高到了 125 個基點。能不能稍微潤飾一下？這是第四季的平均運行速度嗎？還是說這是全年的數字？那是不是意味著第四季的數據甚至比這還要高？還是那是TTM編號？然後，您還有什麼想法嗎？能否再詳細闡述？因為這顯然是一個重大進展。

You've stumped us.

你難倒我們了。

No. I think we said in the opening remarks, Kevin, that it's on the Q3 performance being stronger than expected.

不。凱文，我想我們在開場白中已經說過，第三季的業績將強於預期。

Yes. I think it's generally -- it's been consistent, like it's really, frankly, remarkable, which is why we keep emphasizing some caution because we hope -- there's no plan -- we're not going to give it back, and we're not hoping for a give-back. But in this business, like people who have been following us for a long time, like when we have a 10 to 20 basis point move in retention, it's a big deal.

是的。我認為總體而言——一直都很穩定，坦白說，這真的很了不起，所以我們才一直強調要謹慎，因為我們希望——目前還沒有計劃——我們不會把它還回去，我們也不希望它被還回去。但在這個行業，對於長期關注我們的人來說，當我們的客戶留存率提高 10 到 20 個基點時，這可是件大事。

So to have this kind of retention on top of the retention that we had last year is pretty remarkable. And so we're pretty excited about it. And I think the key for us is trying to determine -- like when I look at the retention figures, there's a lot of improvement in what's called the controllable losses, so the ones that are related to kind of service issues and so forth.

因此，在去年已經很高的留存率基礎上，還能維持這樣的留存率，這非常了不起。所以我們對此感到非常興奮。我認為關鍵在於確定——例如當我查看客戶留存率數據時，在所謂的可控損失方面有了很大的改善，也就是與服務問題等相關的損失。

So we're excited that we might be able to hold on to some of this gain. But at the same time, we're realistic enough to acknowledge that some of the stuff that was related to kind of out of business and government stimulus, there might be a little bit of give-back there.

所以我們很高興能夠保住部分收益。但同時，我們也足夠現實地認識到，一些與企業倒閉和政府刺激措施有關的事情，可能會有一些反彈。

But it's been pretty consistent, like every -- it seems like every quarter, the improvement has been in that same neighborhood year-over-year. Hence, why we kind of tweaked the full year -- because we're probably going to end up in the range that we gave you, which is a little higher than what we had before. But it wasn't -- we weren't trying to like send any kind of message about the fourth quarter in particular.

但情況一直相當穩定，似乎每個季度，每年的改善都集中在同一個方面。因此，我們對全年的預期進行了一些調整——因為我們最終的預期可能會在我們給出的範圍內，這比我們之前的預期要高一些。但事實並非如此——我們並不是想傳達任何關於第四季的具體訊息。

Our next question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang from JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天進。

A lot of good questions already. Just thinking about the retention. It feels like it's industry-wide to some degree. So just trying to better understand your new sales, the reacceleration. Is it driven more from upselling and new business formation? And any surprises in the net switching or the balance of trade from a head-to-head standpoint?

已經有很多好問題了。只是在考慮客戶留存率的問題。感覺這在某種程度上是整個產業的普遍現象。所以，我只是想更了解你們的新銷售情況，以及銷售的重新加速。其驅動力更多是追加銷售和新業務拓展嗎？從直接比較的角度來看，淨轉換或貿易平衡方面是否有任何意外情況？

I don't have a lot to report on. We obviously watch all that stuff, like you're referring to the balance of trade. And as you said, it's hard for me to tell about retention in terms of the rest of the industry. You guys would be the experts on that because my casual review of some 10-Ks makes it kind of hard to compare, like some people would say retention of their annual recurring revenue, cloud revenues, which is not the same as the retention for their company.

我沒什麼特別要報告的。我們當然會關注所有這些方面，例如你提到的貿易差額。正如你所說，我很難將客戶留存率與行業其他方面進行比較。你們才是這方面的專家，因為我粗略地瀏覽了一些 10-K 表格，發現很難進行比較，例如有些人會說他們的年度經常性收入、雲端收入的留存率，但這與公司整體的留存率並不相同。

So it's kind of hard for me to say. I mean some of it, I would say, is probably more variable than you think based on what I'm seeing in terms of the variability of growth rates because it's clearly been a huge part of our ability to outperform.

所以，我很難說。我的意思是，就我所看到的成長率波動而言，其中一些因素可能比你想像的更具可變性，因為這顯然是我們能夠取得優異成績的重要因素。

I mean this is a pretty remarkable revenue performance given what we've been through and given the pays per control headcount. And by the way, nobody has brought it up yet, but we have a huge headwind on client funds interest, which is going to abate here in the fourth quarter and is going to abate next year as well. There may still be a little bit of headwind, but this was really the worst quarter that we had in these 9 months, where that -- there was a $130 million drag just from client funds interest.

我的意思是，考慮到我們所經歷的一切以及每個控制人員的薪酬，這確實是一個非常了不起的收入表現。順便說一句，雖然還沒有人提到過，但我們在客戶資金投資方面面臨巨大的阻力，這種情況將在第四季度有所緩解，明年也會有所緩解。雖然可能還有些不利因素，但這確實是過去 9 個月中最糟糕的一個季度，光是客戶資金利息就造成了 1.3 億美元的損失。

So when you put everything into the pot, without really good strong retention, it's hard to outperform the way we have. And we've done some work on the relative performances of us versus some of our competitors. And we feel pretty good about that and about our potential for retention to be one of the needle movers there. There might be some other factors that I'm not -- that we're not -- we haven't thought about. But no, I don't think there's anything else really big out there, like we've done a little bit better against some of our -- the usual competitors that you know about in terms of balance of trade. But there's others that are still challenging for us.

所以，當你把所有東西都放進鍋子裡，如果沒有真正好的、堅固的保持力，就很難像我們這樣表現出色。我們也對自身與一些競爭對手的相對錶現做了一些分析。我們對此感到非常滿意，並認為我們的客戶留存率有望成為推動產業發展的因素之一。可能還有一些我沒有考慮到的其他因素。但是，不，我不認為還有其他什麼真正的大事發生，例如我們在貿易平衡方面比一些——你知道的那些通常的競爭對手——做得稍微好一些。但還有一些問題仍然讓我們感到棘手。

And so net-net, we're pretty comfortable with where we are and determined to continue to drive our growth. I think all of us are probably benefiting from kind of overall economic growth. And the fact that it seems like maybe there are some either in-house or regional providers that are -- because you can see our -- we're growing our units in Workforce Now and in RUN. And so we're -- it seems like we're all -- have some ability to grow in this environment, which is, I guess, good for everyone.

總而言之，我們對目前的狀況相當滿意，並決心繼續推動成長。我認為我們所有人可能都受益於整體經濟成長。而且，似乎有一些內部或區域供應商正在這樣做——因為你可以看到我們的——我們在 Workforce Now 和 RUN 中不斷成長。所以，我們——似乎我們所有人——都有一定的能力在這種環境下成長，我想，這對每個人都有好處。

Yes. I'm glad you said all that. We shouldn't take it for granted.

是的。很高興你把這些都說了。我們不應該把它視為理所當然。

Just quickly on client satisfaction, notably higher. Would you attribute it, Carlos, more to the -- of course, the support efforts you guys have invested in, but the Next Gen platforms and some of the digital initiatives? Or are you also seeing just clients maybe building more better goodwill, with ADP spending more time with them during these tough times, during the pandemic? Just trying to understand that because that seems like it could be -- if that carries over, we could see some compounding in the retention.

客戶滿意度方面，明顯較高。卡洛斯，你認為這更歸功於——當然，你們投入的支援工作，但還有下一代平台和一些數位化舉措？或者您也看到，在疫情期間的艱難時期，ADP 花更多時間與客戶溝通，從而建立了更好的客戶關係？我只是想弄清楚這一點，因為這似乎有可能——如果這種情況持續下去，我們可能會看到留存率出現一些累積效應。

Yes. I think it's a great question. We obviously are trying to figure that out because it's very important to the long-term value creation of the company. And it's all the things you mentioned because you obviously know the business well enough that you hit on all. And the question is how much is each of those, right? Like the last one that you mentioned about the goodwill, there's no question that us being there -- like there were 2 or 3 months where people could not talk to anyone other than us about what to do, right? What to do about the PPP loans that the government was offering, around tax credits, because if you buy software from someone, you can't call them to ask them those questions. I just want to remind everyone, right?

是的。我覺得這是一個很好的問題。我們顯然正在努力弄清楚這一點，因為這對公司的長期價值創造至關重要。你提到的所有方面都符合你的預期，因為你顯然對這個行業非常了解，所以才能面面俱到。問題是，這些東西每樣值多少錢？就像你剛才提到的善意一樣，毫無疑問，我們的存在至關重要——就像有兩三個月的時間，人們除了我們之外，無法與任何人談論該做什麼，對吧？關於政府提供的 PPP 貸款和稅收抵免，該如何處理？因為如果你從某人那裡購買軟體，你不能打電話問他們這些問題。我只是想提醒大家一下，對吧？

You can call them to ask them about the software. And you can send in a ticket to get your software issue resolved. But you can't call to ask about tax deferrals or tax credits or PPP reports or any of that kind of stuff. So we clearly built a lot of goodwill. But on the other hand, business is business, and goodwill doesn't last forever. So we're not planning on living off of that for the next 5 or 10 years.

你可以打電話向他們諮詢軟體相關事宜。您也可以提交工單來解決您的軟體問題。但是你不能打電話詢問有關稅收延期、稅收抵免、PPP報告或任何類似的事情。所以我們顯然累積了很多好感。但另一方面，生意就是生意，善意不會永遠持續下去。所以我們並不打算在未來5到10年裡靠那筆錢過活。

So that brings me back to kind of the basics of client satisfaction, which is we have to be there for our clients when they need us, not just during the pandemic but at all times. So I would say that the second major factor, besides the goodwill that I mentioned and some of the digital initiatives to like make things easier for our clients and improve our user experience, is that we did not panic at the onset of the pandemic.

所以這讓我想到客戶滿意度的基本要素，那就是我們必須在客戶需要我們的時候為他們提供服務，不僅僅是在疫情期間，而是在任何時候。因此，除了我提到的善意以及一些旨在讓客戶更輕鬆、改善用戶體驗的數位化舉措之外，我認為第二個主要因素是，我們在疫情爆發之初並沒有驚慌失措。

And if you recall, we took some lumps for that because we really maintained our investments, both -- not just in R&D but we maintained our investments in headcount and implementation.

如果你還記得的話，我們為此遭受了一些損失，因為我們確實維持了我們的投資，不僅是研發方面的投資，而且我們還維持了對人員配備和實施方面的投資。

That doesn't mean that we didn't have some drift down as a result of some turnover, which we did. And our headcount did decline because we had temporarily a drop in volume, if you will. But that was really, really important, right, to be able to kind of get through this period and be able to deliver on our commitments to our clients.

但這並不代表我們沒有因為人員更迭而出現一些下滑，而事實上我們確實出現了下滑。我們的員工人數確實減少了，因為我們的業務量暫時下降了。但這一點真的非常重要，對吧？這樣我們才能度過這段時期，並履行我們對客戶的承諾。

And back to the comments I made about productivity before, that's one of those things that we watch very carefully because we want to improve productivity. But we won't -- we can't be naive and think that if our -- obviously, if our headcount was 10% lower, we'd have higher net income. The problem is what would your client satisfaction be and your retention.

回到我之前提到的生產力問題，這是我們非常關注的事情之一，因為我們想要提高生產力。但我們不能天真地認為，如果我們的員工人數減少 10%，我們的淨收入就會更高。問題在於，您的客戶滿意度和客戶留存率會是多少。

And so that's the magic, right, of being able to figure out what's that right balance. And you have tools to figure that out. You have monitoring systems, right, to understand what the client satisfaction levels are in relation to how quickly you're getting back to people to resolve their problems, for example, and how well trained your people are.

所以，關鍵就在於能夠找到適合的平衡點。你擁有解決這個問題的工具。你們有監視系統，對吧？這樣可以了解客戶滿意度水平，例如，你們回覆客戶解決問題的速度如何，以及你們的員工訓練有素程度如何。

So there's a number of different factors that we look at. But the key is to be committed to delivering high levels of client service, which we are. And I think we just proved it. If we can do it during a pandemic, we can do it anytime.

所以我們需要考慮很多不同的因素。但關鍵在於致力於提供高水準的客戶服務，而我們也正是這樣做的。我認為我們剛剛就證明了這一點。如果我們在疫情期間都能做到，那麼任何時候我們都能做到。

Thank our next question comes from Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America.

謝謝，我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的傑森·庫柏伯格。

PI just wanted to start with the bookings question, just to make sure you've got the expectations right here. Just trying to do the math on the Q4 implied guidance. I think it would be about 90% growth. So I wanted to see if that's accurate. Obviously, you've got the super easy comp there.

PI 只是想先問一下預訂方面的問題，以確保您對這方面的預期有正確的理解。我只是想計算一下第四季業績指引的隱含價值。我認為成長率應該在90%左右。所以我想看看這是否準確。顯然，你遇到的這個問題非常簡單。

And maybe as part of that, could you just talk about some of the activities you've seen through the first month of the quarter? I mean I assume you've got pretty high visibility here just given that you raised the low end of the full year guidance range for the bookings.

或許作為其中的一部分，您能否談談在本季第一個月裡您所看到的一些活動？我的意思是，鑑於你提高了全年預訂量預期範圍的下限，我認為你在這裡的知名度相當高。

Jason, it's Danny. You don't have the weightings by quarter, but what's implied for the fourth quarter is over 100% bookings growth. And for April, we're tracking right in line with expectation.

傑森，我是丹尼。雖然沒有按季度劃分的權重，但第四季度的預訂量增長超過 100%，這暗示著預訂量將增長 100% 以上。四月的情況也與預期相符。

Yes. And I would say that you should not read anything into that other than what we said, which is we're still really positive. We believe we're going to continue to get sequential productivity improvements. But the percentage growth rate is really related to the base effect is really when you get down to it, right? Whether it's 110 or 150 or 190, it's not that -- I know you know it's not that important because I think you're trying to get to a number. You're using the percentage to get to the number.

是的。我想說的是，除了我們所說的話之外，你不應該對此做任何其他解讀，我們仍然非常樂觀。我們相信生產力將持續穩定提升。但歸根結底，成長率百分比實際上與基數效應有關，對吧？無論是 110、150 還是 190，都不重要——我知道你也知道這並不重要，因為我認為你只是想得到一個數字。你用百分比來計算這個數字。

But you should probably -- if I were you, I would look at maybe call it the second quarter or maybe 2019 fourth quarter or something. There's got to be something else that would give you something good as a proxy, right, where -- we don't expect to be back to 100% productivity levels in the fourth quarter, but we should be getting close to like where we were in 2019. And there might be other small moving parts there from 2019. So I don't want to go out on a limb and say that's the right analog. But anyway, I think that's hopefully helpful.

但如果你是我，我可能會考慮把它叫做第二季度，或是 2019 年第四季之類的。肯定還有其他因素可以作為很好的替代指標，對吧？ ——我們預計第四季生產力水準不會恢復到 100%，但應該會接近 2019 年的水準。2019 年可能還有其他一些小的變動部件。所以我不想妄下斷言說這是正確的類比。不過，希望這能有所幫助。

Yes. No, it is. Your comp certainly would matter more. I just wanted to make sure people kind of have the right numbers in their models for the quarter.

是的。不，確實如此。你的電腦配置當然更重要。我只是想確保大家在季度模型中使用的數字基本上正確。

And then just a quick follow-up on the pays per control. I think you mentioned it was a little worse than you anticipated in Q3. And you tempered your Q4 expectations a little bit. I'm just curious which part of the portfolio is driving that? It just seems maybe a little incongruous with the U.S. employment data that we're seeing at a high level, which obviously has continued to outperform expectations.

最後，再簡單跟進一下按控制付費的問題。我想你之前提到過，第三季的情況比你預期的還要糟糕。你稍微降低了對第四季的預期。我只是好奇是投資組合中的哪一部分在推動這一趨勢？這似乎與我們目前看到的美國就業數據有些不符，美國的就業數據顯然持續超出預期。

It's 100% timing related because we can see in the data -- we have other data sets like they show us, like, for example, job postings and background checks, screenings and so forth. So you shouldn't read anything into it.

這完全與時間有關，因為我們可以從數據中看出——我們還有其他數據集，例如，招聘資訊、背景調查、篩選等等。所以你不必對此過度解讀。

And we did not temper our fourth quarter at all. In fact, we kind of tried to clarify that we kept the full year the same, despite the third quarter being a little bit softer, in part because we think we're on the same positive trajectory that I think -- that we thought we were on. So we're seeing the same thing you're seeing in terms of employment and unemployment. And we would fully expect these pays per control numbers to improve rapidly here.

我們第四季完全沒有收斂。事實上，我們試圖澄清，儘管第三季略顯疲軟，但我們仍保持全年業績不變，部分原因是我們認為我們正處於我們之前認為的積極發展軌跡上。所以，我們在就業和失業方面看到的情況和你們看到的一樣。我們完全有理由相信，這裡的按控制次數付費的數據會迅速改善。

And remember that we're talking today about numbers that were through the end of the third -- sorry, through the end of March, and those numbers are for 3 months, right? So if you look at the third month, in March, it's different than it was for January. And January, February, I know it's hard to remember, to think back that far in how bad things were. That was a completely different picture than the picture we had in early April and maybe in the last -- very last week of March. So I wouldn't read anything into it other than timing.

請記住，我們今天討論的是截至三月底的數據——抱歉，是截至三月底的數據，這些數據是三個月的數據，對吧？所以，如果你看第三個月，也就是三月份，你會發現它和一月的情況有所不同。一月、二月，我知道很難回想起那麼久以前的情況有多糟糕。這與我們四月初甚至三月最後一週的情況完全不同。所以除了時間點之外，我不會對此做任何其他解讀。

Just to clarify, it was just a slight tweak to the Q4 number and holding the full year at down 3% to 4%. So it's really kind of very minor tweaks.

需要澄清的是，這只是對第四季數據稍作調整，全年降幅仍維持在 3% 至 4%。所以其實只是一些非常細微的調整。

And our next question comes from Pete Christiansen from Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的皮特·克里斯蒂安森。

Carlos, I think the high customer SAT scores, the goodwill, clearly a testament to ADP's capabilities and certainly the service business model. But I guess clients' needs certainly change. And we've been hearing from some of our other companies that talent acquisition has been, I guess, even more challenging than in the past. And I recall at the last Analyst Day that ADP had really been making a lot of strides in improving its recruiting management tools, so on and so forth.

卡洛斯，我認為高客戶滿意度評分和良好的口碑，顯然證明了 ADP 的能力，當然也證明了其服務型商業模式的成功。但我認為客戶的需求肯定會改變。我們也從其他一些公司了解到，人才招募似乎比過去更具挑戰性。我記得在上一次分析師日上，ADP 在改進其招募管理工具等方面確實取得了長足的進步。

How would you think that you stack up competitively in that area, particularly in recruiting management tools? And do you think that could be another vehicle or vessel to maintain the high retention levels that you're currently experiencing?

您認為您在該領域，特別是招募管理工具方面，具有怎樣的競爭力？您認為這是否可以作為維持目前高客戶留存率的另一種途徑或方法？

Absolutely. I think that you're right. I mean some of this obviously is cyclical, right, in the sense that 12 to 18 months ago, people were looking for other tools other than client acquisition tools. So you have to be careful about not kind of shifting with the wind necessarily. You have to be consistently able to help people throughout the whole life cycle of HCM. And right now, that happens to be an important one.

絕對地。我認為你是對的。我的意思是，其中一些顯然是周期性的，對吧？因為在 12 到 18 個月前，人們還在尋找客戶取得工具以外的其他工具。所以你要注意不要隨風搖擺。你必須能夠在 HCM 的整個生命週期中持續幫助患者。而現在，這恰好是一個很重要的問題。

And so I would say that there's 2 things. One is we build our own tools, as you said, around recruitment management. And we also have an RPO business, and we have other tools to help with the talent acquisition process. We also partner and we have some really strong partnerships. I'm not sure I should -- I don't know if I mentioned the names of the companies or not. But the names that you hear a lot of kind of advertising about, we have very strong integration and partnerships with some of those companies to really make it easy, in particular, in small business but also even in the mid-market for people to use those tools to really help with the recruiting needs that they have.

所以我認為有兩件事。一是我們像你所說的那樣，圍繞招聘管理建立我們自己的工具。我們也有招募流程外包 (RPO) 業務，我們還有其他工具可以幫助進行人才招募流程。我們也與其他機構合作，我們有一些非常牢固的合作關係。我不確定我是否應該——我不知道我是否提到了這些公司的名字。但是，對於你經常聽到的廣告名稱，我們與其中一些公司建立了非常強大的整合和合作關係，以便真正方便地，特別是小型企業，甚至中型市場，人們可以使用這些工具來真正幫助他們滿足招聘需求。

But we feel we've been making -- we have made significant investments in our recruitment management platform and our talent acquisition platforms, nothing to do with the pandemic. So that -- you could call it fortuitous that we had done that before the pandemic. And we would expect that those would be contributors to our overall value proposition, into our revenue -- sorry, into our bookings growth because those are generally tools that create incrementality around your bookings number.

但我們認為，我們一直在進行——我們已經對招募管理平台和人才獲取平台進行了大量投資，這與疫情無關。所以——可以說，我們在疫情爆發前就做了這件事，真是幸運。我們預計這些因素將對我們的整體價值主張、收入——抱歉，是預訂量成長——做出貢獻，因為這些工具通常可以增加預訂量。

In other words, what you can charge clients is typically there's a core set of solutions. And then recruitment management, things like time and attendance or workforce management, those tend to be more incremental around the basic package, if you will, of HCM.

換句話說，你可以向客戶收取的費用通常是一套核心解決方案。然後是招聘管理、考勤或勞動力管理之類的東西，這些往往是圍繞 HCM 基本軟體包的更多增量。

So we're positive. We're bullish on it. And I think we're very -- just as a reminder, our app marketplace is -- creates a very easy and seamless way for people to use different solutions in HCM. And this would be a category that we would have a lot of partners in that app marketplace that allow you to get all the other benefits you mentioned about ADP's business model and still be able to fulfill your talent acquisition needs. If you don't believe that ADP has what you need, which we believe you do, but if you don't, you can always get it through one of our partners.

所以我們持樂觀態度。我們非常看好它。而且我認為我們非常——再次提醒一下，我們的應用市場——為人們在 HCM 中使用不同的解決方案創造了一種非常容易和無縫的方式。在這個類別中，我們在應用程式市場中有很多合作夥伴，他們可以讓您獲得您提到的 ADP 商業模式的所有其他好處，同時也能滿足您的人才招募需求。如果您認為 ADP 沒有您需要的東西（我們相信您有），但如果您沒有，您總是可以透過我們的合作夥伴獲得。

That's helpful. And apologies if this was addressed earlier. But given the change in the yield curve, have there been any thoughts on potentially extending duration of the portfolio or any other investment selection choices as you head into '22?

那很有幫助。如果之前已經討論過這個問題，我深感抱歉。但鑑於殖利率曲線的變化，在進入 2022 年之際，您是否考慮過延長投資組合的久期或其他投資選擇？

Probably not worth mentioning. As you know, the yield curve, like right now, kind of 5- and 7-year is a little bit better than 2 and 3 just because of the way the Fed is managing the curve, if you will. So I think there are always -- I would call them tactical opportunities but no. I mean I think our duration has been in the same range since I've been CEO. And I would anticipate that's not changing. And we're not changing our laddering strategy and we're not changing our client funds interest strategy.

可能不值得一提。如你所知，目前的殖利率曲線，5年期和7年期公債殖利率曲線比2年期和3年期公債殖利率曲線略好一些，這主要是因為聯準會對殖利率曲線的管理方式。所以我認為總是會有一些——我會稱之為戰術機會，但不是。我的意思是，自從我擔任CEO以來，我們的持續時間一直都在這個範圍內。我預計這種情況不會改變。我們不會改變階梯式投資策略，也不會改變客戶資金的利息策略。

The good news is that it appears the worst is behind us in terms of drag from client funds interest, which was painful. I think we had a $50 million drag just this quarter. So again, not to beat a dead horse, but it just shows the strength of the business that we didn't mention that to you. And we kind of overcame that drag and $130 million for the year. So we're looking forward to better times ahead.

好消息是，客戶資金利息拖累業績的最糟糕的時期似乎已經過去了，那段時期確實很痛苦。我認為光是本季我們就損失了5000萬美元。所以，我不想老生常談，但這恰恰說明了我們公司的實力，我們竟然沒有向您提及此事。我們克服了這種阻力，最終實現了1.3億美元的年度收入。所以我們期待著更美好的未來。

And I did see an interesting chart. Again, I probably shouldn't say this, but we had $16 billion in balances in 2008. And we had $635 million in client funds interest -- I'm sorry, $685 million, not $35 million in client funds interest. So it just shows to you the magnitude. I mean you all know what's happened to interest rates, but that was 2008. That wasn't like a different century or in a different country, like that was here.

我看到了一張很有意思的圖表。我可能不應該再說這句話了，但我們在 2008 年的帳戶餘額為 160 億美元。我們有 6.35 億美元的客戶資金利息——抱歉，是 6.85 億美元，不是 3500 萬美元的客戶資金利息。這正好說明了問題的嚴重性。我的意思是，你們都知道利率發生了什麼變化，但那是2008年的事了。那感覺不像發生在另一個世紀或另一個國家，而像是發生在這裡。

And so today, our balances are, call it, the mid-$20 billion number for the year. I think that's the expectation. So I think you could probably do the math yourself in terms of if we do believe that there's going to be some inflation here. And if you look at the inflation breakevens and you look at some other things that are going on, we're looking forward to better times ahead for client funds interest.

因此，今天我們的餘額，姑且稱之為，今年的200億美元中段吧。我想這是大家的預期。所以我覺得，如果我們真的相信這裡會出現通貨膨脹，你自己應該可以算算。如果你看看通膨損益平衡點，再看看其他一些正在發生的事情，我們期待著客戶資金的收益在未來會更好。

And the adjusted EBITDA margin was 19% back then, and you're already above that. That's great.

當時的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率為 19%，而你們現在已經超過了這個數字。那太棒了。

And we have time for one more question, and that comes from Jeff Silber from BMO Capital Markets.

我們還有時間回答最後一個問題，這個問題來自 BMO 資本市場的 Jeff Silber。

My questions have already been asked.

我的問題已經問過了。

Thank you. And this concludes our question-and-answer portion for today. I am pleased to hand the program over to Carlos Rodriguez for any closing remarks.

謝謝。今天的問答環節到此結束。我很高興將節目交給卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，請他作總結發言。

So as you can tell from our comments, we continue to, I think, have the same level of optimism as we had last quarter. And we're really, really thankful for the performance of our sales organization and also our frontline associates in terms of what they've been able to do for our clients.

所以從我們的評論中可以看出，我認為我們仍然保持著與上個季度相同的樂觀態度。我們真心感謝銷售團隊和第一線員工為客戶所做的一切。

And at the risk of ending on a negative note, though, all of this positive and all of this -- positivity and enthusiasm, we don't want to overlook the fact that we still have some challenges, and some people still have some challenges in other parts of the world. This is a U.S.-headquartered company with over 80% of our revenues in the U.S. So that's probably why you're hearing all of this optimism.

不過，為了避免以消極的語氣結束，儘管我們展現了這麼多積極的方面和熱情，但我們不想忽視這樣一個事實：我們仍然面臨一些挑戰，世界其他地區的一些人仍然面臨一些挑戰。這是一家總部位於美國的跨國公司，超過 80% 的收入來自美國。所以，你大概也能聽到這麼多樂觀的聲音。

But we're not only in the U.S. We have associates in India, in Brazil, in Canada and in Europe, and the situation is not the same there. Even though the businesses are performing well, we -- just as back in the spring of last year, there was enormous suffering and challenges here in the U.S. among our associates. The same thing is happening for some of our associates and some other parts of the world, in particular, in India.

但我們的業務不僅限於美國。我們在印度、巴西、加拿大和歐洲都有合作夥伴，而那裡的情況並不相同。儘管公司業績良好，但就像去年春天一樣，我們在美國的員工也面臨著巨大的痛苦和挑戰。同樣的情況也發生在我們的一些合作夥伴以及世界其他一些地區，尤其是在印度。

And we are not going to forget them. We're doing everything we can to help them. We appreciate what the U.S. government is doing, along with the Indian government and local governments to help as well. And we look forward to helping them kind of get through the same difficult situation that we managed to get through.

我們不會忘記他們。我們正在盡一切努力幫助他們。我們感謝美國政府、印度政府以及地方政府所做的努力和提供的協助。我們期待著幫助他們渡過我們曾經經歷過的艱難時期。

And they too will have their vaccination rates pick up in all of those parts of the world. And they too will emerge from the pandemic, but it's clear that it's going to take a little bit longer. And we should all remember to be there, to help them and to support them in any way we can. And ADP will do exactly that.

在世界所有這些地區，他們的疫苗接種率也會上升。他們也終將走出疫情陰霾，但顯然這需要更長的時間。我們都應該記得要陪伴在他們身邊，盡我們所能地幫助他們、支持他們。ADP公司也確實會這樣做。

But having said that, we are close to seeing the situation in the rearview mirror here. And we're really anxious to see our growth rates reaccelerate to kind of where we were pre-pandemic here at some point in the future and getting back to the business and to helping our clients with their challenges and helping our associates build careers and helping all of you and our other shareholders and stakeholders get a fair return for their investment.

但話雖如此，我們很快就能把這種情況拋在腦後了。我們非常渴望看到我們的成長率在未來某個時候重新加速到疫情前的水平，回到正軌，幫助我們的客戶應對挑戰，幫助我們的員工發展職業生涯，並幫助你們以及我們所有的股東和利益相關者獲得公平的投資回報。

So we -- I guess, as always, we appreciate your interest in ADP, and we appreciate you tuning in. And we will be back in a quarter with our outlook for fiscal year '22. Thank you.

所以，我想，像往常一樣，我們感謝您對ADP的關注，感謝您的收看。我們將於下個季度公佈 2022 財年的展望。謝謝。

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

女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與，您現在可以斷開連接了。祝大家今天過得愉快。