Vertex Inc (VERX) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the Vertex fourth-quarter 2025 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Crivelli, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

大家好，歡迎參加 Vertex 2025 年第四季財報電話會議。（操作說明）請注意，本次活動正在錄影。現在我將把會議交給投資者關係副總裁喬·克里維利。請繼續。

Hello, and thanks for joining us to discuss Vertex's fourth-quarter results. Chris Young, our President and CEO; and John Schwab, our CFO, are also with us today.

您好，感謝您參加我們關於Vertex第四季業績的討論。我們的總裁兼執行長克里斯·楊和財務長約翰·施瓦布今天也來到了現場。

During this call, we may make forward-looking statements about expected future results. Actual results may differ due to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

在本次電話會議中，我們可能會對預期的未來業績做出前瞻性陳述。實際結果可能因風險和不確定因素而有所不同。這些風險和不確定性已在我們提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中進行了描述。

Our remarks today will also include references to non-GAAP metrics. A reconciliation of these metrics to GAAP is also provided in today's press release. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our Investor Relations website. I'll now turn the call over to Chris.

我們今天的演講也將提及非GAAP指標。今天的新聞稿中也提供了這些指標與 GAAP 的核對錶。本次電話會議正在錄音，錄音結束後將在我們的投資者關係網站上提供回放。現在我將把電話交給克里斯。

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us. It's great to join you on my first earnings conference call as President and CEO of Vertex. Our financial results for the fourth quarter came in as expected. Revenue was $194.7 million, in line with our guidance for the quarter, while adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our guidance at $42.5 million. For the full year, Vertex delivered double-digit revenue growth along with solid profitability.

歡迎各位，感謝你們的參與。很高興能以Vertex總裁兼執行長的身份參加我的首次財報電話會議。我們第四季的財務業績符合預期。營收為 1.947 億美元，符合我們對該季度的預期，而調整後的 EBITDA 為 4,250 萬美元，超過了我們預期的上限。Vertex全年實現了兩位數的收入成長和穩健的獲利能力。

Since this is my first time speaking to our investors and analysts, I wanted to cover a few topics. First, why I'm excited to join Vertex at this point in the company's history. Second, I'll give you a perspective from my conversations with customers, partners, and employees over the past three months. And third, my view on how we can accelerate our revenue growth. Then I'll share some exciting new business wins from the fourth quarter.

由於這是我第一次與我們的投資者和分析師交流，我想談談幾個主題。首先，我想說為什麼我很高興在這個公司發展的關鍵時刻加入 Vertex。其次，我將根據過去三個月與客戶、合作夥伴和員工的交流，向大家分享我的看法。第三，我的看法是，我們如何加速收入成長。接下來，我將分享第四季度一些令人興奮的新業務成果。

Many investors have asked what attracted me to come to Vertex. So I'll start there. First, I was drawn to Vertex's incredible blue-chip customer base, which includes over 60% of the Fortune 500 around the world, leading enterprises trust Vertex to stay compliant with ever-changing indirect tax requirements. Our customers described to me that Vertex is trusted, reliable, flexible, and have the deepest domain expertise in the industry.

許多投資者問我，是什麼吸引我來到Vertex。那我就從這裡開始吧。首先，Vertex 擁有令人難以置信的優質客戶群，其中包括全球 60% 以上的財富 500 強企業，領先企業信賴 Vertex 來遵守不斷變化的間接稅要求。我們的客戶向我描述說，Vertex 值得信賴、可靠、靈活，並且擁有業內最深厚的專業知識。

Likewise, our partner ecosystem is built on strong, long-standing relationships with the key technology and implementation partners that serve this customer base. These partners consistently recognize Vertex as the leading provider of indirect tax solutions for the enterprise. At the same time, both groups want to see us move faster and drive more innovation, and meeting that mandate will be job one for us in the near term.

同樣，我們的合作夥伴生態系統建立在與服務該客戶群的關鍵技術和實施合作夥伴之間的牢固、長期關係之上。這些合作夥伴一致認為 Vertex 是企業間接稅解決方案的領先供應商。同時，這兩個群體都希望我們加快步伐，推動更多創新，而滿足這項要求將是我們近期最重要的任務。

Second, Vertex has a long-standing track record of revenue growth, profitability, and positive cash flow across economic cycles as well as clear growth vectors for the future. Our core expansion is steady, and our land and expand motion is proven. We have a new high-growth business in compliance and e-invoicing, which exceeded our expectations in its first year and has meaningful catalysts on the horizon.

其次，Vertex 在各個經濟週期中都保持著良好的收入成長、獲利能力和正現金流記錄，並且擁有清晰的未來成長方向。我們的核心擴張穩步推進，我們的土地擴張策略也得到了驗證。我們在合規和電子發票領域擁有一項新的高成長業務，該業務在第一年就超出了我們的預期，未來還有重要的成長動力。

Third, I believe Vertex has an incredible opportunity to transform our business and help our customers transform theirs through artificial intelligence. This aligns well with my career experience, particularly my most recent role at Microsoft. There, I spent considerable time building partnerships with, and in several cases, investing in companies driving AI innovation. And I did that while working closely with many of my Microsoft teammates who are developing their own AI technologies.

第三，我相信 Vertex 擁有一個絕佳的機會，可以透過人工智慧改變我們的業務，並幫助我們的客戶改變他們的業務。這與我的職業經歷非常契合，尤其是我在微軟的最近一份工作。在那裡，我花了大量時間與推動人工智慧創新的公司建立合作關係，並在某些情況下對它們進行了投資。而且，我還是與許多正在開發他們自己的人工智慧技術的微軟團隊成員密切合作完成了這項工作。

Turning to our near-term priorities. While our full-year growth was healthy and respectable, in 2025, we saw lower entitlement growth, a moderation of new upsell and cross-sell revenue, and slightly higher customer attrition. This impacted our retention metrics, which John will discuss shortly.

接下來談談我們近期的優先事項。雖然我們全年的成長健康且可觀，但在 2025 年，我們看到權益成長放緩，新增追加銷售和交叉銷售收入有所下降，客戶流失率略有上升。這對我們的用戶留存率產生了影響，約翰稍後會對此進行討論。

In looking at customer attrition, business and market factors such as M&A and bankruptcy was the single largest driver of 2025 attrition, and this is largely uncontrollable by Vertex. It's also important to note that attrition continues to be concentrated in smaller accounts. The average annual revenue per customer for lost accounts in 2025 was under $50,000, far below our overall average revenue of $138,000 per customer.

從客戶流失的角度來看，併購和破產等商業和市場因素是 2025 年客戶流失的最大驅動因素，而這在很大程度上是 Vertex 無法控制的。值得注意的是，客戶流失仍集中在規模較小的帳戶。2025 年流失客戶的平均年收入低於 5 萬美元，遠低於我們每位客戶 13.8 萬美元的整體平均收入。

Finally, I'll note that competitive losses are a modest component of attrition, and Vertex continues to win far more ARR from competition than we lose to our competition. That said, we are taking several actions to mitigate controllable attrition, by expanding customer success coverage to a broader cohort of customers and leveraging AI tools to better serve our customer.

最後，我要指出的是，競爭造成的損失只是損耗中很小的一部分，Vertex 從競爭中獲得的 ARR 遠遠大於我們因競爭而損失的 ARR。儘管如此，我們正在採取多項措施來減輕可控的客戶流失，包括擴大客戶成功覆蓋範圍，惠及更廣泛的客戶群，並利用人工智慧工具更好地服務我們的客戶。

Our AI Copilot in the product will help customers address more questions without needing to call us for help. We also -- we have also implemented analytics to predict potential customer attrition so that we can engage them more proactively, including personal phone calls for me to address their concerns. I'm also confident that our new product offerings, including e-invoicing and smart categorization will help us accelerate cross-sell and upsell revenue in 2026, and we are already seeing measurable traction with both.

我們產品中的人工智慧助理將幫助客戶解決更多問題，而無需致電我們尋求協助。我們還實施了分析來預測潛在的客戶流失，以便我們能夠更積極主動地與他們互動，包括親自打電話來解決他們的疑慮。我也相信，我們的新產品，包括電子發票和智慧分類，將有助於我們在 2026 年加速交叉銷售和向上銷售收入，而且我們已經看到這兩項都取得了可衡量的成效。

On a positive note, revenue from new logos remained healthy and was up 20% in 2025. This included both competitive takeaways and customers who previously used homegrown solutions and switched to Vertex. It is essential that we continue to seize this opportunity.

從正面的方面來看，新商標帶來的收入保持健康，預計 2025 年將成長 20%。這既包括競爭對手的流失客戶，也包括先前使用自研解決方案並轉而使用 Vertex 的客戶。我們必須繼續抓住這個機會。

Now let's talk more about AI. Vertex is well positioned to help tax departments improve their workflows with artificial intelligence. Indirect tax compliance is rule-dense, it's data-heavy, and it's highly repetitive. It's the type of work that lends itself well to AI transformation. And we are starting from a four to five position as Vertex software is embedded in the workflows of our customers.

現在我們來詳細談談人工智慧。Vertex公司憑藉著人工智慧技術，在幫助稅務部門改善工作流程方面擁有得天獨厚的優勢。間接稅合規涉及大量規則、大量數據，而且重複性很高。這種類型的工作非常適合進行人工智慧轉型。由於 Vertex 軟體已嵌入到我們客戶的工作流程中，我們目前處於第四到第五的位置。

In addition, our customers place a premium on tax accuracy, something they've trusted Vertex with for years. And I'll add that our revenue-based pricing model insulates us from the concerns investors have around SaaS companies with seat-based licensing models.

此外，我們的客戶非常重視稅務準確性，多年來他們一直信賴 Vertex 在這方面的工作。我還要補充一點，我們基於收入的定價模式使我們免受投資者對採用席位許可模式的 SaaS 公司所存在的擔憂的影響。

As I shared earlier, I see significant and unique opportunity for us to capitalize on these trends. And that's one of the reasons I joined Vertex. In 2025, Vertex made significant investments in AI products, tools, and functionality.

正如我之前所說，我認為我們有機會抓住這些趨勢帶來的重大而獨特的機會。這也是我加入Vertex的原因之一。2025年，Vertex在人工智慧產品、工具和功能方面進行了大量投資。

This included the launch of our smart categorization offering, which is squarely in the wheelhouse of AI adoption. It reduces the manual work, tax departments undertake every day to ensure their product SKUs are mapped to the correct tax rates across all jurisdictions.

這其中包括我們推出的智慧分類產品，該產品完全符合人工智慧應用的範疇。它減少了稅務部門每天為確保其產品 SKU 在所有司法管轄區內與正確的稅率相符而進行的人工工作。

During the early adoption phase, we secured several marquee six-figure wins in the retail industry. To address this growing opportunity, we are broadening functionality and smart categorization to cover our full retail customer base. We will expand smart categorization to additional industries where the offering has applicability.

在早期推廣階段，我們在零售業中獲得了幾個價值六位數的標誌性訂單。為了掌握這一日益增長的機遇，我們正在擴展功能和智慧分類，以涵蓋我們所有的零售客戶群。我們將把智慧分類擴展到該服務適用的其他行業。

In addition, in 2025, we expanded the capabilities of Vertex Copilot. Copilot in turn helps us better understand the tasks and features customers are interacting with Copilot about, providing us with insights into areas that are causing friction in the use of our solutions. This can help us enhance our products, develop new AI features, and inform future product development.

此外，在 2025 年，我們擴展了 Vertex Copilot 的功能。Copilot 反過來幫助我們更了解客戶在使用 Copilot 時遇到的任務和功能，讓我們深入了解在使用我們的解決方案時出現摩擦的領域。這可以幫助我們改進產品、開發新的人工智慧功能，並為未來的產品開發提供資訊。

Finally, we continue to leverage our partnership with Kintsugi. On last quarter's call, we highlighted Kintsugi powered by Vertex, which enables SMBs to automate key compliance functions while providing real-time dashboards for jurisdictional liability and exposure tracking.

最後，我們將繼續加強與金繕公司的合作關係。在上個季度的電話會議上，我們重點介紹了由 Vertex 提供支援的 Kintsugi，它使中小企業能夠自動執行關鍵的合規功能，同時提供用於追蹤管轄權和風險敞口的即時儀表板。

Then in December, Kintsugi and Vertex partnered with CPA.com to launch an AI-driven solution to help accounting firms deliver automated, accurate, and scalable sales tax compliance for their clients. This then helps our partners and the accounting industry unlock new advisory revenue opportunities.

隨後在 12 月，Kintsugi 和 Vertex 與 CPA.com 合作推出了一項由人工智慧驅動的解決方案，以幫助會計師事務所為其客戶提供自動化、準確且可擴展的銷售稅合規服務。這樣一來，就能幫助我們的合作夥伴和會計行業開拓新的諮詢收入機會。

While all of this is a good start, we can do much more with AI, and I see a large opportunity on this front. It's my personal goal to transform Vertex into an AI-first business, both in how we work internally and through the new capabilities we deliver to our customer. I will have more to share on this transformation in the near future.

雖然這一切都是一個好的開端，但我們可以利用人工智慧做更多的事情，我認為這方面蘊藏著巨大的機會。我的個人目標是將 Vertex 轉型為一家以人工智慧為先的企業，無論是在內部工作方式上，還是透過我們為客戶提供的新功能上。關於這次轉變，我將在不久的將來分享更多。

With that, let's review some examples of how companies are depending on Vertex to stay in compliance with indirect tax. First, wins within our installed base. It's not uncommon for enterprise customers to use Vertex in one area of the business and a competitor in another. In many cases, over time, these customers will reevaluate their tax software footprint and standardize on Vertex.

接下來，讓我們來看一些公司如何依賴 Vertex 來遵守間接稅規定的例子。首先，在我們現有的用戶群中取得勝利。企業客戶在業務的某個領域使用 Vertex，而在另一個領域使用競爭對手的產品，這種情況並不少見。在許多情況下，隨著時間的推移，這些客戶會重新評估他們的稅務軟體配置，並最終選擇 Vertex 作為標準軟體。

As an example, a customer in the metals and mining industry dramatically expanded its relationship with Vertex in the fourth quarter. This customer had used Vertex's returns filing managed service for years, even though it was using a competitor for tax calculation.

例如，一家金屬和採礦業的客戶在第四季度大幅擴大了與 Vertex 的合作關係。儘管這家客戶使用的是競爭對手提供的稅務計算服務，但它多年來一直使用 Vertex 的報稅管理服務。

However, during an SAP S/4HANA transformation, the company made the decision to standardize on Vertex. As a result, this is now a fulsome mid-six-figure relationship, including sales and use tax calculation as well as exemption certificate manager, SAP PLUS Tools, SAP Accelerator, and other Vertex offerings.

然而，在 SAP S/4HANA 轉型過程中，該公司決定採用 Vertex 作為標準。因此，這現在是一項價值六位數的全面合作關係，包括銷售和使用稅計算以及免稅證明管理、SAP PLUS 工具、SAP Accelerator 和其他 Vertex 產品。

In the fourth quarter, we also won in-store point-of-sale tax calculation for a global quick service food and beverage retailer. This long-standing Vertex customer historically used us for tax calculation for its mobile app and gift card businesses, but a homegrown solution at the point of sale. They switched to Vertex during a redesign of their point-of-sale system, leading to high six figures of new revenue.

第四季度，我們也贏得了全球快餐食品和飲料零售商的店內銷售點稅費計算業務。Vertex 的這位長期客戶一直以來都使用我們的行動應用程式和禮品卡業務的稅務計算服務，但在銷售點則使用自主開發的解決方案。在重新設計銷售點系統時，他們改用了 Vertex 系統，從而獲得了高達六位數的新增收入。

In the Oracle ecosystem, we increased our business with a relatively new customer in the computer products manufacturing industry. Earlier this year, the customer spun out from its parent company and selected Vertex for use tax calculation. In the fourth quarter, they completed the transition and added sales tax calculation leading to six figures of new annual revenue for Vertex.

在 Oracle 生態系統中，我們與一家電腦產品製造業的相對較新的客戶拓展了業務。今年早些時候，該客戶從其母公司剝離出來，並選擇 Vertex 進行使用稅計算。第四季度，他們完成了過渡，並增加了銷售稅計算，為 Vertex 帶來了六位數的年度新收入。

Turning to new logos. We landed one of our largest new logos ever in Europe with a leading healthcare provider. Revenue for this new customer will be well into the seven figures. This deal was catalyzed by a global SAP S/4HANA transformation led by our partners, EY and DMA.

轉向使用新標誌。我們與一家領先的醫療保健提供者合作，在歐洲獲得了我們有史以來最大的新標誌之一。這位新客戶帶來的收入將輕鬆達到七位數。這項交易的促成，得益於我們的合作夥伴安永會計師事務所和DMA牽頭開展的全球SAP S/4HANA轉型。

It included value-added tax calculation across the customer's global footprint as well as sales and use tax in the United States. The customer will also be using our end-to-end VAT compliance offering to file returns in 30 countries around the globe.

其中包括客戶全球業務範圍內的增值稅計算，以及在美國的銷售稅和使用稅。客戶還將使用我們的端到端增值稅合規解決方案，在全球 30 個國家提交申報表。

Also in conjunction with an SAP S/4HANA transformation, a major North American power utility selected Vertex as its first ever indirect tax provider. This enterprise customer with revenue of nearly $10 billion was previously using manual solutions for use tax calculation.

此外，配合 SAP S/4HANA 轉型，一家北美大型電力公司選擇 Vertex 作為其首個間接稅提供者。這家年收入近 100 億美元的企業客戶之前一直使用人工方式計算使用稅。

In addition to use tax calculation, this mid-six-figure deal, which was referred to us by our partner, Accenture, also included SAP PLUS Tools, Vertex Consulting, and other ancillary products and services. This deal validates the greenfield opportunity for Vertex with large companies that are still using homegrown solutions for indirect tax.

除了使用稅計算之外，這筆金額達六位數的中等交易（由我們的合作夥伴埃森哲介紹給我們）還包括 SAP PLUS 工具、Vertex 諮詢以及其他輔助產品和服務。這項交易驗證了 Vertex 在大型企業中開拓新市場的機會，這些企業目前仍在使用自主研發的間接稅解決方案。

In the Oracle ecosystem, a software provider in the payment space selected Vertex to displace an entrenched competitor. We were differentiated by our ability to support the customers' massive scale and volume of transactions as well as our referenceability across the Oracle ecosystem. This led to low-six-figures of new revenue for Vertex.

在 Oracle 生態系統中，一家支付領域的軟體供應商選擇 Vertex 來取代根深蒂固的競爭對手。我們的優勢在於能夠支援客戶龐大的規模和交易量，以及我們在整個 Oracle 生態系統中的可比性。這為 Vertex 帶來了六位數的新收入。

Now turning to e-invoicing. In our first full year in the business, we've seen strong traction with both existing customers and new logos, accelerating demand around upcoming mandates, especially Belgium, which launched its e-invoicing mandate in January. And significant product differentiation for our end-to-end offering, which includes e-invoicing as well as that calculation and compliance in a single unified platform. We continue to believe our platform is unique in the marketplace and gives us a competitive advantage.

現在來說說電子發票。在公司成立的第一個完整年度，我們憑藉現有客戶和新客戶的強勁勢頭，推動了即將到來的專案需求，尤其是比利時，該國於 1 月推出了電子發票專案。我們的端到端產品具有顯著的產品差異化優勢，其中包括電子發票以及在一個統一的平台上進行運算和合規性管理。我們始終認為我們的平台在市場上獨一無二，並賦予我們競爭優勢。

Now let me give you some color on the types of e-invoicing deals we won during the fourth quarter. Wins with existing customers included a global payments company that selected Vertex for e-invoicing mandates in Belgium, Poland, and France; a consumer products company that selected Vertex for mandates in Germany, Belgium, and Poland; and a consumer electronics company also selected Vertex for mandates in Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Denmark.

現在讓我來詳細介紹一下我們在第四季度贏得的電子發票交易類型。現有客戶的成功案例包括：一家全球支付公司選擇 Vertex 為其在比利時、波蘭和法國提供電子發票服務；一家消費品公司選擇 Vertex 為其在德國、比利時和波蘭提供電子發票服務；以及一家消費電子公司也選擇 Vertex 為其在義大利、比利時、波蘭和丹麥提供電子發票服務。

Note that all of these examples are long-standing scaled customer and the e-invoice and cross-sell increased our ARR with these customers on average by over 20%. This should give investors a sense of the upsell opportunity that e-invoicing represents within the installed base.

請注意，所有這些範例都是長期規模化客戶，電子發票和交叉銷售使我們與這些客戶的 ARR 平均成長了 20% 以上。這應該能讓投資人感受到電子發票在現有客戶群中所代表的追加銷售機會。

New e-invoicing logos include a 14-country win with a German buildings product company; e-invoicing and value-added calculation for Belgium, France, and Germany with a North American energy products company; and a deal for Belgium, Germany, France, and the UK, and Ireland with a North American healthcare products company.

新的電子發票標識包括與一家德國建築產品公司達成的覆蓋 14 個國家的協議；與一家北美能源產品公司達成的覆蓋比利時、法國和德國的電子發票和增值計算協議；以及與一家北美醫療保健產品公司達成的覆蓋比利時、德國、法國、英國和愛爾蘭的協議。

All these new logos were in the mid- to high five-figure range. And while this is lower than our overall average revenue per customer, these initial engagements gave us a launching pad for our proven land and expand sales motion, not just with additional e-invoicing countries, but for the full suite of Vertex tax compliance solutions.

所有這些新標誌的設計費用都在五位數中高段位。雖然這低於我們每位客戶的平均收入，但這些初步合作為我們成熟的「佔領市場並擴大銷售」策略奠定了基礎，不僅拓展了電子發票國家，還推廣了 Vertex 全套稅務合規解決方案。

So to summarize, Vertex had a solid fourth quarter. 2025 reveal some challenges, but I am confident that we have a cohesive plan to restore accelerating growth in the business. Our AI opportunity is in focus, and our first offering smart categorization is making a real difference for enterprise customers while driving revenue, and we have a growing opportunity in global compliance as e-invoicing mandates continue to proliferate around the globe. All in, I believe I'm joining Vertex at an extremely opportune time.

總而言之，Vertex第四季表現穩健。 2025年將面臨一些挑戰，但我相信我們已經制定了一套完善的計劃，能夠恢復業務的加速成長。我們的人工智慧機會正處於焦點，我們推出的首款智慧分類產品正在為企業客戶帶來真正的改變，同時推動收入成長，隨著電子發票強制令在全球範圍內的不斷普及，我們在全球合規領域也擁有越來越大的機會。總而言之，我認為我加入 Vertex 的時機非常有利。

With that, I'll turn the call over to John to discuss the financials in detail. John?

接下來，我會把電話交給約翰，讓他詳細討論財務狀況。約翰？

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll now review our results in detail and provide financial guidance for the first quarter and full year of 2026. In the fourth quarter, revenue was $194.7 million, up 9.1% compared to last year's fourth quarter and in line with our guidance. For the full year, total revenue was $748.4 million, up 12.2% from 2024.

謝謝克里斯，大家早安。接下來，我將詳細回顧我們的業績，並提供 2026 年第一季和全年的財務指導。第四季營收為 1.947 億美元，比去年同期成長 9.1%，符合我們的預期。全年總收入為 7.484 億美元，比 2024 年成長 12.2%。

In the fourth quarter, our subscription revenue increased 8.9% year-over-year to $166.2 million. For the full year, subscription revenue was $639.7 million, up 12.8% year-over-year.

第四季度，我們的訂閱營收年增 8.9%，達到 1.662 億美元。全年訂閱收入為 6.397 億美元，年增 12.8%。

I want to provide additional details and clarity around the impact of true-up revenue on our revenue growth. True-up revenue is the payment that is owed to Vertex when a customer overruns its contracted entitlements. It is recognized as revenue in quarter, and the payment of a true-up typically coincides with the corresponding increase in entitlements. As a reminder, we historically have realized $1 million to $2 million of true-up revenue in the first three quarters of the year and $2 million to $4 million in the fourth quarter.

我想就調整後的收入對我們收入成長的影響提供更多細節和說明。補足收入是指客戶超出合約約定的使用範圍時，Vertex 應收到的款項。該款項在季度內確認為收入，調整款項的支付通常與相應應得款項的增加同時發生。提醒一下，我們歷來在前三個季度實現 100 萬至 200 萬美元的調整後收入，在第四季實現 200 萬至 400 萬美元的調整後收入。

In the third and fourth quarter of 2024, we called out elevated true-up amounts relative to expectation. However, in 2025, as we had mentioned, this did not recur, and renewing customers were generally within the usage limits of their contracted entitlement amounts. As a result, true-up revenue in 2025 was approximately $10 million lower than 2024.

2024 年第三季和第四季度，我們指出實際調整金額高於預期。然而，正如我們之前提到的，2025 年這種情況並沒有再次發生，續約客戶的使用量通常都在合約約定的使用限額之內。因此，2025 年的調整後收入比 2024 年減少了約 1,000 萬美元。

This alone reduced our 2025 full-year revenue growth rate by just under 2 percentage points. Lower true-up revenue in the fourth quarter reduced the year-over-year revenue growth rate by approximately 4 percentage point, and the impact on subscription revenue was approximately 2 percentage points for the year and 5 percentage points for the fourth quarter.

僅此一項就使我們 2025 年全年營收成長率下降了近 2 個百分點。第四季調整後的營收下降，導致年收入成長率下降了約 4 個百分點，對全年訂閱收入的影響約為 2 個百分點，對第四季訂閱收入的影響約為 5 個百分點。

Turning now to services revenue. Our services revenue in the fourth quarter grew 10.2% over last year's fourth quarter to $28.5 million. Full-year services revenue was $108.8 million, up 9.2% year-over-year.

接下來我們來看服務收入。第四季我們的服務營收年增10.2%，達到2,850萬美元。全年服務收入為 1.088 億美元，年增 9.2%。

Our cloud revenue was $94.6 million in the fourth quarter, up 23% from last year's fourth quarter. Note that the decrease in quarterly cloud revenue growth was due to the lapping of the ecosio acquisition and the elimination of the inorganic contribution to the growth rate. For the full year, cloud revenue was $352.9 million, up 27.9% year-over-year and generally in line with our guidance of 28% and growth for the year.

我們第四季的雲端業務收入為 9,460 萬美元，比去年第四季成長了 23%。請注意，季度雲端收入成長下降是由於 ecosio 收購的完成以及消除了非有機成長對成長率的貢獻。全年來看，雲端業務收入為 3.529 億美元，年增 27.9%，基本上符合我們先前 28% 的年度成長預期。

Annual recurring revenue, or ARR, was $671 million at quarter end, up 11.3% year-over-year. At year-end, net revenue retention, or NRR, was 105%. And gross revenue retention, or GRR, was 94%, within our targeted range of 94% to 96%. Average annual revenue per customer or AARPC, was $137,867, up 12.4%, and our scaled customer growth in the quarter was 12%.

截至季末，年度經常性收入（ARR）為 6.71 億美元，年增 11.3%。年末淨收入留存率（NRR）為 105%。總收入留存率（GRR）為 94%，在我們設定的 94% 至 96% 的目標範圍內。每位客戶的平均年度收入（AARPC）為 137,867 美元，成長了 12.4%，本季客戶規模成長率為 12%。

For the remainder of the income statement discussion, I will be referring to non-GAAP metrics. These non-GAAP metrics are reconciled to GAAP results in this morning's earnings press release.

在接下來的損益表討論中，我將使用非GAAP指標。這些非GAAP指標已在今天早上的盈利新聞稿中與GAAP結果進行了核對。

Our gross profit for the fourth quarter was $147.4 million and gross margin was 75.7%. This compares with gross profit of $133.9 million and a 75% gross margin in the same period last year. Our gross margin on subscription software was 82.7%, compared to 81.4% in last year's fourth quarter and in the third quarter of 2025.

我們第四季的毛利為 1.474 億美元，毛利率為 75.7%。相較之下，去年同期毛利為 1.339 億美元，毛利率為 75%。訂閱軟體的毛利率為 82.7%，而去年第四季和 2025 年第三季的毛利率分別為 81.4% 和 81.4%。

And gross margin on services revenue was 34.9%, compared to 37.6% in last year's fourth quarter and 28.8% in the third quarter of 2025. This reflects lower ecosio margins driven by increased consulting investments to support our revenue growth.

服務收入毛利率為 34.9%，而去年第四季為 37.6%，2025 年第三季為 28.8%。這反映出由於諮詢投資增加以支持我們的收入成長，導致 ecosio 利潤率下降。

In the fourth quarter, research and development expense was $19.9 million compared to $17.3 million last year. For the full year, R&D was $71.3 million compared to $56.4 million last year. With capitalized software spend included, R&D spend was $42.8 million for the fourth quarter and $159.8 million for the full year, which represented 22% of revenue for the fourth quarter and 21.4% of revenue for the full year. The increase in R&D spending was a result of the 2025 investments in ecosio and AI that Chris had detailed earlier.

第四季研發費用為 1,990 萬美元，去年同期為 1,730 萬美元。全年研發支出為 7,130 萬美元，去年為 5,640 萬美元。如果將資本化的軟體支出也計算在內，第四季的研發支出為 4,280 萬美元，全年為 1.598 億美元，分別佔第四季營收的 22% 和全年收入的 21.4%。研發支出的增加是克里斯先前詳細介紹的 2025 年對 ecosio 和人工智慧的投資的結果。

Our selling and marketing expense was $48.7 million or 25% of total revenues, an increase of $5 million and approximately 11.4% from the prior year period. For the year, our selling and marketing expense was $178.6 million, up 15.3% from last year. The increase in selling and marketing expense in the fourth quarter was due to costs from our Vertex Exchange Conference, which was held in October.

我們的銷售和行銷費用為 4,870 萬美元，佔總收入的 25%，比去年同期增加了 500 萬美元，增幅約為 11.4%。本年度，我們的銷售和行銷費用為 1.786 億美元，比上年增長 15.3%。第四季銷售和行銷費用的增加是由於我們在 10 月舉辦的 Vertex Exchange 會議產生的費用。

And general and administrative expense was $36.2 million, up $2 million from last year. For the full year, general and administrative expense was $149.3 million compared to $128.2 million last year.

一般及行政費用為 3,620 萬美元，比去年增加了 200 萬美元。全年一般及行政費用為 1.493 億美元，而前一年為 1.282 億美元。

Adjusted EBITDA was $42.5 million, an increase of $4.4 million or 11.6% year-over-year, and full year adjusted EBITDA was $161.5 million, representing an increase of $9.6 million, or 6.3% over 2024, both were approximately $500,000 above the high end of our guidance. This represents adjusted EBITDA margins of 21.8% for the fourth quarter and 21.6% for the full year.

經調整的 EBITDA 為 4,250 萬美元，年增 440 萬美元，增幅達 11.6%；全年經調整的 EBITDA 為 1.615 億美元，年增 960 萬美元，增幅達 6.3%，均比我們此前的預期高出約 50 萬美元。這代表第四季調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 21.8%，全年調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 21.6%。

Our fourth-quarter free cash flow was $10.1 million, and for the full year, free cash flow was $47.6 million. This was a bit lower than expected as the fourth quarter is usually our strongest free cash flow quarter. While collections were lower than typical for the fourth quarter, I will note that the first week of January, we realized approximately $7 million of cash collections in excess of what we've seen in the previous years.

我們第四季的自由現金流為 1,010 萬美元，全年自由現金流為 4,760 萬美元。這個數字略低於預期，因為第四季通常是我們自由現金流最強勁的季度。雖然第四季度的收款額低於往年同期水平，但我要指出的是，1 月的第一周，我們實現了約 700 萬美元的現金收款，比往年同期水平高出不少。

In the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately $10 million of our shares in the open market under our stock buyback authorization at an average price of $20 per share. We have approximately $140 million remaining under our authorization. We ended the fourth quarter with over $314 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and $300 million of unused availability under our line of credit.

第四季度，我們根據股票回購授權，在公開市場上以每股 20 美元的平均價格回購了約 1,000 萬美元的股票。我們目前在授權範圍內還剩下約 1.4 億美元。在第四季末，我們擁有超過 3.14 億美元的非限制性現金及現金等價物，以及 3 億美元的未使用信貸額度。

Now turning to guidance. For the full year of 2026, we expect revenues of $823.5 million to $831.5 million. Cloud revenue growth of 25% and adjusted EBITDA of $188 million to $192 million, reflecting a margin of 23% at the midpoint. For the first quarter of 2026, we expect revenues of $193.5 million to $196.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $40.5 million to $43.5 million, reflecting a margin of 21.5% at the midpoint.

現在進入指導環節。我們預計 2026 年全年營收為 8.235 億至 8.315 億美元。雲端營收成長 25%，調整後 EBITDA 為 1.88 億美元至 1.92 億美元，中間值為 23%。我們預計 2026 年第一季的營收為 1.935 億美元至 1.965 億美元，調整後的 EBITDA 為 4,050 萬美元至 4,350 萬美元，中間值的利潤率為 21.5%。

Chris will now make some closing comments before we open up for Q&A. Chris?

在進入問答環節之前，克里斯將作一些總結發言。克里斯？

Thank you, John. And before we take your questions, I want to thank all of our Vertex employees around the world for their unwavering dedication to serving our customers in 2025. Their commitment to our mission to accelerate global commerce with a global compliance platform strengthened by AI, it's evident in everything they do. They exemplify the strong culture that defines Vertex and I'm truly proud to join this team and honored to be able to lead it.

謝謝你，約翰。在回答各位的問題之前，我要感謝 Vertex 全球所有員工，感謝他們為服務我們的客戶在 2025 年所做的堅定不移的奉獻。他們致力於透過人工智慧增強的全球合規平台來加速全球商業發展，這一點在他們所做的每一件事中都顯而易見。他們體現了Vertex強大的企業文化，我非常自豪能夠加入這個團隊，也很榮幸能夠領導它。

Earlier this year, I introduced our employees to my foundational tenants to make 2026 and beyond a success for our company and for our investors, and I'll share them with you now. First, we play to win. That mindset raises our bar on product quality, customer outcomes, and how we show up from one another.

今年早些時候，我向員工介紹了我為確保公司和投資者在 2026 年及以後取得成功而製定的基本原則，現在我將與大家分享這些原則。首先，我們的目標是贏球。這種心態提高了我們對產品品質、客戶體驗以及彼此之間表現的標準。

We put the customer at the center of everything we do. We are constantly asking how will what I'm doing today help a customer succeed. We earn trust through outcomes. We achieved results with speed, agility, and integrity.

我們始終以客戶為中心。我們一直在問自己，我今天所做的事情將如何幫助客戶成功。我們透過結果贏得信任。我們以速度、敏捷性和誠信取得了成果。

We'll move faster, adapt quickly and never compromise on doing things the right way for teammates, customers, and partners. We will innovate boldly without fear, progress demands, smart risk, and we'll try new approaches, learn fast and keep pushing the boundaries, especially where AI can remove friction and unlock value.

我們將加快步伐，快速適應，並且絕不妥協，始終以正確的方式為團隊成員、客戶和合作夥伴做事。我們將大膽創新，無所畏懼；我們將勇於接受進步的要求，承擔合理的風險；我們將嘗試新的方法，快速學習，不斷突破界限，尤其是在人工智慧可以消除摩擦、釋放價值的領域。

And finally, we will communicate with candor and transparency. We'll speak plainly about what's working and what isn't, and help each other improve. That's how I've operated through my career, and that's the ethos that I'm committed to bringing to Vertex. On that foundation, I'm confident that we will continue to win in the market, accelerate growth, and capitalize on our market position as the leading provider of indirect tax solutions for the enterprise.

最後，我們將以坦誠和透明的方式進行溝通。我們會坦誠地討論哪些方面做得好，哪些方面做得不好，並互相幫助改進。我整個職業生涯都是這樣行事的，也是我致力於帶到 Vertex 的理念。在此基礎上，我相信我們將繼續在市場上取得成功，加速成長，並充分利用我們作為企業間接稅解決方案領先供應商的市場地位。

And with that, operator, please open the call for questions.

話音剛落，接線員，請開始接受提問。

(Operator Instructions) Andrew DeGasperi, BNP Paribas.

（操作說明）Andrew DeGasperi，法國巴黎銀行。

Christopher, can you -- I know you've been there only a few weeks. So maybe this is a little unfair to ask, but maybe elaborate a little more in terms of what you said were the losses to competitors at the lower end of the market? Was there -- was this like a price-driven change? Or -- and I assume this is not AI related. Is that correct?

克里斯多福，你能…我知道你才到那裡幾個星期。或許這樣問有點不公平，但您能否再詳細解釋一下您所說的在低端市場對競爭對手造成的損失？是否存在——或者說，這種變化是否是由價格驅動的？或者——我假設這與人工智慧無關。是這樣嗎？

That is correct. And thank you for the question. You can call me, Chris, no problem on here. I appreciate it. In reference to that -- to those remarks, what I was talking about is our overall attrition. As you saw from some of the numbers, attrition was higher in 2025 than we've experienced in the past. And some of the drivers of that were, number one, M&A and bankruptcies, which we've talked about on prior earnings calls that that was up this year, and that was a significant factor in this.

沒錯。謝謝你的提問。你可以叫我克里斯，沒問題。謝謝。關於那番話——我指的是我們整體的人員流失情況。正如你從一些數據中看到的，2025 年的員工流動率比我們過去經歷的還要高。造成這種情況的部分原因有以下幾點：第一，併購和破產，我們在之前的財報電話會議上討論過，今年併購和破產有所增加，這是造成這種情況的一個重要因素。

But the second one is that we saw our highest amount of churn in our smaller customers, those that would have had ARR of under $50,000 per year, and that compares to an average ARR per customer of $138,000 per year. So it was concentrated in smaller customers. Some of those went to competition, but when we look at our head-to-head performance to competition -- with competition, we're winning more ARR from our competitors, and we're losing to competitors.

但第二個問題是，我們發現流失率最高的是那些年經常性收入低於 5 萬美元的小客戶，而平均每位客戶的年經常性收入為 13.8 萬美元。所以它主要集中在小客戶群。其中一些被競爭對手搶走了，但當我們審視我們與競爭對手的直接對決表現時——在競爭中，我們從競爭對手那裡贏得了更多的年度經常性收入，而我們卻輸給了競爭對手。

That's helpful. And I guess in terms of -- maybe as a follow-up to John, in terms of the confidence that you have in achieving the guidance for next year. I know this year, you've had a lot variables to play with. How confident are you on the growth for 10% to 11% next year? And what sources of upside or surprises do you think could be in store for you? Is it the e-invoicing? Is it the AI product that could potentially do better?

那很有幫助。我想就約翰的問題補充一下，關於您對實現明年業績目標的信心。我知道今年你有很多變數要考慮。您對明年實現 10% 至 11% 的成長有多大信心？你認為未來可能會有哪些利多或驚喜？是電子發票的問題嗎？是人工智慧產品有可能做得更好嗎？

Yeah. Thanks, Andrew, for the question. In terms of our guidance philosophy, it hasn't changed. Again, we took a very thoughtful approach to setting where we set it. We feel very good about it. And we took into consideration a lot of the activity and the things that we saw developed during 2025, and into it as we said it.

是的。謝謝安德魯的提問。就我們的指導理念而言，它沒有改變。同樣，我們在選擇安裝地點時也經過了深思熟慮。我們對此感到非常滿意。我們考慮了 2025 年期間發生的許多活動和發展情況，並將它們納入其中，正如我們所說。

And so listen, our plan is to get back to that beat and raise cadence that we've had for a number of years, and we want to make sure that we -- wanted to make sure that we took everything into consideration and set it at the right levels to do that. So we feel good about that.

所以聽著，我們的計劃是恢復到我們多年來一直保持的那種節奏和韻律，我們想確保——我們想確保我們已經考慮到了所有因素，並將其設定在合適的水平來實現這一目標。所以我們對此感到很滿意。

And listen, when I think about 2026, clearly, we think there is good opportunity there for activity around the e-invoicing, which is many of the mandates are coming live at the back half of the year. And so that is certainly one of the growth vectors that we see out there that we're chasing after.

聽著，當我展望 2026 年時，很明顯，我們認為電子發票領域存在著良好的發展機遇，因為許多相關規定將在今年下半年生效。因此，這無疑是我們目前所看到並正在追求的成長方向之一。

And I think Chris talked a little bit about SmartCat and the activity there. I mean that's a nice product. It's got a lot -- it got some traction with some very big customers. And I think that's an exciting tool out there, and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out over time.

我想克里斯也稍微談到了 SmartCat 以及那裡的活動。我的意思是，這是一款不錯的產品。它取得了一些進展——它已經獲得了一些大客戶的青睞。我認為這是一個令人興奮的工具，看看它隨著時間的推移會如何發展將會很有趣。

Chris Quintero, Morgan Stanley.

克里斯昆特羅，摩根士丹利。

Chris, it's great to meet you. My first question is for you. So you have a really interesting background and set of experiences at Microsoft, McAfee, Cisco, curious what parallels you can draw from your time at each one of these and what you think will be particularly helpful from those experiences here as you lead Vertex?

克里斯，很高興見到你。我的第一個問題是問你的。您在微軟、麥克菲、思科等公司擁有非常有趣的背景和豐富的經驗，我很好奇您能從這些公司的經驗中總結出哪些共通之處，以及您認為這些經驗中哪些對您領導 Vertex 特別有幫助？

Yeah. It's -- thanks for the question, Chris, and I appreciate it. And when I look at our company and I look at our business, there's a couple of parallels that stand out for me. The first one, I'll go to my most recent. Obviously, I spent a lot of time on Microsoft.

是的。謝謝你的提問，克里斯，我很感激。當我審視我們公司和我們的業務時，我發現了一些非常突出的相似之處。首先，我會選擇我最近的一個。顯然，我花了很多時間在微軟上。

A lot of the time there was when degenerative AI first, I think, really started to change what we were seeing in the industry. including what we were doing with OpenAI. And I -- you could see that there was going to be a real opportunity for companies to transform themselves using AI, both what they do internally and in the technology industry, what we would deliver to our customers.

很多時候，退化型人工智慧的出現，我認為，真正開始改變我們在產業中看到的景象，包括我們與 OpenAI 的合作。而且，你可以看出，企業將有機會利用人工智慧實現轉型，無論是在內部運作還是在科技產業，以及我們將為客戶提供的服務。

And so I spent actually a lot of last year really looking at what I think would be the industries where there was opportunity to transform, and this was one category that I thought because of where we sit, because of the kind of work that happens in finance and accounting departments, that given the position we sit in, we can offer them AI capabilities that would really take a lot of the task work off of their plate. And that's something that we think is a huge opportunity.

因此，去年我花了很多時間認真研究我認為有哪些行業有機會轉型，而我認為，鑑於我們所處的位置，鑑於財務和會計部門的工作性質，我們可以為他們提供人工智能能力，從而真正減輕他們的很多工作負擔。我們認為這是一個巨大的機會。

That's why I spent some time talking about what we're doing with smart categorization. You could look at returns processing as another category, whether it's heavily manual. And we believe there's opportunities like that to help our customers just automate what they do using generative AI, which will save them time, it will save them cost, and improve their overall experience.

這就是為什麼我花了一些時間討論我們如何進行智慧分類的原因。你可以把退貨處理看作是另一個類別，看看它是否需要大量人工操作。我們相信，透過生成式人工智慧，可以幫助我們的客戶實現工作流程自動化，從而節省時間、降低成本，並改善他們的整體體驗。

If I kind of go back from there, I think Vertex does have some similarities to what I saw in the cyber landscape. Cyber is one of those categories that you constantly are refreshing your content. One of the things that makes cyber companies great is they understand the threat landscape and it's ever changing.

如果我從那裡回溯過去，我認為 Vertex 與我在網路空間中看到的東西確實有一些相似之處。網路內容是需要不斷更新的類別之一。網路安全公司之所以強大，其中一個原因就是他們了解不斷變化的威脅情勢。

And in our business, the compliance landscape is ever changing. There's constantly new tax rules, there's new compliance mandates. That's what we're seeing in the e-invoicing space. We -- and I think one of the things that customers have told me about Vertex, which gives me a lot of confidence in what we're doing and our position in the market is that they really trust our content work. They purchased from us because they see us as delivering the best content in the industry. And they recognize that it's ever changing and as they look at -- they look to Vertex to stay on top of it.

在我們這個產業，合規環境瞬息萬變。稅收規則不斷更新，合規要求也層出不窮。這就是我們在電子發票領域看到的情況。我們——而且我認為客戶告訴我的關於 Vertex 的一件事，讓我對我們正在做的事情以及我們在市場上的地位充滿信心，那就是他們非常信任我們的內容作品。他們選擇向我們購買產品，因為他們認為我們提供業內最好的內容。他們意識到情況瞬息萬變，因此他們關注著——他們希望 Vertex 能夠始終掌握最新動態。

I had one customer tell me in specific, he said, I'm able to run a lean tax department because I rely heavily on Vertex to deliver both the accuracy of your calculations, but the updates of your content that keep us up to date on what we've got to comply with across our different jurisdictions where we operate.

一位客戶曾明確地告訴我，他說：“我之所以能夠精簡稅務部門，是因為我非常依賴 Vertex，你們不僅提供準確的計算結果，還不斷更新內容，讓我們能夠及時了解我們在各個運營轄區需要遵守的法規。”

That's a probable context. And then I also wanted to ask about the net retention rates. Obviously, that came down a bit, and make sense on the commentary you all gave. But curious about your expectations around where that should be on a more medium-term normalized basis? And how long you think it can take to get back there?

那是一種可能的背景。然後我還想問淨留存率。顯然，這個數字有所下降，而且結合大家的評論來看，也很有道理。但我很好奇，從中長期來看，您認為這個數字應該達到什麼程度？你覺得返回那裡需要多長時間？

We're -- obviously, we're very focused on improving our net retention rates, and there's a tremendous amount of effort that's going in right now to both introduce our newer product offerings like compliance and e-invoicing to our existing customer base. And that -- every customer that I've talked to, this is either something they are actively doing or it's certainly on their radar screen, whether it's US customers that are doing business in other countries with those mandates or whether it's customers in Europe or in Latin America that obviously have those mandates in their home countries and in other countries where they're doing business.

顯然，我們非常注重提高淨客戶留存率，目前正在投入大量精力，向現有客戶群推出合規性和電子發票等新產品。而且，我接觸過的每一位客戶，要么正在積極採取這種措施，要么肯定已經注意到了這一點。無論是在美國開展業務、在其他有此類規定的國家開展業務的美國客戶，還是在歐洲或拉丁美洲開展業務、在其本國和開展業務的其他國家都有此類規定的客戶，都是如此。

So we see that as an opportunity to grow -- to help our customers grow spend with us and they're looking for us to help consolidate some of the work that they're doing in that category. We believe AI -- It's earlier still than where we are with compliance and the e-invoicing, but we see AI as an opportunity there.

因此，我們認為這是一個發展的機會——幫助我們的客戶增加在我們這裡的支出，他們希望我們幫助他們整合他們在該類別中所做的一些工作。我們相信人工智慧——雖然它目前還處於合規和電子發票領域的早期階段，但我們認為人工智慧在這方面是一個機會。

We've introduced other additional products in our portfolio, services we're offering around returns processing, certificate -- exemption certificate management is another category where we've brought some new product to market just last year. So we see opportunities for growth with our customers, and we're really trying to lean heavily into new products that we can bring to them.

我們在產品組合中引入了其他附加產品，以及圍繞退貨處理、證書提供的服務——豁免證書管理是我們去年推出新產品的另一個類別。因此，我們看到了與客戶共同發展的機會，我們正在努力大力開發能夠帶給他們的新產品。

And then as I said on the call, we're also trying to engage customers more directly to prevent attrition. And some of that's about just understanding their needs, being proactive about that. Even to the point where, as we identify customers who are at risk, I'm getting on the phone with them myself and talking to them and making sure that we understand what their needs are, so we can better serve them going forward.

正如我在電話會議上所說，我們也在努力更直接地與客戶互動，以防止客戶流失。其中一部分在於了解他們的需求，並積極主動地滿足這些需求。甚至到了這樣的地步：當我們發現有風險的客戶時，我會親自打電話給他們，與他們交談，確保我們了解他們的需求，以便我們今後能更好地為他們服務。

And in some cases, I've seen some examples where we've been able to turn a situation that might have been challenged into one where we're able to do more with those customers. And that's what I'm shooting for here with our team.

在某些情況下，我看到了一些例子，我們能夠將原本可能充滿挑戰的局面轉變為能夠為這些客戶做更多事情的局面。這就是我帶領團隊努力的目標。

Joshua Reilly, Needham.

約書亞·雷利，尼德姆。

All right. Great. Congrats, Chris, on joining the company here. As we think about the pipeline for 2026, it seems like the biggest swing factor for accelerating ARR growth is still winning those SAP ECC customers given the size of those potential deals and volume of customers. Is that how you're thinking about things as well and how is that pipeline shaping up today?

好的。偉大的。恭喜克里斯加入我們公司。展望 2026 年的發展前景，考慮到 SAP ECC 客戶的潛在交易規模和客戶數量，推動 ARR 成長的最大關鍵因素似乎仍然是贏得這些 SAP ECC 客戶。你也是這麼想的嗎？目前來看，這條產品線進展如何？

We had a good 2025 in our SAP pipeline. And I shared with you all some of the wins that were part of that migration that customers are doing with SAP to ECC to S/4HANA. We -- the way I would characterize it is, I think, some of the expectations that were there a year ago are -- we didn't realize it the way -- I think the way it was expected a year ago. But we do continue to see a steady, I would say, a steady growth of these opportunities, and we're winning our same win rates on each one of these opportunities as they come up.

我們在2025年SAP專案儲備方面進展順利。我與大家分享了客戶從 SAP 遷移到 ECC 再到 S/4HANA 流程中取得的一些成功案例。我認為，一年前的一些預期——我們並沒有像一年前人們預期的那樣實現。但我們確實看到這些機會持續穩定成長，而且我們在每一個出現的機會中都保持著相同的勝率。

But I think a couple of things that we're seeing. One is it's taking customers longer. I think you've seen some of that in the broader markets getting the market space. And we're also seeing that it's not necessarily like -- the timing is a little harder to predict when the tax engine decision will happen in their overall migration process.

但我認為我們看到了一些事情。一是顧客等待時間更長。我認為在更廣泛的市場中，你已經看到了一些這樣的例子，即獲得市場空間。而且我們也發現，稅務引擎決策的時機並不一定像是——在整個遷移過程中，很難預測何時會做出決定。

But -- we're -- we have a very close partnership with SAP. We worked very closely with their teams. We also obviously worked very closely with big -- a lot of our SIs and the Big 4 accounting firms that work very closely in this space. They always propose us as the core enterprise solution for this because of the work that -- and the value that we're able to bring to customers.

但是——我們——我們與 SAP 有著非常緊密的合作關係。我們與他們的團隊密切合作。顯然，我們也與許多大型企業密切合作——我們的許多系統整合商和四大會計師事務所在這個領域密切合作。他們總是推薦我們作為這方面的核心企業解決方案，因為我們所做的工作以及我們能夠為客戶帶來的價值。

And so we feel good about this pipeline. We feel good about our win rates. But I think we just want to be balanced about how we're going to see that business flow over the course of the next couple of years.

因此，我們對這條輸油管充滿信心。我們對自己的勝率感到滿意。但我認為我們只是想對未來幾年業務的發展走向保持平衡的看法。

Understood. What does it look like in terms of the expanding customer service or customer success to a wider group of customers in terms of do you need to hire more people? Can you give us a sense of what are the thresholds to get this expanded service and how quickly that's going to be implemented?

明白了。從擴大客戶服務或客戶成功範圍，面向更廣泛客戶群的角度來看，是否需要招募更多人員？您能否簡要說明一下獲得這項擴展服務的門檻是什麼，以及這項服務將以多快的速度實施？

It's actually one of the -- it's actually, Josh, one of the biggest focus areas for me with AI is our customer success and customer support. I think we could do both. Like we will add people in some targeted places. But more importantly, this is an area where we have an opportunity to make our team members more efficient so they can actually spend more time with customers and less time filling out paperwork on the back end or hunting for information, understanding because as you can imagine, every interaction with a customer requires them to get information and understand what's happening in the customer's environment.

實際上，Josh，人工智慧領域我最關注的重點領域之一就是我們的客戶成功和客戶支援。我認為我們可以兩者兼顧。例如，我們會在一些特定地點增加人手。但更重要的是，在這個領域，我們有機會提高團隊成員的效率，讓他們花更多的時間與客戶交流，減少在後台填寫文書或尋找資訊的時間。要知道，正如你所想，與客戶的每一次互動都需要他們獲取資訊並了解客戶環境中正在發生的事情。

We believe we can -- we're going to automate all of that with AI, and that will allow our customer success team to spend more time being proactive with customers. We can help cover more accounts. In some accounts, we believe we can help cover just even directly with AI. There are a lot of customers who just want to get answers to the questions that they have or just want us to be able to surface ways in which they can get more value out of the product, and we're doing that through some of the AI tools that are built directly into the product itself.

我們相信我們能做到—我們將利用人工智慧來實現所有這些流程的自動化，這將使我們的客戶成功團隊能夠花更多的時間主動服務客戶。我們可以幫助覆蓋更多帳戶。在某些情況下，我們相信我們可以直接利用人工智慧來幫助解決這些問題。許多客戶只是想得到他們問題的答案，或者只是希望我們能夠找到讓他們從產品中獲得更多價值的方法，而我們正在透過一些直接內建在產品本身的 AI 工具來實現這一點。

So this is a -- this is an area where AI will play a larger and larger role for us. The goal is really to just drive more customer satisfaction, drive higher touch. And that is something customers are asking for. They -- the reason they rely on Vertex is that we solve, in many cases, complex problems for them.

所以，人工智慧將在這一領域發揮越來越重要的作用。最終目標就是提高客戶滿意度，加強與客戶的互動。而這正是顧客們所要求的。他們之所以依賴 Vertex，是因為我們能在許多情況下為他們解決複雜的問題。

And so at times, they need us to help sort through that complexity with them. And we'll do that with great people like the ones that we have on the team today, and we'll do that by augmenting those people with AI as well as bringing AI directly to the customer.

所以有時候，他們需要我們幫他們理清這些複雜的問題。我們將依靠像我們團隊中這些優秀的人才來實現這一目標，我們將透過人工智慧來增強這些人的能力，並將人工智慧直接帶給客戶。

Daniel Jester, BMO Capital Markets.

Daniel Jester，BMO資本市場。

So Chris, maybe to pull a little bit more on the AI thread. You commented in your prepared remarks about the need to innovate faster. And I suspect -- I love your perspective on how you can do that. And maybe as a follow-up to that, what's the philosophy around inorganic opportunities, tuck-ins on the technology side to help along that journey?

所以克里斯，或許我們可以再深入探討人工智慧這個主題。您在事先準備好的演講稿中提到，需要加快創新步伐。而且我猜——我很喜歡你對如何做到這一點的看法。或許可以進一步探討一下，對於非有機成長機會，以及在技術方面進行補充以助力這一進程，你們的理念是什麼？

Look, I think that we just -- every company can move faster in this regard. So I'll just say that at the top. And I think we have done some good work, as I mentioned, I like what we've done with smart categorization. I like the Copilot that we have in our product, but I'm working with our teams and our focus is on just speeding up everything that we're doing, bringing AI to our product portfolio in more places.

我認為，在這方面，每家公司都可以做得更快。所以我就在開頭說這些。我認為我們已經做了一些不錯的工作，正如我所提到的，我很喜歡我們在智慧分類方面所做的工作。我喜歡我們產品中的副駕駛功能，但我正在與我們的團隊合作，我們的重點是加快我們正在做的一切，將人工智慧應用到我們產品組合的更多地方。

For example, we have opportunities, not only to help our customers with categorizing SKUs and making sure we're mapping that to appropriate tax rules, but also helping our customers manage high volumes of tax content, helping our customers with returns filing. As I mentioned, there's a series of processes that go on in and around everything that we deliver through tax calculation or determination.

例如，我們不僅有機會幫助客戶對 SKU 進行分類，並確保我們將其對應到適當的稅務規則，還有機會幫助客戶管理大量的稅務內容，以幫助客戶報稅。正如我之前提到的，在我們透過稅務計算或確定方式提供的每項服務中，都涉及一系列流程。

And this is where I believe we can move more quickly to deliver AI. Much of it is in our road map for this year. But as I tell our teams, our customers don't want it -- they want it now. They don't want it in six months from now or a year from now. So we're shifting our priority in that direction, and a lot of it is in response to helping our customers get more value from what we do.

我認為，我們可以在這裡更快實現人工智慧。其中許多都已列入我們今年的計畫之中。但我告訴我們的團隊，我們的客戶不想要這個——他們想要的是現在就得到。他們不希望六個月後或一年後看到它。因此，我們正在將工作重心轉向這個方向，很大程度上是為了幫助我們的客戶從我們的工作中獲得更多價值。

And as it relates to inorganic, we will -- we continue to be active in the market through partnerships like the we have with Kintsugi, and we're looking at opportunities to add capability to our portfolio. And so you'll see us be active where we think that makes sense for the business.

至於非有機成長方面，我們將繼續透過與 Kintsugi 等公司的合作積極參與市場，並且正在尋找機會為我們的產品組合增加能力。因此，你會看到我們在我們認為對業務有意義的地方積極開展活動。

But we are looking at all ways in which we can deliver more value to customers, all ways in which we can bring more AI innovation into the company. And we're doing it, I just want to be clear about this, we're doing it both internal to the company itself as well as through our product portfolio.

但我們正在研究所有能夠為客戶創造更多價值的方法，所有能夠為公司帶來更多人工智慧創新的方法。我們正在這樣做，我只想明確一點，我們正在公司內部以及透過我們的產品組合來這樣做。

That's great perspective. And then John, maybe on free cash flow and cash generation. I appreciate the comments that you made in the prepared remarks. Any other color that you would be willing to share about how we should be thinking about the trajectory of cash generation this year?

這是個很棒的視角。然後約翰，也許會談到自由現金流和現金流生成。感謝您在準備好的發言稿中提出的意見。關於今年現金流的走向，您還有其他看法嗎？

Yeah. Thanks, Dan, for the question. When I think about 2026 and cash flow generation, again, I think, as you saw, we did make some pretty significant investments in 2025. You saw our R&D spend as a percent of revenue in the fourth quarter, jump up to that 22%, again, reflecting our need to lean into product opportunities that are out there. And so that activity was certainly relevant in the fourth quarter.

是的。謝謝丹的提問。當我考慮 2026 年的現金流時，我想，正如你所看到的，我們在 2025 年確實進行了一些相當大的投資。你們可以看到，我們第四季的研發支出佔營收的百分比躍升至 22%，這再次反映出我們需要抓住市場上的產品機會。因此，這項活動在第四季無疑是有意義的。

But as I think about '26, I expect that we'll see continued improvement in free cash flow and conversion because of some of those spend initiatives that we've talked about. They will be very relevant in the first half of the year. They should start to tail off towards the back end, and we'll see some nice pull-through from both a profitability standpoint as well as from a cash flow standpoint.

但展望 2026 年，我預計由於我們討論過的一些支出計劃，自由現金流和轉換率將持續改善。它們在今年上半年將非常重要。到賽季末期，這些成長應該會開始放緩，從獲利能力和現金流的角度來看，我們都會看到一些不錯的成長。

Adam Hotchkiss, Goldman Sachs.

Adam Hotchkiss，高盛集團。

Chris, it's good to speak with you in a public forum. A bit of an offshoot to Dan's question. I think there's a lot being made of this idea that the deterministic nature of tax calc lends itself well to broader-based AI agent intermediation. And I'd love for you to just address what, in your mind, a competitor looking to do something like this would have to do to be taken seriously by an enterprise customer that you currently serve? And maybe how you're positioning the company in light of that?

克里斯，很高興能在公共場合和你交流。這是丹的問題的延伸。我認為，人們過度強調了稅務計算的確定性本質，認為這非常適合更廣泛的人工智慧代理中介。我想請您談談，在您看來，如果競爭對手想要做類似的事情，他們需要做些什麼才能獲得您目前服務的企業客戶的認真對待？那麼，有鑑於此，您是如何定位公司的呢？

Thanks for the question, Adam. And yeah, I think number one, as you said, the deterministic nature of tax calculation is a fortification in and of itself against AI, which is more of a probabilistic approach to the answers that they generate. And so that's number one.

謝謝你的提問，亞當。是的，我認為第一點，正如你所說，稅收計算的確定性本身就是對人工智慧的一種防禦，因為人工智慧產生的答案更多是機率性的。這是第一點。

And the customers would tell you -- they tell me, we have to be accurate to the penny. And so there's no room for hallucination. There's no room for approximation. You have to be accurate. So I think look, in the fullness of time, and that could be over a long period, there's a lot that can be done, and I think that there's a lot that will change. But I see it more as an opportunity for us rather than a detriment.

顧客會告訴你－他們告訴我，我們必須精確到分。因此，沒有產生幻覺的空間。沒有近似的餘地。你必須做到準確無誤。所以我覺得，隨著時間的推移（這可能需要很長時間），有很多事情可以做，而且我認為很多事情都會改變。但我認為這對我們來說更多的是一個機會，而不是一個不利因素。

Other parts of what we do that are, I think, very much in the proprietary nature of our business is all the work that we do around tax content. It's around the rules that we work with our customers to build into their determination engines. Much of that is proprietary. It's not as simple as doing a web search and there's a tremendous amount of expertise that goes into it.

我認為，我們所做的其他一些工作，很大程度上屬於我們業務的專有性質，就是我們圍繞稅務內容所做的所有工作。這一切都圍繞著我們與客戶合作，建構到他們的決策引擎中的規則。其中很多都是專有資訊。這不像上網搜尋那麼簡單，其中需要大量的專業知識。

It's not dissimilar, for example, obviously, there's a lot going on out there in the market in terms of using tools to develop code. And there's been a lot of talk about by vibe coding as an example. But the reality is by vibe coding is a heck of a lot harder than it is for an experienced engineer to pick up a coding tool and get it to help that person become a lot more productive. And in this case, our expertise in tax is something that I think we can use to leverage the power of AI, and it would take a lot longer for an inexperienced person to somehow figure out how to use that to do what we do with the kind of expertise that we have in-house to the company.

顯然，這與目前市場上使用工具開發程式碼的情況非常相似。以氛圍編碼為例，人們對此進行了許多討論。但現實情況是，對於一個有經驗的工程師來說，透過直覺進行編碼要比使用編碼工具並使其幫助自己提高效率要困難得多。在這種情況下，我認為我們可以利用我們在稅務方面的專業知識來發揮人工智慧的力量，而對於一個缺乏經驗的人來說，要弄清楚如何利用人工智慧來完成我們公司內部擁有的那種專業知識所做的事情，則需要更長的時間。

Along with that, we're deeply embedded in our customers' infrastructure, deeply integrated with the ERP. Those are not insignificant points of integration. We integrate with point-of-sale systems, we integrate with payroll systems, HR systems, CRM tools. So the integration points in and of themselves are also quite complex in many organizations.

此外，我們與客戶的基礎設施深度整合，與 ERP 系統深度整合。這些並非無關緊要的整合點。我們可與銷售點系統、薪資系統、人力資源系統、客戶關係管理工具整合。因此，在許多組織中，整合點本身也相當複雜。

And so there's -- all that being said, I think we are -- we sit in a very strong position. In the long, long run, anything can happen, but I also believe that we're more well positioned to benefit from AI and to bring AI-related capabilities to our customers than I worry about AI disintermediating us in any sort of a reasonable time frame.

所以，綜上所述，我認為我們──我們處於非常有利的地位。從長遠來看，任何事情都有可能發生，但我相信，我們比擔心人工智慧在任何合理的時間範圍內取代我們更有能力從人工智慧中受益，並將人工智慧相關的能力帶給我們的客戶。

Okay. Great. That's really insightful. I appreciate that. And then, John, when you think about the decel from the 17% to 18% ARR growth you were doing in '23, '24 to the 11% we're at now, how would you stack order what has contributed most of that 600 to 700 basis points of decel across things like entitlements, cross-sell, upsell, attrition, market momentum in cloud ERP? Just any way you think about that breakdown and how you plan on addressing that as we go forward would be really helpful.

好的。偉大的。這真是很有見地。我很感激。約翰，想想看，從 2023 年、2024 年 17% 到 18% 的 ARR 成長率放緩到現在的 11%，你會如何排序造成這 600 到 700 個基點放緩的主要原因，例如授權、交叉銷售、向上銷售、客戶流失、雲 ERP 市場勢頭等等？你對這個問題的任何想法，以及你打算如何解決這個問題，都將對我們非常有幫助。

Yeah, just maybe walking through the breakdown of the different components that drive it. I think we talked a little bit about churn's turns down 1 point or so in that timeframe. Again, you've seen entitlement -- you've seen -- that's one that gets to GRR.

是的，或許可以逐步分析驅動它的各個組成部分。我認為我們當時稍微討論了一下客戶流失率在那段時間內下降了大約 1 個百分點的情況。再說一遍，你已經看到了權利意識──你已經看見了──這就是GRR（憤怒、憤怒、憤怒）的根源。

And working through the NRR calculation. NRR, we've seen entitlements contributing 1.5 points or so to that flow, which, again, we talked a little bit about that and talking about how that -- we've seen that ebb and flow and many times that's been really related to specific factors in the business. And so that is something that we do anticipate that we ought to see get back to a more normalized rate over time.

並逐步完成淨回收率（NRR）的計算。NRR，我們看到權益貢獻了大約 1.5 個百分點，我們之前也稍微談到過這一點，以及它是如何——我們看到了這種潮起潮落，很多時候這都與業務中的特定因素有關。因此，我們預計隨著時間的推移，這種情況會逐漸恢復到更正常的水平。

And then again, there's been a little -- there's been some softness in the cross-sell and upsell and those migration activity that takes place. And so, again, all of the different factors are contributing in there. I think one of the real strong bright spots that we've seen is that new sales opportunity. New sales grew significantly in 2025. And so I think that was a very strong point for us.

此外，交叉銷售、向上銷售以及相關的遷移活動也出現了一些疲軟。所以，再次強調，所有這些不同的因素都對此有所影響。我認為我們看到的真正亮點之一是新的銷售機會。2025年新銷售額顯著成長。所以我覺得這對我們來說是一個非常有利的優勢。

But again, there has been a little bit of push as we've talked about throughout the year around that additional entitlements being a big piece of that. And again, some factors within our control; some -- many of those factors are not in our control.

但正如我們今年一直在討論的那樣，額外的福利待​​遇一直是推動這一進程的重要因素。再次強調，有些因素在我們掌控之中；有些因素──很多因素是我們無法掌控的。

And then the cross-sell upsell has been a bit softer -- been a little bit softer over time. And I think Chris talked about the ways that we're developing new products to really address customer needs and ensuring we're taking the customer-first approach into addressing them on our product map as we move forward.

然後，交叉銷售和追加銷售的力度有所減弱——隨著時間的推移，力度有所減弱。我認為克里斯談到了我們正在開發新產品以真正滿足客戶需求的方式，並確保我們在產品規劃中採取以客戶為先的方法來解決這些問題。

Brett Huff, Stephens Inc.

Brett Huff，Stephens Inc.

And Chris, I'll echo the welcome, looking forward to working with you. And John and Joe, nice to speak with you also.

克里斯，我也要表示歡迎，期待與你共事。約翰和喬，很高興和你們聊天。

One more question on AI relative to the entitlements question. Some of the folks we've been talking with, given the AI disintermediation hair on fire hysteria, I want to ask the explicit question. Have you seen any AI tech budget crowding out that might have driven the entitlement slowdown or some of the ARR slowdown you guys have seen? I know it's probably hard to define -- to discern that, but I wanted to ask that question explicitly.

關於人工智慧及其權益問題，還有一個問題。鑑於人工智慧去中介化所引發的恐慌情緒，我想向一些與我們交談過的人提出一個明確的問題。你們是否看到任何人工智慧技術預算擠佔導致福利支出放緩或你們所看到的年度經常性收入放緩的情況？我知道這可能很難定義——很難辨別，但我還是想明確地問這個問題。

We have not seen that explicitly in our -- in the activity that's going on in the field. In fact, we have customers in the AI space ourselves that are doing business with us, which is a good testament to how they see the strength of our solution. But it's hard to characterize where all the budget is going, but we have not seen that in our particular business as of yet.

我們在實地活動中還沒有明確看到這一點。事實上，我們本身在人工智慧領域也有客戶與我們開展業務，這很好地證明了他們如何看待我們解決方案的優勢。但很難說所有的預算都花在了哪裡，不過就我們目前的業務而言，還沒有看到這種情況。

Okay. That's super helpful. And then on the invoicing, we're really excited about that opportunity and think the rate to win for you all is great. But know that you were working on sort of getting to more countries as quickly as possible with the tech that you guys bought, just knowing there's the mandates coming down the pipe, so that people are starting to make decisions.

好的。這太有幫助了。至於發票方面，我們對這個機會感到非常興奮，並認為這對你們所有人來說都是一個絕佳的機會。但要知道，你們一直在努力盡快將你們購買的技術推廣到更多國家，因為你們也知道相關規定即將出台，人們開始做出決定。

Can you give us an update on that? And are we getting to the critical mass relative to the mandate timing that were set up to be well positioned to win some of those deals?

您能為我們提供一下最新進展嗎？我們是否已經達到了臨界規模，以適應既定的授權時間，從而能夠更好地贏得其中一些交易？

We are, Brett. We're in 39 countries now. That was a big push that the company made over the last -- the back half of last year, I would say. And it's been a big push for us going into and through 2026. The ecosio team has been executing really, really well in this regard as well as has the rest of the Vertex team.

是的，布雷特。我們現在業務遍及39個國家。那是該公司在去年下半年大力推動的一項舉措。這對於我們邁向2026年及以後的發展來說，是一項巨大的推動力。在這方面，ecosio 團隊以及 Vertex 團隊的其他成員都表現得非常出色。

Now, we've now got a combined compliance and e-invoicing offering, which allows us to take -- basically connect our customers that calculation with e-invoicing because you think about this, it's an end-to-end compliance solution that our customers, particularly the large companies ultimately want.

現在，我們推出了合規和電子發票相結合的產品，這使我們能夠將客戶的計算與電子發票連接起來，因為您想想，這是一個端到端的合規解決方案，我們的客戶，特別是大型公司，最終都想要這個解決方案。

But on the ground, we just had a mandate from Belgium, which we're in market, able to serve. We'll be ready for France as it comes up, ready for Germany as it comes up. And we've been marching down the path of making sure that we've got coverage for all the major countries where we sell and where our customers are focused.

但就實際情況而言，我們剛剛獲得了比利時的授權，我們已進入比利時市場，能夠為其提供服務。我們會做好準備應對法國的挑戰，也會做好準備應對德國的挑戰。我們一直在努力確保我們的產品涵蓋所有主要銷售國家和客戶關注的國家。

Patrick Walravens, Citizens JMP Securities.

Patrick Walravens，Citizens JMP Securities。

Chris, let me add my congratulations. We're all really excited when we saw that you were taking this role. So this is the one-time gasp of question, I think. But the stock's gone from $56 to $15 in a year, right? And investors just want to understand, I think, what went wrong. And you coming in from the outside, having had these three months gives you a really unique perspective on it. First step to recovery is acknowledging the problem, right?

克里斯，我也要向你表示祝賀。得知您將擔任這個角色，我們都非常興奮。所以，我想，這是唯一令人倒吸一口氣的問題。但該股票一年內就從 56 美元跌到了 15 美元，對吧？我認為，投資人只是想了解究竟出了什麼問題。你從外部介入，經歷了這三個月，這讓你對這件事有了非常獨特的視角。復原的第一步是承認問題的存在，對嗎？

So you touched on a number of things. You touched on the pace of innovation, down market churn, SAP didn't come in as expected. But what did you figure -- what was the root cause -- what was the biggest thing? If you look at the Sridhar, when he came into Snowflake, I think he determined that the product velocity just wasn't there under prior administration. But in this case, what do you think the root cause was?

所以你談了很多方面。您提到了創新步伐、市場低迷和人員更迭，SAP 的表現不如預期。但你最終發現了什麼——根本原因是什麼——最主要的原因是什麼？如果你看看 Sridhar，當他來到 Snowflake 時，我認為他認定在前管理層的領導下，產品銷售速度根本達不到要求。但你認為這個案例的根本原因是什麼？

Here's -- first of all, Patrick, thanks for the question. And I definitely know that none of our investors want to see that kind of activity. And obviously, my goal is to actually turn it around in the opposite direction from where it's been.

首先，派崔克，謝謝你的提問。而且我非常清楚，我們的投資人都不希望看到這種行為。很顯然，我的目標是徹底扭轉局面，讓它朝著與之前相反的方向發展。

There's a few things. One are some of the factors we talked about on the call. Entitlement growth did slow. We had a big entitlement year in 2024. That came back down in 2025, and that was a factor in our own growth.

有幾件事。這是我們電話會議中討論的一些因素。福利支出成長速度確實放緩了。2024年是我們獲得大量福利的一年。到 2025 年，這個數字回落，這也是我們自身發展的因素。

We did see more attrition in 2025 than we had seen in previous years. And that's -- I think some of that is due to a growth in smaller customers that we didn't serve as well as we could, which is why we're expanding some of our focus there with our customer success teams to make sure that we're solving their problems and that we're proactive about making them successful. That's something that's not unique in the SaaS business for many of our peers and others out there in the market landscape.

2025 年的人員流失率確實比往年還要高。我認為部分原因是由於小型客戶數量的增長，而我們未能像我們應有的那樣為他們提供優質服務，因此我們正在擴大對小型客戶的關注度，透過客戶成功團隊確保我們能夠解決他們的問題，並積極主動地幫助他們取得成功。對於我們的許多同行以及市場上的其他企業來說，這種情況在 SaaS 行業中並不罕見。

And so we're taking a more proactive approach, particularly around that cohort. And then I do think that there is more need for us to move faster on our product innovation as well. It's a little -- it's congruent with what I spoke about on the call, which is our customers want to see us move more quickly. Like as proud as I am of the work that we've done around AI, as I also mentioned, there's so much more that we could be doing.

因此，我們正在採取更積極主動的方式，尤其是在這個群體方面。而我認為，我們也更需要加快產品創新步伐。這有點——這與我在電話會議上談到的內容一致，那就是我們的客戶希望看到我們加快行動速度。雖然我對我們在人工智慧領域所做的工作感到非常自豪，但正如我之前提到的，我們還有很多事情要做。

And we're not at a point yet where we're generating meaningful revenue from that part of our business, and that's a place where we just got to move more quickly, and pivot our product portfolio more in that direction to give more value to our customers. And so that's a big piece of what I'm focused on.

我們目前還沒有從這部分業務中獲得可觀的收入，因此我們必須加快步伐，並調整產品組合，朝著這個方向發展，從而為客戶創造更多價值。所以，這是我目前關注的重點之一。

I think the opportunity -- I mean I know the opportunity is there. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to come to Vertex. But there's definitely a speed element for us that we have to improve. A lot of that is about our product -- delivering value from our product portfolio. It's a place where I'm very focused personally with our teams because I think this is something that if we can do it well, if we can move more quickly here, and you see some signs of that in terms of what we've done with e-invoicing and compliance. But even there, the teams and I are pushing very hard to go faster to meet more of our customers' needs more quickly than we have in the past.

我認為機會——我的意思是，我知道機會就在那裡。這也是我選擇加入 Vertex 的原因之一。但速度方面，我們肯定還有需要提升的地方。這很大程度上與我們的產品有關——如何從我們的產品組合中創造價值。我個人非常關注我們團隊在這方面的工作，因為我認為如果我們能做好這件事，如果我們能在這裡更快地前進，那麼從我們在電子發票和合規性方面所做的工作中，你就能看到一些跡象。但即便如此，我和我的團隊也在努力加快速度，以便比以往更快地滿足更多客戶的需求。

Alex Sklar, Raymond James.

Alex Sklar，Raymond James。

This is actually John Messina on for Alex. Chris, I realize you talked about it quite a bit on the call here in the prepared remarks and the Q&A. But I wanted to ask on AI. Have you seen customers adopt specific budgets targeted towards AI investments?

實際上，替補亞歷克斯上場的是約翰·梅西納。克里斯，我知道你在這次電話會議上，在準備好的演講稿和問答環節中已經多次談到了這個問題。但我原本想問的是關於人工智慧的問題。您是否看過客戶制定專門用於人工智慧投資的預算？

And any color you can share on how you're benefiting from those budgets with smart categorization? Or if it's acted as a spark around your product roadmap? Just anything you can touch on there, tapping into those AI budgets.

您能否分享一下，您是如何透過合理的預算分類從中獲益的？還是它激發了你制定產品路線圖的靈感？任何你能想到的方面，例如動用人工智慧預算。

I'm asking -- thanks, Alex, for that question. I'm asking that question every customer conversation I have is do you have a mandate? Do you have a specific budget? Is there something that's coming down from the CEO or the CFO, CIO, where they're expecting you to do certain things.

我問的是──謝謝你，Alex，問了這個問題。我每次與客戶交談都會問這個問題：您有授權嗎？你們有具體的預算嗎？執行長、財務長或資訊長是否有下達指令，要求你做某些事情？

And I will tell you the answers are kind of all over the map. Some organizations are front foot forward on this. Others aren't quite sure where they need to be. What I will say is everybody is open to getting more value, but I will say I haven't seen -- like there's not across-the-board mandate to do more with AI.

我要告訴你的是，答案五花八門。有些組織在這方面走在了前面。其他人則不太確定自己應該在哪裡。我想說的是，每個人都樂於獲得更多價值，但我還沒有看到——就像沒有全面強制要求更多地利用人工智慧一樣。

However, what I am hearing from customers is that they want -- if they can show value with AI, they believe they're able to get budget for it. And that's something that we'll want to -- we're going to be leaning into a lot harder because we think that's where our opportunity exists.

然而，我從客戶那裡聽到的是，他們希望——如果他們能夠證明人工智慧的價值，他們相信他們能夠獲得相應的預算。而這正是我們想要努力的方向——我們將更加努力地投入其中，因為我們認為機會就在那裡。

Okay. Great. That was helpful color there. And then I realize it's been touched on, but John, NRR has moderated some given the entitlement headwinds that you've called out and things like that. But given that dynamic and maybe the mixed macro backdrop here moving forward, can you talk about what NRR exit rates really embedded in your outlook? And I realize it's been relatively consistent. But how should we think about pricing as a growth lever?

好的。偉大的。那是一種很有幫助的顏色。然後我意識到這個問題已經被提及了，但是約翰，鑑於你指出的福利制度方面的阻力等等，NRR已經有所緩和。但考慮到這種動態以及未來可能出現的複雜宏觀背景，您能否談談您的展望中真正包含的淨收入退出率？我意識到它一直相對穩定。但我們該如何看待定價作為成長槓桿的作用呢？

Yeah. No, thanks for the question, John. I appreciate it. In terms of NRR, you're right. I mean it has -- we have seen that moderate a bit over the last couple of years. And when I think about where the exit rate is, we do think there ought to -- we should be able to grow through our implications of the guidance that we've delivered. There should be some growth in that coming out.

是的。不，謝謝你的提問，約翰。謝謝。就淨收益率而言，你是對的。我的意思是，確實如此——我們在過去幾年裡已經看到這種情況有所緩和。當我思考退出率時，我們認為應該——我們應該能夠透過我們提供的指導來實現成長。這方面應該會有一些成長。

We don't expect to snap ourselves back to where we started the year. But I think we do think that there is opportunity to grow that and see some nice activity and good movement over time. And we've tried to build what we've seen in the market in 2025 into the budget and then with -- what our -- what the pipelines look like and how the environment feels, I think that's been built in nicely.

我們並不指望能迅速回到年初的狀態。但我認為我們確實認為有機會發展壯大，並且隨著時間的推移，會看到一些不錯的活動和良好的進展。我們已嘗試將 2025 年的市場狀況納入預算，並結合管道建設現狀和環境狀況，我認為這些因素都已很好地納入其中。

And in terms of pricing, I think pricing has continued to be a big part of the algorithm. It's something that we always are very mindful of because, again, delivering value to our customers and having -- and making sure that they understand that the value that we're delivering allows us to be very front foot leaning on the pricing toggle. So that's just an area that we continue to rely on, again, and we need to continue to deliver value to make that a continued large part of the algorithm.

就定價而言，我認為定價一直是演算法的重要組成部分。我們始終非常重視這一點，因為再次強調，為客戶創造價值，並確保他們理解我們提供的價值，使我們能夠在價格調整方面佔據主動性。所以，這仍然是我們繼續依賴的一個領域，我們需要繼續創造價值，使其繼續成為演算法的重要組成部分。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Joe Crivelli for any closing remarks.

女士們、先生們，問答環節到此結束。現在我謹將會議交還給喬·克里維利，請他作總結發言。

Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. Apologies to the folks in the queue that we didn't get to. We'll certainly get to you in the follow-up calls. If anyone else has follow-up questions or would like to schedule more time with the team, please reach out to me at investors@vertexinc.com, and have a great rest of your day. We look forward to speaking with you in the coming weeks.

謝謝大家今天收看我們的節目。對於排隊中未能接待到的朋友們，我們深表歉意。我們一定會透過後續電話聯絡您。如果還有其他人有後續問題，或想安排更多時間與團隊交流，請透過 investors@vertexinc.com 與我聯繫，祝您今天餘下的時間過得愉快。我們期待在接下來的幾週內與您溝通。

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

女士們、先生們，會議到此結束。感謝各位參加今天的報告會。現在您可以斷開線路了。再見。