BlackLine (BL) Q3 Earnings Report Preview: What To Look For

Accounting automation software maker Blackline (NASDAQ:BL)
will be reporting earnings tomorrow after market close. Here’s what investors should know.

Last quarter BlackLine (NASDAQ:) reported revenues of $144.6 million, up 12.5% year on year, in line with analyst expectations. It was a slower quarter for the company, with full-year revenue guidance missing analysts’ expectations and underwhelming revenue guidance for the next quarter. In addition, revenue retention rate has been declining, and user growth has been slowing down. The company added 43 customers to a total of 4,279.

Is BlackLine buy or sell heading into the earnings? Find out by reading the original article on StockStory.

This quarter analysts are expecting BlackLine’s revenue to grow 11.6% year on year to $149.9 million, slowing down from the 22.7% year-over-year increase in revenue the company had recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.35 per share.

Majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last thirty days, suggesting they are expecting the business to stay the course heading into the earnings. The company has a history of exceeding Wall St’s expectations, beating revenue estimates every single time over the past two years on average by 0.89%.

Looking at BlackLine’s peers in the finance and HR software segment, some of them have already reported Q3 earnings results, giving us a hint of what we can expect. Paychex (NASDAQ:) delivered top-line growth of 6.62% year on year, beating analyst estimates by 0.97%, and Workiva (NYSE:) reported revenues up 19.1% year on year, exceeding estimates by 1.65%. Paychex traded flat on the results, and Workiva was down 3.3%.

Read the full analysis of Paychex’s and Workiva’s results on StockStory.

The technology sell-off has been putting pressure on stocks, and while some of the finance and HR software stocks have fared somewhat better, they have not been spared, with share price declining 4.45% over the last month. BlackLine is down 6.94% during the same time, and is heading into the earnings with analyst price target of $58.9, compared to share price of $49.1.

The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.