Q4 2023 Blackline Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Matt Humphries; VP of IR; Blackline, Inc.
Owen Ryan; Co-CEO and Chairman; Blackline, Inc.
Therese Tucker; Co-CEO and Founder; Blackline, Inc.
Mark Partin; CFO; Blackline, Inc.
Rob Oliver; Analyst; Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.
Adam Hotchkiss; Analyst; Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Ben Waldman
Pinjalim Bora; Analyst; JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Matthew VanVliet; Analyst; BTIG LLC
Alexander Sklar; Analyst; Raymond James Financial, Inc.
Dan Jester; Analyst; BMO Capital Markets
Presentation
Operator
Yes, good day and thank you for standing by, and welcome to BlackLine's Fourth Quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Matt Humphreys, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Matt Humphries
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. With me on the call are Owen Ryan and Therese Tucker, Co-Chief Executive Officer of BlackLine, as well as Mark Carden, Chief Financial Officer.
Before we get started, I would like to note that certain statements made during this conference call that are not historical facts, including those regarding our future plans, objectives and expected performance. In particular, our guidance for Q1 and full year 2024 are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent our outlook only as of the date of this call. While we believe any forward-looking statements made during the call are reasonable, actual results could differ materially, and these statements are based on our current expectations as of today and are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those stated in our periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in particular, our Form 10 K and Form 10 Q we do not undertake and expressly disclaim any obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. All comparisons we make on the call today relate to the corresponding period of last year, unless otherwise noted. Finally, unless otherwise stated, all financial measures disclosed on this call will be non-GAAP and especially the non-GAAP financial measures and information regarding reconciliations of our historical GAAP versus non-GAAP results is currently available in our earnings release, which may be found on our Investor Relations website at investors dot blackline.com or in our Form eight K filed with the SEC today.
Now I'll turn the call over to BlackLine Co-Chief Executive Officer, Owen Ryan filling.
Thank you, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. We exceeded revenue and profitability expectations in the fourth quarter with $156 million in total revenue and $52 million in non-GAAP net income. Notably, we ended the year with $603 million in annual recurring revenue or ARR outperformance. This quarter was driven by continued success with partners, including our SolEx relationship and consistent sales performance from our mid-market teams. We also saw higher close rates and improvement in sales force productivity this quarter last year, Theresa, I took the reins at BlackLine and embarked on a journey to refresh our long-term strategy and vision together. We spent a great deal of time working across the business. Speaking with customers and reenergizing relationships with our most trusted and strategic partners on the back of these efforts, we took action to implement a more disciplined and refined corporate strategy and activate a new operating model for 2024.
Our go-forward strategy is simple. We plan to lead with our solutions across our markets, financial close FRA. and consolidation, inter-company accounting and invoice. The cash one note here invoice to cash is the new name for our end to end solutions, which contains our electronic invoicing presentment and payment as well as accounts receivable automation solutions. Over the longer term, we expect to either build or acquire additional capabilities that can deepen and extend our platform consistent with the highest priorities within the office of the CFO to support this for becoming a more partner powered organization, harnessing the deep embedded relationships our partners have with key decision-makers at our customers. We are also prioritizing certain markets and geographies that have the highest long-term potential for success as we move through this year and into next, we are implementing an industry equip sales motion that leverages our deep domain expertise and brand permission within select industries and sub-industries to capture further market share. We also expect to be more disciplined in our customer targeting, especially in the mid-market, where today we have a much greater understanding of what they need, what works and how to help them. We will focus on growth oriented companies who can capitalize on BlackLine solutions as they execute their digital finance transformation. In the near term, we anticipate certain smaller customers who do not see the value in transforming their business potential by choose to discontinue with us, I hate to lose customers. This is the best strategy for the long-term health and success of both our business and for our customers with different priorities are value drivers to execute our refreshed strategy. We implemented a new operating model. This model, a solution led and aligned to our typical buyer profiles within the office of the CFO. Each solution pillar across financial close consolidation, invoice to cash and inter-company has a defined leader, was directly responsible and accountable for driving revenue growth while ensuring that the voice of the customers prioritize in all aspects of innovation and product development. They are working in high collaboration with our go-to-market organization to drive sales growth and guide our customers on their journeys with BlackLine over time the additional accountability and rigor across our business is expected to support the results we demand.
Now let's review the fourth quarter, particularly around the five key areas. I continue to prioritize first on execution. Our go-to-market teams performance was solid this quarter beside a number of large global enterprise deals, giving us early indications that our partner powered approach is building momentum in fact, the number of BlackLine customers with $1 million or more in ARR increased 33% to 64 customers. We also saw consistent sales performance from our mid-market teams landing some larger customers while experiencing further adoption of our FRA. and consolidation solution, which is a true differentiator in the mid-market, we also saw higher close rates and improvement in sales force productivity this quarter.
Next, our market message and branding are beginning to amplify and surround our new operating model, led in part by our new Chief Marketing Officer, who recently joined the company. Our teams are beginning to drive a unified message that addresses not just the unique buyer profiles around each of our solution pillars, but also elevates our platform to key decision makers, both directly and via our partner network, who will have several customer events this year, beginning with our beyond the black in the event in late March, which will give us additional opportunities to listen and engage with our customers and partners.
Our focus in the fourth quarter and for 2024 is on ensuring our customers receive the value of the BlackLine promise, maximizing both value and ROI. Our teams are working closely with key customers to drive further adoption of our platform via optimization and success plan. We are seeing promising early indicators that customers are reengaging with us, and we are progressing discussions towards additional use cases that can be leveraged for future cross-sell opportunities. At the same time, this close engagement enables us to gather detailed feedback on our solutions and identify future use cases for our product roadmap. Our distribution efforts and focus on partners is seeing early signs of success as mentioned, we will cover examples of this shortly, but at a high level, more consistent success here should be supported by better close and competitive win rates and larger deal sizes we also expect a more efficient sales cycle given the influence these large partners have on key decision-makers, was it the office of the CFO.
Finally, on retention, we saw consistency in our renewal rates versus the third quarter and experienced a slight improvement in net revenue retention or NRR. While we are pleased with these outcomes, we are continuing to double down on our efforts to improve engagement, adoption and satisfaction for our customers. In the year ahead, our teams will be focused on implementing process optimizations with existing customers and identifying those in our base that could benefit from deepening their use of existing solutions and broadening the adoption of new ones to drive digital finance transformation.
Our operating model, which places an elevated level of accountability on customer success as a core part of our go-forward efforts to improve outcomes for our customers and ultimately for BlackRock.
Despite ongoing market uncertainty, which we expect to continue in 2024, we closed several large global deals, including numerous competitive takeaways in our enterprise business in North America, for example, we signed a leading defense and aerospace company via our SolEx partnership while working hand-in-hand with a major partner. This multi-solution deal, including our inter-company solution, was in advance of an S4 Hana conversion and will support their move as they transition over the coming years. We also signed the world's largest retail and health insurance company as part of a competitive replacement. The customer is in the process of migrating a large acquisition from Oracle to SAP and needed a partner that could support them as they rapidly grow and scale. Importantly, our partner in the deal was crucial in validating BlackLine as the provider of choice and demonstrated not just why the customer should change, but how it can be done successfully to deliver real value for the long term.
In Germany, we signed a large multi-site solution. So let's deal with a leading global retailer and one of the world's largest private companies, working with a team of leading consulting firms. We jointly showcase why BlackLine was the only choice to meet the scale and connectivity needs of their global business while supporting their long-term transformation vision.
In A-Pac, we expanded our relationship with the top three metals and mining customer via our SolEx partnership as part of a shift from an outsource shared services model to an in-source model, the Company sought a long-term partner capable of helping them realize their vision of true digital finance transformation, leveraging our BlackLine nine optimization strategy, we were able to demonstrate not just why they should be modernizing their processes, but have giving them a blueprint for success and a much better appreciation of the value and ROI they could achieve a competitive deal from the start. Blackline's differentiation via deep automation across areas like journals was key to supporting the overall business case in the middle market, we saw a number of large deals closed as we reshape our focus in this fast-growing market. In Canada. We signed a leading Canadian financial services company to a multi-solution deal to address the growing complexity and lack of automation across their business processes. Additionally, we signed a leading health care-focused real estate firm to a multi solutions deal, leveraging our partners' insight and validation to support another competitive replacements. In addition, the company was looking beyond just their close process and towards consolidation, which was another pain point. They wanted real-time visibility on their financials. And our FRA and consolidation solution was a perfect complement and another powerful differentiator for BlackLine.
Finally, we had a great year from our invoice to cash business as customers recognize the need for improved control and visibility of working capital and cash management and a higher interest rate environment due to the changing regulatory landscape, we are beginning to see interest building and electronic invoicing from customers and prospects alike. From a deal perspective, we signed several deals this quarter, both with new and existing customers in a highly competitive deal. We signed HH. global, a leading tech-enabled creative production and procurement firm.
Owen Ryan
Based in Europe.
Matt Humphries
The company was looking to modernize their collections and dispute processes as well as their overall customer experience. They were also interested in a partner that had EITP. capabilities. They could leverage to further advance their vision of real transformation across their business, a great future opportunity to continue expanding our partnership.
With that, I will turn it over to Therese to discuss how we're driving innovation across our business this year. Three?
Therese Tucker
Thank you.
Well, and BlackLine has a proven history of innovation, which has been core to our culture, our strategy and our success since day one. In fact, in 27, we defined and created the financial close market that existed paving the way for companies to rethink how accounting work gets done. And since then thousands of customers, some of the biggest brands in the world have put their trust in BlackLine to deliver real value, all while handling their most mission, critical accounting and finance processes. We were the first company to develop and offer a commercial inter-company accounting solution. This again created another market one, which lacks modern solutions to address some of the most complex accounting problems that exist and more recently, we announced how we are addressing real-time consolidation. We are our financial reporting and analytics solution reshaping another market to support real-time business operations. And as we look ahead to this year, we expect to formally announce the release of the BlackLine accounting studio. It command and control orchestration layer for the thousands of finance and accounting processes occurring across a disjointed and multisite ERP financial landscape. Building on this, the evolution of technology in recent years has provided us the opportunity to do things which weren't possible before it has unlocked capabilities and tools that can propel our vision forward and deliver unprecedented value for our customers. Simultaneously, customer data volumes are surging, processes are growing more complex. Additional regulations are being implemented and talent shortages in accounting and finance are becoming even more acute. Collectively, these factors create a convergence of challenges for customers. However, a mid space lies a substantial opportunity for an industry leader like BlackLine to innovate and to lead. And I am excited that our recently announced KEITH Information Officer is here to support and accelerate our efforts. Example of this opportunity is with AI in combination with the massive amounts of data that is stored on BlackLine's SaaS platform. How are we going to do this exactly we think of this as a two-part strategy. First, we are embedding AI across our existing solutions. Our solution once embedded within AI will enable our customers to be more productive, more efficient and in the end make their job and their lives easier in our inter-company financial management solution. We're already working with customers on our predictive guidance tool proactively informs the customer when transactional data will likely fail. Customer can fix an identified issue early before it becomes a greater problem later. This unique ability to offer a comprehensive ALM enabled end to end inter-company financial management solution in a market lacking maturity and competition is a powerful component of our long-term innovation strategy. Similarly, in invoice to cash, we are embedding AI. It provides visibility and intelligence on customer payment trends before they lend their clients' money or offer them a trade credit, giving them the insights upfront before creating future problems, how much time and resources are wasted across the invoice to cash, paying down late paying customers are having to write off accounts and renegotiate terms after our AI embedded solutions, we'll have the ability to help prevent these things from occurring beforehand and thereby allowing our customers to simply run a better business. It's why we know that embedding these tools across our platform is important and power. And in the financial close, we are planning to deliver generative AI document summaries as part of the account reconciliation process. This time-saving feature can remove a large amount of manual work from a user's process and allows them to focus on exceptions. Instead Frain users from mundane from the mundane transactional work and allowing them to be more strategic in their roles. In the end, this can lead to a faster close a better user experience and can improve the overall accuracy of the reconciliation process.
The second part of our strategy is that we expect to offer new AI based solutions for our customers to leverage. An example of this is our planned journal Risk Analyzer. This solution will be able to review, analyze and model millions of journal entries to proactively identify instances of audit risk areas of inaccurate data ingestion or anomalies that may be associated with suboptimal processes. By giving customers the ability to identify these anomalies early, they can address issues before they become more problematic, resulting in a simpler audit process with lower cost and a lower burden Make no mistake, this is a pivotal year for BlackLine. When it comes to innovation, we expect to progress rapidly as we digest and act on the input and feedback from our customer base. Black Knight accounting studio is a great example of we put a release on pause last year, we spent additional time working hand-in-hand with our early adopters and partners, understanding what worked and what didn't we took that feedback and the co-creation opportunity to reimagine the solution into something even more powerful. And we believe that when launched BlackLine accounting studio will be a real differentiator in the office of the CFO and an important part of our platform. Similarly, we are rapidly integrating our EIPP. solution with our comprehensive suite of accounts receivable automation solutions. Recent developments in the market showcased a heightened interest in EIPP. assets, given the tailwinds in invoicing adoption driven primarily by regulatory changes. We take pride in our proactive approach, recognizing these trends early on and I expect that through our vision, innovation and strategy, we will be able to capitalize on these market dynamics.
Close innovation is the agenda at BlackLine. Everything begins and ends with the customer. And BlackLine is the partner that gives them the tools blueprint and the confidence to transform their processes and ultimately, their businesses.
Last year, we dedicated significant efforts to evolve and refine our teams and our innovation strategy now in 2024, the focus shifts to execution.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to Mark Partin, who will review our financial results and provide some additional color on our guidance.
Mark Partin
Mark, thank you through our results this past quarter demonstrate that despite a market environment such as this, the predictability and leverage inherent in our model can support continued profitable growth as we look ahead.
Accelerating innovation and operational execution are the priorities of BlackLine and those initiatives will be driven by our refreshed strategy and operating model Now let's review the financial results for the fourth quarter in a bit more detail. Total revenue grew to $156 million, up 11% with subscription revenue growing 12%. Services revenue declined 5% as we continued to align to a more efficient servicing model. Calculated billings growth was 14% with trailing 12-month billings growth of 13% the remaining performance obligations or RPO was up 9% with current RPO growing 13%. We closed the quarter with total annual recurring revenue or ARR of $603 million, up 13%. We added 30 net new customers in the quarter, bringing our total customer count at the end of the year to 4,398. While we saw a healthy growth customer adds, we also experienced a higher volume of churn from smaller customers in our go-forward strategy, which Owen spoke to earlier. It is reasonable to assume some additional churn of these smaller customers as we move through 2024, our revenue renewal rate was 94%, consistent with prior quarter and net retention rate or NRR was 106%. Strategic Product performance represented 24% of sales driven by Transaction Matching, account receivable, automation and FRA. and consolidation partners were involved in 73% of large new and expansion deals this quarter. Solid performance continues to grow well ahead of our total revenue growth rate and had a solid showing this quarter. In Q4, SAP partnership revenue represented 25% of total revenue.
Turning to margin, our non-GAAP gross margin was 80% with non-GAAP subscription gross margin of 83% as we remain disciplined on expense optimization within our cloud teams. Non-gaap operating margin was 25%, driven by a combination of gross margin performance, Salesforce asset efficiency and pro active expense management. Non-gaap net income attributable to BlackLine was $52 million, representing a 33% non-GAAP net income margin. Our operating income outperformance and net interest income drove strength on the bottom line, we generated $42 million in operating cash flow and $35 million in free cash flow in the quarter with a free cash flow margin of 23%.
Finally, we ended the quarter with over $1.2 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. As we contemplate our guidance for 2024, we are not expecting a material improvement in the market environment. While we are cautiously optimistic that a higher level of visibility and clarity will emerge later this year, we've not embedded that into our guide, combined with the implementation of our new operating model this year, we are approaching 2024 with an appropriately pragmatic view and outlook. We are also introducing non-GAAP operating margin as an additional guidance metric this year primarily to align our guidance to our internal metrics and provide shareholders with an extra layer of visibility. We also believe the addition of non-GAAP operating margin will provide more clarity around the progress we are making on our profitable growth.
Lastly, I want to make a brief comment on our revenue guidance. As discussed we are moving forward with a more partner powered approach via our operating model with the expectation that partners will take on an incremental Implementation and professional services projects. The net result is that in 2024, we expect to see a one point headwind to total revenue growth with services revenue growth flat to down mid-single digits versus 2023 services revenue headwind is expected to become more acute as we move through the year. Conversely, we expect to see subscription revenue growth trend generally above the midpoint of our total revenue guidance in each quarter and for the full year. With that being said, for the first quarter of 2024, we expect total GAAP revenue to be in the range of 154 to $156 million, representing approximately 11% to 12% growth. We expect to report a non-GAAP operating margin of 15% to 16% and we expect to report non-GAAP net income attributable to BlackLine in the range of 34 to $36 million or 45 to $0.48 on a per-share basis our share count is expected to be approximately $75.8 million diluted weighted average shares. For the full year 2024, we expect total GAAP revenue to be in the range of 637.56 hundred and $49.5 million, representing 8% to 10% growth. We expect to report non-GAAP operating margin of 17% to 18%. We expect to report non-GAAP net income attributable to BlackLine of 153 to $163 million for $2.1 to two to $2.14. On a per share basis, our share count is expected to be approximately $76 million diluted weighted average shares.
With that, I'll now ask the operator to open the discussion to take your questions.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Rob Oliver, Baird.
Rob Oliver
Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, high-quality, and thanks for taking my question.
Matt Humphries
It for owner offer to restate your questions for you.
Adam Hotchkiss
You guys have now been back in charge here almost a year, and I know you own talking with you there were a handful of key strategic initiatives you had, you know, you could have read going after that SI channel, SI relationships, SAP, the sales reorg. I think what we're hearing from you is you've made real progress on all three of those. Can you maybe rank order where you're seeing the most traction with those and where we expect to first see that kind of manifest in a turn in the revenue growth.
And I had a quick follow-up, but if I'm limited to one, I'll hop back in the queue.
Ben Waldman
Thanks.
Pinjalim Bora
I think thanks, Robin. First, I would say while we're very proud of the progress we've made, we're not satisfied with the progress we've made. There is still much more for us to do as an organization, I think of the three things that you've highlighted there from our progress with systems integrators on the sales reorganization and SAP. I think we feel like we've made progress amongst and between all three of them at this particular point in time, I think for us and we're starting to see some real progress internally with the focus and discipline from our BDRs to our sales teams to the account management to the customer service teams all working much more closely together, and we're very, very encouraged by that. Obviously, we started the process, of course of the call with some comment about the strength with SAP. This past quarter, we cited a number of examples. We usually don't just use those, but they were very powerful and very important given a what's taken place. And so we're very encouraged by what's going on there. And recently, SAP's, I believe, identified a new leader of their office of the CFO program, which we're very excited about working more closely with that team.
And then on the on the systems integrators. So we're spending a lot of time with them. I think we're very we feel very bullish about their commitment. We've got some good joint account plans that we worked our way through from covering everything off of of how we go to market together, how do we make sure our customers are better, implemented and adopted. There's a number of those folks that are working closely with Therese, providing feedback around the products as well as what we could potentially be doing on in our industry verticals. So that hard for me to rank all of them from a prioritization perspective, it's like naming your favorite child, but that I think we feel pretty good about the progress we're making along all of those areas.
Rob Oliver
And if I may just quickly, just on the cash side, it sounds like you guys are taking this opportunity to just think of strategically about how to package and price your products potentially differently. And while I don't expect you to disclose anything new here today, if it's in the works, is that right? And how should we be thinking about kind of the way something like it was the cash or other products, if they're packaged or priced differently, could start to impact maybe ARR per customer?
Matt Humphries
Thank you.
Matthew VanVliet
And Rob, I'll jump in on this one. I think you know, pricing is one of those things, it's always an ongoing sort of experiment because ultimately what you want to do is you want to be able to share in the value that you're delivering to your customers, right? And I think we all know that user-based pricing, if you're doing a good job, you're basically phasing out more users. So in terms of our strategic products, we are definitely looking at other ways of doing pricing. We've done our matching rate plans and other sort of <unk> types of pricing that are related to the complexity and the value that we deliver to our customers. So yes, we are looking at how to handle this invoice to cash a little bit differently and but nothing to announce today.
Operator
Alexander Sklar, Raymond James.
Alexander Sklar
Great.
Matt Humphries
Thank you. Oh, and just starting with your comments around the partner success and improve win rates, better close rates. Is there any way you can frame how much of that was from a stabilizing or improving macro that you saw in the fourth quarter?
Versus the early benefits from the strategic initiatives that you just spoke to in your answer to Rob's question.
Owen Ryan
Yes, I think it's a it's a really good question. I don't know that we're sitting here today saying, wow, we've gotten any kind of tailwind yet from them. The macro effect, I would say it still feels a little bit more like a headwind than I do now when I think the thing that I'm most proud of and we are proud of is the execution of our team. So we feel good about our close rate for opportunities both in the enterprise space as well as the mid-market where our teams executed, we feel quite well, particularly on those customers we chose to pursue in the mid-market so I would say not really a lot of them support yet out of the macro, but we like the fact that our win rate feels pretty good for what we're trying to accomplish.
Alexander Sklar
Okay.
Matt Humphries
Great color there. And then, Mark, just following up on the sales and marketing intensity, it's kind of been operating a bit below your medium and long-term targets from 15 months ago. I realize it's a long time in this macro, but how are you thinking about hiring from here for your go-to-market team and what's factored into the 2024 outlook in terms of sales and marketing?
Yes.
Rob Oliver
Thanks, Alex. Like we started this year with a sufficient capacity to expand and meet the market additional demand if and when it comes we're operating very efficiently in that part of the organization, part of the leadership. But most of it just related to the intensity around the operating model changes and sort of some of the key aspects of driving greater sales rep productivity. So our plan for increasing capacity at a stage, most likely after 2024 is to make sure that we have the best salespeople at the right place focused on the customer demand, if and as we see it come onboard.
Alexander Sklar
Got it.
Matt Humphries
Just to make it clear that those medium term targets still are relevant after 24. As you see it just in this interim period, we're still focused on kind of getting those operating model changes in place.
Owen Ryan
That's right.
Rob Oliver
Our on our sales and marketing is below the midterm target model, which is your point at this level of demand?
We think it's that they're at the right optimum level.
Matt Humphries
Thank you.
Very much.
Operator
Matthew Bentley, BTI.
Matt Humphries
Yes, good afternoon.
Rob Oliver
Thanks for taking the question. I guess when you're looking at the new refresh strategy laid out, I'm curious in terms of what kind of timing you're expecting that to sort of play out and how much of that is going to encompass some meaningful sort of price increases or at least ASP increases with the additional functionality you're talking about?
Matt Humphries
And then lastly, how much of the 24 guide or how much churn from the lower end customers is contemplated within that 24 guide?
Owen Ryan
So I think three Snyder, maybe tag team a little bit on the answer to this question. So so I think just from a strategic perspective, what we're trying to do on pricing is already gave a little bit of a hint to where we're taking a very hard look at the way we price the value that we deliver for our customers. And that's the probably the biggest thing we're trying to make sure that we deliver values that our customers feel like they're getting an appropriate return on where they're spending their money with us. And there's obviously through recent demand, a little bit about this is sort of the year of innovation for BlackLine. Again, I'm certainly really excited about some of the things she and the team are driving and we can't wait to share more of that over the course of the year. And we're working through how to begin to sort of price that additional value that our customers will be achieving.
I think the thing just to add on the on the churn, if you will, for the smaller customers that was asked is what we recognize is sort of and there are a number of customers that we've been much more proactive in engaging with trying to figure out where they want to go on this journey. And if BlackLine can really help them succeed with what they're looking to do I think what we expect is we'll have some conversations with customers that may opt out, if you will, or will help them opt out because if they're not going to do the things that are necessary to drive the kind of transformation that we think is appropriate. They're not going to sort of really take advantage of the value that we have to offer them and better off just sort of going our separate ways, Mark will probably give more guidance as to what that might mean from a from a churn and attrition perspective, but remember, these tend to be much smaller accounts. And so as a percentage of ACV, not particularly significant, but obviously from a customer count perspective, it sticks out a little bit more.
Alexander Sklar
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Operator
Dan Jester, BMO Capital Markets.
Matt Humphries
Thanks for taking the question.
Owen Ryan
Maybe just to build off that last train of thought. Can you spend a few minutes talking about sales, the decision to expand in different verticals? Is this again about optimizing the ROI. for the customers, you think about that sort of deeper push into verticals. Is this going to affect how you go to market in 24? Or is this a sort of a longer-term initiative that we should expect to play out over time?
Dan Jester
Thank you.
Matt Humphries
Yes, I love that question.
Owen Ryan
So thank you because it's near and dear to my I think what we're trying to accomplish, I think one of the untapped challenges we had in this organization with our was our customer base and on what we're being smarter about now is understanding who our customers are in certain industries and sub-industries and then where might the whitespace be for companies that we don't yet serve. And that's obvious that's pretty obvious of where you might want to go next. I think the real thing that I'm excited to watch our team working with the recent our partners and others on is the fact that we have companies in the same industry who are using our product for very different reasons and sort of being able to compare with company dealing with company B versus Company C and then taking that insight and then being able to work with our partners and our product team and our sales teams account management to go back to the customers like here's where you can find more value because your peer companies are also doing things very similar to this.
Matt Humphries
And I think what it drives is much more value for our customer, it makes us much more efficient.
Owen Ryan
And what we're trying to do to help our customers be successful, it should make us more efficient, if you will. There's no more Johnny Apple seed approach to going after the marketplace. It's much more targeted around what we're trying to do. And early indications are very, very positive.
Mark and I were on a call with one of our Asia Pacific teams yesterday, and they have a very large pursuit they're looking at. And we were just sharing with the similar kind of customers that we had both in Europe and North America that we could bring to this team over in Asia-Pac. And and I think that's going to wind up in the win column and in the not-too-distant future because of being able to again leverage what we have internally that no one else has that much to my knowledge that we could bring to our customers? And I think that's a real going to be a real boon for our customers over the over the coming years. We've already started it in 2024. So we have five industries that are already in development, and we'll be driving that as quickly as we can throughout the course of the year.
Operator
Ben Waldman, citizen Champion.
Owen Ryan
Oh, great.
Matt Humphries
Thank you. Therese, can we talk more about the solution pillars? So do you mind just going through what they are again and dumb how the role of the person who's in charge is going to work in particular?
Owen Ryan
Are they on the hook for hitting the number?
Therese Tucker
And how does that work on a lot of it.
Matthew VanVliet
And so the solution pillars there for today. And obviously, the first one is our financial close, which is typically been our bread and butter over the years. The second is inter-company financial management. The third is invoice to cash, and the fourth is financial reporting and analytics and consolidation, okay, one of our newer products. Now the four solution pillar leaders are basically veterans in each of their respective areas and they have deep, deep market and product expertise. And yes, they are indeed Am-Pac responsible for a number for their particular product line. They are also motivated in their comp packages to collaborate with one another. And so we've seen where that's a very powerful combination where the combination of certain products are much more effective in terms of win rates in certain segments of the market. So they have the role of basically bringing the voice of the customer into our product and tech organization because they are spending a lot of time with the go-to-market team to really understand directionally where the market's going, what our customers and our prospects are looking for. So they get to be on the both at the tip of the spear as well as bringing that knowledge back to the product and tech group where they have great influence on the roadmap and yes, to put, you know, our teeth behind it, they all have their own numbers as well.
Dan Jester
Does that help you're on next question in queue coming from the line of Koji Ikeda with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Matt Humphries
Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. I wanted to kind of revisit the the medium term growth targets to 2020 20% to 25% revenue growth target. Can you maybe help us understand just thinking about with net revenue retention? What looks like to be stabilizing here and 6%. What are the components, how to think about the components there between new and expand and upsell and cross-sell to get to that 20 to 25?
Alexander Sklar
Thanks.
Rob Oliver
Thanks, Koji. I think I'll start with the original algorithm for the midterm targets. And that begins with account expansion. We laid out a $1 billion plus on resident, marking up a market opportunity in our existing customers, both large enterprise and mid-market based on the tools that we've either acquired or built and are putting together, we've got a real opportunity through digital transformation to drive greater share of wallet inside the office of the CFO. We're reaching higher and wider with our products and with our solutions and messaging. So the big opportunity for us as I focus on the account ownership and the customer success. We laid it out earlier in our comments to really expand inside and use those trusted relationships that we have with over 4,000 customers second, and that in addition will drive our retention rate higher, our renewal rate higher, and we believe that's a big focus of our algorithm.
Now that components of that include the strategic product upsell, of course, and then some of the things that we've talked to you about over the last year.
Second component is the new logo acquisition. We still firmly believe that this is above. And in most of the markets where we operate today, still an untapped market potential, whether it's in Europe or in Japan or even here in North America. There are some we believe that the financial close and high to see invoice to cash and inter-company are still emerging opportunities with potential. And so the return to 20% to 25% is built on account expansion and continued market share growth and competing in the market to get new logos into new markets and territories. That's where the strategy and the operating model are built to attack that algorithm much, Marc, appreciate it.
Matt Humphries
Thank you.
Thank you, Kim.
Operator
Intellon Bora, JPMorgan.
Matt Humphries
Great, and thank you for taking the questions. Mark, I just wanted to ask you about the retention rates. Maybe if you can unpack it seems like the gross retention is stabilizing a bit possible. Dan plaque unpack the gross retention between mid-market and enterprise and trying to understand what needs to be done to kind of move that retention back and where it was a quarter, what are you how are you thinking that trajectory to be? Is that going to be over the next 12 months? Or is it going to take time?
Therese Tucker
Yes.
Mark Partin
Thanks for the question.
Rob Oliver
Because I think that the beginning for us really is the renewal rate and really focusing on keeping and optimizing the customers. We have it's down at 94%. You're right, it has sort of settled at that rate. That's high 80s in the mid-market, and that's mid 90s in the enterprise. And we're accustomed to seeing those rates a lot higher. We believe that not only is this a period issue, but that so much of our attention is now focused on driving that number higher. We spend a lot of time money and attention to get customers. We've got the best solution in the market. So we believe it's a lot about execution through some of these macro headwinds and some of the noise that's in the market today, that's the beginning of it driving the retention rate.
The second component of it is digital transformation. We inspire that as part of our strategic objective, digital transformation means that we can as we have landed with our financial close solutions and then build out up from there with our strategic product solutions we've been and are comfortable at one 10 to 1 11. We're down to 1.51 0.6. Much of this is the macro headwinds and some of these renewal rate issues that we've highlighted. And we think that through a more targeted account upsell program for our strategic portfolio through these sort of dedicated pillar solution leaders that we can get that retention rate higher, particularly in the enterprise accounts. So that's where our sort of strategy and 2024 plan is on for 2024 and beyond.
Matt Humphries
Understood.
Alexander Sklar
Thank you.
Operator
Adam Hodgkinson, Goldman Sachs.
Matt Humphries
Great. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to touch quickly on FRA., I think you called out that that was a key part of some of the wins this quarter. I'm just curious if you see that opening up your market opportunity in the mid-market a bit more than you might have expected and how you marry some of the success and with some of your comments around being more targeted.
Matthew VanVliet
We have seen some very good success in the mid-market. It is a differentiator for us and most mid-market sized companies that are out there now end up doing their financial reporting inside of Accel and so offering them a tool that gives them sort of the control. And the end to end visibility has been a very powerful motivator and differentiator in that market.
I'm sorry, what was the second part of your question?
Yes, I got all excited. You asked about FRA., I have no worries.
Matt Humphries
I was just curious how you marry some of that commentary around the success in the mid-market with being more targeted? It just seems like if that's being successful, it seems like that might be opening up your market opportunity there a bit more than you might have expected. So just curious how you pull those two comments together.
Owen Ryan
I think, Adam, the important piece of this again is it's all about customer client selection. And so I think the thing that we're trying to do is make sure we have these very thoughtful conversations with the prospective customer through the sales cycle about what's their vision? What are they trying to accomplish as an organization? Where are they going? Are they all in on sort of thinking about the blueprints and success plans that we can help them to create to drive what they are looking to do. And what you find is that mid-market is very wide marketplace, right? And so this is all about finding those customers that best fit, what we believe is ideal customer profile for what we're trying to drive versus just chasing every organization that's out there. And so again, I just I can't applaud my BDR team enough and what the sales and ammo teams are doing right now for really being very thoughtful, very strategic in the conversations that they're having because ultimately what you want to do, what we want to do is drive success for our customers. And again, part of that upfront is knowing that we are right for them and they're right for us as we move forward. And so I don't think that those statements are in conflict with one another. In fact, I think they're perfectly aligned again, with helping us be more effective, efficient and successful and helping our customers nCUBE.
Operator
Brent Bracelin.
Matt Humphries
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question here. One of the big questions that we have across the broader software group, where we've seen growth slow for the last couple of years is trying to assess when growth rates start to trough in. If I think about your business, RPO here has slowed for two years. Is that 9%?
I think in Q4 here, Mark what's your best guess when we start to trough, is there any sort of silver lining in the pipeline that might suggest a bigger pipeline?
Again, close rates have been the big issue, but walk us through your best guess on when RPO growth could start to bottom here after a couple of years of slowdown across the broader group?
Thanks.
Rob Oliver
Per and yes, that's quite a question that's a hopeful sign on a trough for the entire SIS Group. I might I might not answer it correctly. Don't be surprised. I would say though all kidding aside, that might have some of the green shoots. We've talked about our execution, which certainly makes things feel a little better in a macro headwind, but we saw some green shoots in that in Q4 at the higher end of the funnel, larger deals that we were able to pull across, particularly in the account growth. That was a lot of extra heavy lifting and effort from the team. So seeing those things start to emerge are certainly positive signs, but we can't, you know on the call that that's a new and sustainable motion that we see and especially so early in the year for us where a lot of our larger deal and digital transformations that are tied to either SAP SolEx or to longer sales cycles.
So on for us, look, we tried to show up, you know, for our customers and execute first, and we think that will start to close the gap in any macro environment. And you know, here we have many crosswinds, whether it's the home, the E version of SaaS, ROI. and accountability. And we think we hold up pretty well in the long term for that if customers are looking around for vendor consolidation and expense rationalization, our business case is very solid, especially especially when you are buying and using more than an application or financial close. So our growth profile is in a very important high ROI. automation, part of the office of the CFO. And when that happens from quarter to quarter. It's tough to call, but we know that it's a problem that hasn't gone away. It's only gotten bigger through this sort of downturn, if you will, for and that's the best I can do for for calling a trough. But when it's in the rearview mirror, I'll tell you.
Thank you for the question, Brett?
Operator
Steve Enders, Citi.
Matt Humphries
Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question here. I'm appreciative of all the innovation and cash flow that was coming down the pike this year on, I guess maybe to start with what's been the feedback I hear kind of showing the status of the customers. And I guess on the other side of it, how do you assess the go to market right to capture that potential there? And particularly where does the budget opportunity come from as you I'll go into an entirely accounts.
Matthew VanVliet
Well, starting with some feedback from customers, it's been pretty enthusiastic, but realize that I'm a big believer in co-development with our customers over time. We have been vetting ideas against them, then we've got prototypes, then we vet products. So when we finally get to the point where we launch, we expect to have nothing but very enthusiastic feedback and frankly, that's how you don't waste money on development.
Therese Tucker
Okay.
Matthew VanVliet
So that's that's some very good feedback today so far. And I'm super pleased now. And likewise, you know, we also work a lot with our partners in terms of what they're seen in the market. A lot of times, they have a much broader purview than we might So lots and lots of feedback from idea inception of idea all the way through to launching a product. Now when we start launching a product that typically is a process where we will roll it out for some period of months with early adopters. Again, this is in a much more in-depth now you're actually using it and a lot of times the feedback there will be slightly different because when they start to use it, they find out if it's easy or not, okay, then we will typically launch into a internal pricing discussion on how to get things, you know what the value seems to be. A lot of times our customers will take part in that. What are you willing to pay for it? And then finally, we really start to get the marketing teams involved and the go-to-market enablement teams so that as we roll things out to our actual customer base, our go-to-market teams are ready to work with our customers and our prospects.
That's kind of a quick overview. I hope that answers your question.
Mark Partin
And second question.
Operator
Chris Cantarell, Morgan Stanley.
Mark Partin
Hey, Ron, thanks for taking the questions here.
Matt Humphries
I think this is for Mark. I wanted to ask around the fiscal year 2014 revenue guide, given the Q1 guide implies 11.5% growth, that would imply further deceleration into the rest of the year to get to your full year guide of 9%. So do you expect growth to further slow?
Rob Oliver
Or are you embedding some more conservatism into that guide maybe compared to previous years like I am of a pragmatic and I think in this case, conservative guide for the year and some of that is the is the market, but also a number of the operating model changes that we believe there's real opportunity for uplift with these changes. The timing for that is that is the thing that I think drives the most question. And so the guide is adequately conservative and pragmatic for the year, you're right. We in Q4, we saw some good upticks in a few leading indicators that's positive. Whether it's momentum. We're not going into this year. We're going to look for that visibility. And I think that gives us an opportunity to execute and have very high confidence in not only the top level guide, but in the ability to generate improving operating leverage in the business during this year.
Thank you for that kind of on.
Matt Humphries
I'll keep it to one question. Thanks.
Operator
Terry Tillman, Truist.
Matt Humphries
Yes, hi. Can you hear me?
Yes, Terry, I thought they said for us, but I cut out of that. And thanks for fitting me in. So it is a single question. It may be multiple parts. Unfortunately, on the SAP relationship, it's great to see the SolEx. It's great hearing about customer specific customers. So that was great in 4Q. What I'm curious about as we look to 24, how are you thinking about percentage of revenue from SAP? And where do you see potentially if there's going to be upside drivers from SAP, what are some of the more interesting incremental opportunities, maybe product wise and what about their perspective on your all's AI journey and are they signed up and are they pushing that as well?
Owen Ryan
I think come through you're not going to have to tag team on this because you can maybe handle on a piece of it. And but yes, I would expect that and I don't know that we'll see a significant shift in what percentage of our revenue comes from SAP over 2024. I do think that the collaboration and communication and the teaming has gotten better across all aspects of what where we're trying to do. Obviously, we're going to continue to have resources dedicated, both domestically and internationally to work on in the local markets where they are because all this business is done at a local level. I think that there's elements of what we're trying to do together in the marketplace, which seem to be going quite well, again from at least the feedback from from my chair, my teammates here at BlackLine and then some of the senior executive meetings were happening between ourselves and SAP at this point in time. So all that, I think bodes well for what we're trying to do obviously for a critical partner, but we also have another big part of our business, the other 75% that we're going to keep driving as well. And I think we feel pretty good about that overall.
And then on the AI side, three sooner.
Matthew VanVliet
So I think SAP, there's a couple of things about that are important, SAP coming up in this year. The office of the CFO is certainly one, which is some, you know, important for us. And secondly, their commitment to AI as well. The beautiful thing about both SAP and BlackLine is that we both have a great deal of data which makes the usage of AI models much more effective. And so we're seeing that, you know, everybody's in fact, not just SAP, but really everybody is trying to figure out how to best deliver the benefits that we know are tangible to our customers. So we see that within SAP, we have discussions on that. And that's certainly a high priority for BlackLine this year.
Owen Ryan
So operator, I know we've run a little bit over, so I just wanted to sort of close up the meeting. Want to thank everybody for their participation today. Really appreciate it. Look forward to the follow-up conversations. I'm sure we'll have and appreciate your interest in BlackLine, and thank you everybody have a great rest of the day. Take care.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
