Paylocity Holding Corp - Annual Report: 2021 (Form 10-K)

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

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FORM 10-K

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☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

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For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021

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OR

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☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

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For the Transition Period from to

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Commission File Number 001-36348

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PAYLOCITY HOLDING CORPORATION

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

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1400 American Lane

Schaumburg, Illinois 60173

(Address of principal executive offices and zip code)

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(847) 463-3200

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

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Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes   ⌧    No   ◻

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Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes   ◻    No   ⌧

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ⌧    No  ◻

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).    Yes   ⌧    No   ◻

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer”, “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

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If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ⌧

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ⌧

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The aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of December 31, 2020, the last day of registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was $7.8 billion (based on the closing price for shares of the registrant’s common stock as reported by the NASDAQ Global Select Market for the last business day prior to that date).

As of July 30, 2021, there were 54,601,434 shares of the registrant’s common stock issued and outstanding.

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DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:

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The information required by Part III of this Report, to the extent not set forth herein, is incorporated herein by reference from the Proxy Statement relating to the registrant’s 2022 annual meeting of stockholders, which shall be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to which this Report relates.

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Table of Contents

PAYLOCITY HOLDING CORPORATION

Form 10-K

For the Year Ended June 30, 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Table of Contents

PART 1

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Forward Looking Statements

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Except for the historical financial information contained herein, the matters discussed in this report on Form 10-K (as well as documents incorporated herein by reference) may be considered “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our future financial position, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations. When used in this Annual Report, the words “believe,” “may,” “could,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “intend,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “project” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

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We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (“COVID-19”) on the U.S. economy, including changes in interest rates, business disruptions, reductions in employment and an increase in business failures; the impact of COVID-19 on Paylocity’s employees and clients, and other risks and potential factors discussed in this report, and in particular, the risks discussed under Part 1, Item 1A:”Risk Factors” and those discussed in other documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we do not intend to update these forward-looking statements publicly or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

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In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this report and in the documents incorporated in this report may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

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Item 1. Business.

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Overview

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We are a cloud-based provider of payroll and human capital management, or HCM, software solutions for medium-sized organizations, which we define as those having between 10 and 1,000 employees. Our comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform to create a modern workplace for our clients and their employees through automation, data-driven insights and engagement. Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, as of June 30, 2021, we provided our payroll and HCM software solutions to approximately 28,750 clients across the U.S., which on average had over 100 employees.

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Our multi-tenant software platform is highly configurable and includes a unified product suite for payroll, human capital management, workforce management, talent management, benefits, modern workforce solutions, and analytics & insights, to enable our clients to make strategic decisions all while promoting a modern workplace and improving employee engagement. Our payroll and HCM modules provide robust on-demand functionality, reporting and analytics. Our platform provides intuitive self-service functionality for employees and managers combined with seamless integration across all our solutions. We supplement our comprehensive software platform with an integrated implementation and client service organization, all of which are designed to meet the needs of our clients and prospects.

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Effective management of human capital is a core function in all organizations and requires a significant commitment of resources. Organizations are faced with complex and ever-changing requirements, including diverse federal, state and local regulations across multiple jurisdictions. In addition, the workplace operating environment is rapidly changing as employees increasingly become mobile, work remotely and expect an end user experience similar to

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that of consumer-oriented applications. Many companies also are operating without the infrastructure, expertise or personnel to implement or support large and complex systems in today’s dynamic environment. Existing solutions offered by third-party payroll service providers can have limited capabilities and configurability while other enterprise-focused software vendors can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to implement and manage. We believe that modern organizations are better served by modern SaaS solutions designed to meet their unique needs, deliver fast time to value and provide their employees with the most engaging experience available.

Our solutions provide the following key benefits to our clients:

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We market and sell our products through our direct sales force. We generate sales leads through a variety of focused marketing initiatives and from our extensive referral network of 401(k) advisors, benefits administrators, insurance brokers, third-party administrators and HR consultants. We derive revenue from a client based on the solutions purchased by the client, the number of client employees and the amount, type and timing of services provided with respect to those client employees. Our annual revenue retention rate was greater than 92% in each of the fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021. Our total revenues increased from $467.6 million in fiscal 2019 to $561.3 million in fiscal 2020, representing a 20% year-over-year increase and to $635.6 million in fiscal 2021, representing a 13% year-over-year increase. While the majority of our agreements with clients are generally cancellable on 60 days’ or less notice, we also have term agreements which are generally two years in length. Our recurring revenue model and high annual revenue retention rates provide significant visibility into our future operating results.

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Industry Background

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Effective management of human capital is a core capability for all organizations. Identifying, acquiring and retaining talent is a priority at all levels of an organization. Likewise, in today’s increasingly complex business and regulatory environment, organizations are being pressured to manage critical payroll and HCM functions more effectively, automate manual processes and decrease their operating costs, while at the same time successfully managing their workforces.

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Complex and Dynamic Tax and Regulatory Environment

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The tax and regulatory environment in the United States is complex and dynamic. Organizations are subject to a myriad of benefit, workers compensation, healthcare, tax and other rules, regulations and reporting obligations. In addition to U.S. federal taxing and regulatory authorities, there are more than 10,000 state and local tax codes in the United States. Further, federal, state and local government agencies continually enact and amend the rules, regulations and reporting requirements with which organizations must comply. Leveraging industry leading technology and service to meet these demands delivers critical value to organizations.

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Growing Demand for Mobility and Enhanced User Experience

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Connectivity and mobility are enabling employees to spend less time in traditional office environments and more time working remotely. This trend increases the demand for advanced and intuitive solutions that improve collaboration and foster employee engagement, such as remote self-service access to payroll and timesheet reporting, HR and benefits portals and other talent management applications. Given the prominence of consumer-oriented applications, employees expect the user experience and accessibility of internal systems to be similar to those of the latest consumer and social applications, such as LinkedIn, Amazon and Facebook.

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Large Market Opportunity for Payroll and HCM Solutions

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The market opportunity in the U.S. for payroll and HCM applications and services is driven by the importance of payroll and HCM solutions to the successful management of organizations. To estimate our addressable market, we focus our analysis on the number of U.S. medium-sized organizations and the number of their employees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were over 1.3 million firms with 10 to 1,000 employees in the U.S. in 2018, employing over 55 million people. We estimate that if clients were to buy our entire suite of existing solutions at list prices, they would spend approximately $420 per employee annually. Based on this analysis, we believe our current target addressable market is approximately $23 billion. Our existing clients do not typically own our entire suite of solutions, and as we continue to expand our product offerings, we believe that we have an opportunity to increase the amount clients spend on payroll and HCM solutions per employee and to expand our addressable market.

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Organizations Are Increasingly Transitioning to SaaS Solutions

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SaaS solutions are easier and more affordable to implement and operate than those offered by traditional service bureaus and legacy software providers. SaaS solutions also enable software updates with greater frequency and without new hardware investments, enabling organizations to better react to changes in their environments. Many organizations are transitioning to SaaS solutions to satisfy their software needs. Similarly, we believe organizations are adopting SaaS applications for payroll and HCM solutions with increasing frequency.

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Limitations of Legacy Competitive Solutions

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We believe that legacy payroll and HCM solution providers have limitations that cause them to underserve the unique needs of modern organizations. Existing legacy payroll and HCM solutions include:

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Given the challenges many organizations face operating in complex and dynamic environments and the limited ability of traditional offerings to address these challenges, we believe there is a significant market opportunity for a comprehensive, unified SaaS solution designed to serve the payroll and HCM needs of modern organizations.

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Segment Information

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Our chief operating decision maker reviews our financial results in total when evaluating financial performance and for purposes of allocating resources. We have thus determined that we operate in a single cloud-based software solution reporting segment.

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Our Solutions

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We are a cloud-based provider of payroll and HCM software solutions. Our solutions enable organizations to more efficiently manage payroll and human capital in their complex and dynamic operating environments. Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, as of June 30, 2021, we provided our payroll and HCM software solutions to approximately 28,750 clients across the U.S., which on average had over 100 employees.

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The key benefits of our solutions include the following:

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Our Strategy

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We intend to strengthen and extend our position as a leading provider of cloud-based payroll and HCM software solutions. Key elements of our strategy include the following:

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Our Products

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Our comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform to create a modern workplace for our clients through automation, data-driven insights and engagement. Our product suite includes the following categories:

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Payroll

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Payroll and Tax Services – Our Payroll and Tax Services solution is designed to simplify payroll, automate processes and manage complex compliance requirements within one system. Our payroll solution leverages data from our Time and Attendance and Human Capital Management solutions to accurately calculate wages, deductions and withholdings, without the need for manual reentry. Clients work with our experts to configure general ledger integrations, accruals and complex reports to enable data-driven decision making. Our integration capabilities also automatically transfer 401(k) information, retirement plans and benefit files to

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third-party providers. Through our Tax Services solutions, we accurately prepare and file the necessary tax withholdings and filing documents for local, state and federal jurisdictions.

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Expense Management – Our Expense Management solution enables mobile app capture of receipts and imports transactions from credit cards, reducing manual entry errors and minimizing employee and approver paperwork, while also eliminating spreadsheets, calculators and manual approvals through automated workflows that route approved expenses for payroll reimbursement.

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On Demand Payment – On Demand Payment provides employees with visibility into their earned wages in between pay cycles based on their hours worked and offers financial flexibility to employees through access to a portion of their earned wages before their scheduled payday without impacting the client’s standard payroll process.

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Garnishments – Our Garnishments solution provides the calculation, setup and maintenance of historical deduction records and performs calculation validation against state and federal legislation to mitigate compliance risk and prevent costly penalties and errors.

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Human Capital Management

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Human Capital Management – Our Human Capital Management solutions streamline HR processes using modern, mobile-enabled tools that help save time by automating administrative tasks and providing data-driven reporting. Clients can track headcount and status for positions, manage position and manager changes, manage compliance tracking and reporting, and employee data and documents in one central location.

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Employee Self-Service – Our Employee Self-Service module provides employees with access to their information 24/7, which allows them to view checks, request time off, clock in and out, and update personal data. Employees can also enroll in benefits, view coverage, access Learning Management System training or view course completion status on-the-go via our mobile app.

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Document Library – Our Document Library serves as a central location to securely store personal employee files such as offer letters and performance reviews to help clients stay compliant and organized by replacing manual processes and paper files. HR professionals can search electronic documents and easily upload, store and download documents while managing access with our role-based permission settings.

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Compliance Dashboard – With our Compliance Dashboard, clients save time and money by staying up to date with new laws and regulations related to topics such as employment verification, Equal Employment Opportunity and compensation.

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HR Edge – HR Edge supports human resource leaders’ navigation through complex compliance requirements, social issues and HR policies. Clients can also access a comprehensive library of detailed articles, guides and other resources to make informed decisions on compliance topics such as healthcare reform, wages and hours regulations, employee leave, state laws, discrimination and more.

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Workforce Management

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Time and Attendance – Our Time and Attendance solution accurately tracks time and attendance data, eliminating the need for manual tracking of accruals and reducing administrative tasks. Employees can request and manage time off, edit timecards and manage schedule changes. A customizable supervisor dashboard provides at-a-glance visibility to missed punches, pending time off requests, attendance exceptions and more.

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Scheduling – Clients can automate schedule tracking by creating and adjusting work schedules as needed, including leveraging templates and building policies based on duration, time between shifts and availability

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without having to manually correct payroll data. Managers and employees can easily manage their schedules from our mobile app to ensure the appropriate shift coverage.

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Time Collection – Our wide variety of time collection devices include kiosks, state-of-the-art time clocks, and mobile and web applications to meet unique needs of different companies while enabling employees to clock in wherever business is conducted. Advanced features include specifying geographic parameters for mobile punch-in, requiring employees to punch in with a photo, answering attestation prompts and temperature checks.

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Talent Management

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Recruiting – Recruiting helps clients find the right candidates by offering intuitive tools to streamline talent acquisition processes from application creation to candidate acceptance. By modernizing the experience, clients can conveniently reach candidates wherever they are, including through embedded text messaging, and instantly track conversations in our platform. HR professionals can customize job applications and reach more candidates by automatically posting to online job portals. Additionally, our solution provides clients with the ability to auto-fill and simplify background checks, maintain and track personal and confidential data, and have real-time access to candidate information to enable timely staffing decisions. Recruiters can communicate with modern candidates in the ways they expect, including email and text messaging from right within the Paylocity platform.

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Onboarding – Onboarding enables new employees to complete all pre-hire tasks through digital data collection to gather important personal and confidential information and documentation right through the Paylocity platform. Clients can streamline processes such as handbook acknowledgment, tax withholding forms, I-9 document verification, E-Verify and many others. Additionally, new hires feel an instant connection to their team and employer with welcome notes from leaders, introductory videos, company culture information and company policies.

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Learning Management – Our Learning Management solution allows clients to easily assign courses tailored to training their employees on new skills, policies, products, and other topics with a variety of course delivery methods including on-demand and webinars, all of which are available via our mobile app. Our clients can create a variety of content for their employees including via a Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), embedded video and various document types. The client’s custom content is supplemented by a library of standard trainings provided by Paylocity to help in areas like anti-harassment, new hire, workplace safety, diversity in recruiting and many more. Clients can also empower their employees to create trainings so that internal subject matter experts can share their expertise with colleagues.

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Performance Management – Our Performance Management tools enable transparent, two-way communication, allowing teams to have ongoing performance conversations. With the ability to manage employee review cycles at the center of the performance management solution, employees can also manage goals and track their career development. Our tools help facilitate ongoing, goals-driven conversations using Journals, giving employees a record of their tasks, goals and accomplishments. Additionally, our clients can prepare succession planning assessments across their employee population by using our 9-box tool that provides context to employees’ performance and the ability to visualize the distribution of their workforce.

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Compensation Management – Compensation Management helps clients ensure alignment between organizational goals, budgets and participant eligibility in an efficient process that reduces manual effort and paper-based budgeting activities. Our customized dashboards provide visibility to individual performance and compensation history at custom permission levels and the full value of an employee’s compensation and

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benefits. Clients can create employee-facing Total Rewards Statements in bulk to demonstrate the full compensation an employee receives—including not just pay but also benefits, time off, and more.

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Benefits

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Employee Benefits Management – Clients can plan and administer competitive benefits packages in one place while offering a smooth, mobile-friendly enrollment and management experience for employees with our Employee Benefits Management tool. Benefit administrators can add enrollment rules, manage benefit offerings for different employee groups, customize user plan limits, and view plan documentation, among other features. Employees can manage their own elections in Employee Self Service or via the mobile app, which allows them to better understand their healthcare packages. Clients can also administer third-party benefit services such as Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) with ease and supplement standard plans with complementary programs, giving employees the benefits options they need.

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Third-Party Administrative (TPA) Solutions – Our TPA solutions are designed to modernize the administration of HSA, FSA, Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), Transportation Management Account (TMA) and Premium Only Plan (POP) benefits by providing users with a single, unified access point for payroll, HR, and benefits administration. Our TPA solutions include mobile and web access, allowing users to view transaction details and account balances while having the ability to submit claims from our integrated employee portal. It also eases the administration of COBRA coverage and retiree billing.

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Modern Workforce Solutions

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Community – Community is our integrated, mobile-friendly social collaboration tool designed to centralize company communications while also providing clients with an avenue to increase employee connection, engagement and productivity. Community enables leaders, HR professionals and employees to share and respond to meaningful, timely and relevant content in the way today’s modern workforce expects, leveraging groups, which are Community’s foundation. Clients can create groups on topics ranging from project-related collaboration to employee resource groups (ERGs), fostering inclusivity to special interests like music or sports. In addition, specialized Ask an Expert group types can provide a consolidated forum between employees and subject matter experts in areas like IT troubleshooting or open enrollment. Employees can ask questions privately or publicly to designated group administrators who are alerted of submissions and can track questions and status in a dashboard. Employees receive notifications when questions are addressed.

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Premium Video – Premium Video provides clients the ability to record, upload and embed videos across our HCM platform to increase collaboration, morale, engagement and productivity. Our solution enables clients to embed videos seamlessly into tasks that are critical to their business such as employee communication, recruiting, onboarding, performance management and surveys.

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Surveys – Our Surveys tool help clients gather valuable feedback to encourage ongoing and transparent conversations.

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Peer Recognition – Peer Recognition promotes positive interactions by allowing employees to recognize and celebrate colleagues’ achievements. It also gives employees the ability to post accolades on their profiles and share with co-workers.

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Analytics & Insights

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Modern Workforce Index – The Modern Workforce Index (MWI) leverages patent-pending AI and data from more than 25,000 clients to provide insight and actionable recommendations to improve employee sentiment and engagement. Clients can view their overall MWI score and compare performance to peers—then break down results across tool utilization, employee sentiment, and organizational health. This enables our clients to improve employee engagement and productivity, lower turnover, and ultimately realize greater growth.

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Data Insights – With our Data Insights solution, our clients can evaluate the health of their organizations with actionable insights in areas such as employee retention, composition of their employee populations and labor costs.

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Reporting – In addition to over 200 out of the box reports, dynamic reporting capabilities help clients utilize data within the Paylocity platform, allowing them to customize and schedule reporting. New reports are added regularly in response to regulatory changes, compliance updates and client feedback.

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Client Support Teams

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We supplement our comprehensive software platform with an integrated implementation and client service organization with deep subject matter expertise. Our core operation consists of various specialists, including implementation teams, account managers, payroll processing and tax service teams. Delivering a positive experience and a high level of support is an essential element of our ability to sell our solutions and retain clients.

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Implementation and Training Services

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Our clients are typically migrating to our platform from a competitive solution or are adopting their first online payroll and HCM solution. These organizations often have limited internal resources and rely on us to implement their payroll and HCM solutions. We typically implement our product suite within one to eight weeks, depending on the size and complexity of each client. Each client is guided through the implementation process by our knowledgeable consultants for all implementation matters. We believe our ability to rapidly implement our solutions is principally due to the combination of our emphasis on engagement with the client, our standardized methodology, our cloud-based architecture and our highly configurable, easy-to-use products.

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We offer clients the opportunity to utilize on-demand or in-class training designed to provide clients with general knowledge on our solutions. We also host an annual client conference for clients to learn about new products and features and allow clients to provide feedback and learn best practices.

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Client Service

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Our client service model is designed to serve and support the needs of our clients and to build loyalty by developing strong relationships with clients. We strive to achieve high revenue retention, in part, by delivering high-quality service. Our revenue retention was greater than 92% in each of fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021. Each client is assigned an account management team that serves as the central point of contact for any questions or support needs. We believe this approach enhances client service by providing clients with knowledgeable resources who understand the client’s business, respond quickly, and are accountable for the overall client experience. Account managers are supplemented by teams with deep technical and subject matter expertise who help to expediently and effectively address client needs. We also proactively solicit client feedback through ongoing surveys from which we receive actionable feedback that we use to enhance our client service processes. We have also built an online knowledge repository for clients that provide industry content and Paylocity product and service information.

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Tax and Regulatory Services

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Our software contains a rules engine designed to make accurate federal, state, and local tax calculations that is continually updated to support all pertinent legislative changes across U.S. jurisdictions with the support of our tax compliance professionals. Our tax service teams provide a variety of solutions to clients including processing payroll tax deposits, preparing and filing quarterly and annual employment tax returns and amendments and resolving client employment tax notices. Our tax filing and compliance departments perform multiple audits to ensure that clients remit timely and accurate tax payments. In addition, a series of audit routines are run to ensure that quarterly tax filings are accurate and submitted on a timely basis.

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Clients

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Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, as of June 30, 2021, we provided our payroll and HCM software solutions to approximately 28,750 clients, across the U.S. The rate at which we add clients is variable period-to-period and is also seasonal as many clients switch solutions during the first calendar quarter of each year. Clients include for-profit and non-profit organizations across industries including business services, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, restaurants, retail, technology and others. For each of the three years ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021, no client accounted for more than 1% of our revenues.

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Sales and Marketing

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We market and sell our products and services through our direct sales force. Our direct sales force includes sales representatives who have defined geographic territories throughout the U.S. We seek to hire experienced sales representatives wherever they are located and believe we have room to grow the number of sales representatives in each of our territories.

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The sales cycle begins with a sales lead generated by the sales representative, through our third-party referral network, a client referral, our telemarketing team, our external website, e-mail marketing, or other territory-based activities. We support our sales force with a marketing program that includes seminars and webinars, email marketing, social media marketing, broker events and web marketing.

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Referral Network

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As a core element of our business strategy, we have developed a referral network of third-party service providers, including 401(k) advisors, benefits administrators, insurance brokers, third-party administrators and HR consultants, that recommend our solutions and provide referrals. Our referral network has become an increasingly important component of our sales process, and in fiscal 2021, more than 25% of our new client revenue originated by referrals from participants in our referral network.

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We believe participants in our referral network refer potential clients to us because of the strength of our products and services, the value we provide our referral partners through our broker portal, the fact that we do not provide services that compete with our referral networks, and because we offer third parties the ability to integrate their systems with our platform. Unlike other payroll and HCM solution providers who also provide retirement plans, health insurance and other products and services competitive with the offerings of the participants in our referral network, we focus only on our core business of providing payroll and HCM solutions. In some cases, we have formalized relationships in which we are a recommended vendor of these participants. In other cases, relationships are informal. We typically do not compensate these participants for referrals.

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Partner Ecosystem

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We have developed a partner ecosystem of third-party systems, such as 401(k), benefits and insurance provider systems, with whom we provide automated data integration for their clients. These third-party providers require certain financial, payroll and other employee demographic information from their clients to efficiently provide their respective services. After securing authorization from the client, we exchange data with these providers. In turn, these third-party providers supply data to us, which allows us to deliver comprehensive HR and benefit management services to our clients. We believe our partnerships with these third parties are an important part of their service offerings. We have also developed our solutions to integrate with a variety of other systems used by our clients, such as accounting, point of sale, banking, expense management, recruiting, background screening and skills assessment solutions.

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Paylocity’s automated data integration reduces the complexity and risk of error of manual data transfers and saves clients and employees time. Direct and automated data transmission improves the accuracy of data and facilitates data collection in partners’ systems. Having automated data integration with a payroll and HCM provider differentiates partners’ product offerings, strengthening their competitive positioning in their own markets.

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Technology

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We offer our solutions on a cloud-based platform that leverages a unified architecture and a common code base that we organically developed. Clients do not need to install our software in their data centers and can access our solutions through any mobile device or web browser with Internet access.

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We use multiple cloud hosting and third-party data center providers to host our solutions, including data centers in Franklin Park, Illinois and Kenosha, Wisconsin (for backup and disaster recovery). We supply the hardware infrastructure and are responsible for the ongoing maintenance of our equipment at all data center locations.

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Competition

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The market for payroll and HCM solutions is both fragmented and highly competitive. Our competitors vary for each of our solutions and primarily include payroll and HR service and software providers, such as Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Paychex, Inc., Paycom Software, Inc., Paycor, Inc., Ultimate Kronos Group and other local and regional providers.

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We believe the principal competitive factors on which we compete in our market include the following:

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We believe that we compete favorably on these factors and our ability to remain competitive will largely depend on the success of our continued investment in sales and marketing, research and development and implementation and client services.

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Research and Development

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We invest heavily in research and development to continuously introduce new modules, technologies, features and functionality. We are organized in small product-centric teams that utilize an agile development methodology. We focus our efforts on developing new modules and core technologies and on further enhancing the usability, functionality, reliability, performance and flexibility of existing modules.

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Research and development costs, including research and development costs that were capitalized, were $73.6 million, $91.0 million and $108.5 million for the years ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

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Intellectual Property

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Our success is dependent, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary technology and other intellectual property rights. We rely on a combination of trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks, as well as contractual protections to establish and protect our intellectual property rights. We require our employees, consultants and other third parties to enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements and control access to software, documentation and other proprietary information. Although we rely on laws respecting intellectual property rights, including trade secret, copyright and trademark laws, as well as contractual protections to establish and protect our intellectual property rights, we believe that factors such as the technological and creative skills of our personnel, creation of new modules, features and functionality and frequent enhancements to our modules are more essential to establishing and maintaining our technology leadership position.

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Governmental Regulation

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As a provider of payroll and HCM solutions, our systems contain a significant amount of sensitive data related to clients, employees of our clients, vendors and our employees. Data privacy has become a significant issue in the United States and in other countries. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Many federal and state government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws and regulations affecting or regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. These include, for example, rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Affordable Care Act, state breach notification laws and state privacy laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, the California Privacy Rights Act and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Further, because some of our clients have international operations, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and other foreign data privacy laws may impact our processing of certain client and employee information.

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In addition, many of our solutions are designed to assist clients with their compliance with certain U.S. federal, state and local laws and regulations that apply to them. As such, our products and services may become subject to increasing and/or changing regulatory requirements, including changes in tax, benefit and other laws, and as these requirements proliferate, we may be required to change or adapt our products and services to comply. Changing regulatory requirements might reduce or eliminate the need for some of our products and services, block us from developing new products and services or have an adverse effect on the functionality and acceptance of our solution. This might in turn impose additional costs upon us to comply, modify or further develop our products and services. It might also make introduction of new products and services more costly or more time-consuming than we currently anticipate or prevent

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introduction of such new products and services. For example, the adoption of new money transmitter or money services business statutes in jurisdictions or changes in regulators’ interpretation of existing state and federal money transmitter or money services business statutes or regulations, could subject us to registration or licensing or limit business activities until we are appropriately licensed.

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Our ability to comply with and address the continuously evolving requirements and regulations applicable to our business depends on a variety of factors, including the functionality and design of our solutions and the manner in which our clients and their employees utilize them. We have implemented operating policies and procedures to protect the accuracy, privacy and security of our clients’ and their employees’ information and voluntarily undergo certain periodic audits and examinations and maintain certain certifications to demonstrate our commitment to regulatory compliance.

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The foregoing description does not include an exhaustive list of the laws and regulations governing or impacting our business. See the discussion contained in the “Risk Factors” section in Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for information regarding changes in laws and regulations that could have a materially adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.

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Human Capital

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As a leading provider of cloud-based HR and payroll software, we are committed to delivering the most modern suite of solutions that drive employee engagement and a more connected culture for both our clients and our employees. Our CEO, together with our senior executive team and Board of Directors, drive our human capital strategy including key initiatives related to our employees and company culture.

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For additional information regarding our human capital initiatives, we encourage investors and other users of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to visit our Corporate Social Responsibility website at https://www.paylocity.com/who-we-are/about-us/corporate-responsibility/. The information contained on this website is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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As of June 30, 2021, our workforce consisted of approximately 4,150 employees, substantially all of which were employed on a full-time basis in the United States.

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Culture & Engagement

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At Paylocity, we strive to be an organization where every employee has a voice, feels welcomed and is empowered to do their best work. Our core values drive our culture – we believe in earning it every day, that growth fuels opportunity, thinking next generation, living the reputation, and being unbeatable together. Our core values serve as the foundation from which we create an engaging culture for our employees, how we train and develop our teams and how we identify the right talent for our organization. Our approach to drive a strong culture and employee engagement has been validated externally as Paylocity has been named a certified Great Place To Work on multiple occasions.

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We support a number of employee resource groups (“ERGs”) including PCTY Equality, which focuses on fostering a positive work environment and providing support for employees and allies of the LGBTQ+ community, PCTY Virtual Connect, which helps bring our remote employees closer together, our PCTY OneWorld group, which fosters an inclusive work environment and provides support for our employees of diverse ethnic backgrounds, PCTY Sheroes, which supports and celebrates women, and PCTY Sustainability, whereby our employees promote initiatives to operate our business and facilities to conserve energy, water and raw materials. Each of these groups are organized to give employees the chance to build community and connections, voice their ideas and perspectives, personally develop and grow, and shape our culture to make a difference at work and in our local communities.

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Diversity & Inclusion

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Dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DE&I”) is foundational to our culture. Led by our Chief Diversity Officer and Diversity Leadership Council, we remain committed to increasing the representation of minority

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groups within our organization, including in leadership roles, and we directly focus on these goals within our talent acquisition and employee development efforts. Our focus includes attracting diverse candidates to our organization while also investing in professional development and mentorship programs focused on underrepresented employee groups.

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As of June 30, 2021, approximately 49% of our employees identified as female and 31% of our employees were made up of underrepresented minorities. As of June 30, 2021, approximately 43% of director roles and above were held by a female and 17% of our director roles and above were held by underrepresented minorities. The tables below provide metrics regarding the composition of our workforce as of June 30, 2021.

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*Individuals preferred to not disclose an ethnicity and/or gender

**Defined as individuals in director-level positions and above

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To support our DE&I efforts, we are launching a curriculum of learning and training content known as “BRIDGE” (Belonging, Respect, Inclusion, Diversity, Generosity, and Equity), that delivers training content related to topics such as unconscious bias, inclusive leadership and building diverse teams. Our curriculum is designed with the needs of both our employees and clients in mind, with content widely available via Community, our internally developed social collaboration platform.

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Learning & Development

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As a 2021 Association for Talent Development 100 Best Training organization, we are committed to creating industry leading talent development and leadership programs that support the professional growth of our employees. In addition to other programs throughout our organization, we provide our operations team with an immersive scenario-based training program and our salesforce with an intensive learning experience on our go-to-market sales strategy and process. Through our internally developed Learning Management System (“LMS”) with Video Premium, we enable employees to share knowledge through self-recorded sessions, which complements our library of more than 600 internal courses.

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Talent Acquisition & Compensation

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We focus diligently on attracting a diverse pool of talented candidates that can help us achieve our short and long-term goals as an organization. Our philosophy of “talent anywhere” focuses on identifying the right individuals for our business, regardless of where they are located geographically. For Paylocity, the right talent is someone who embodies our values, has an innate curiosity to learn and grow with our business, and has a diverse perspective on how best to accomplish our goals.

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Our compensation approach is centered around a philosophy that allows us to compete for and retain the right talent to grow our organization, while being consistent and equitable. Our total rewards program includes competitive pay, an employee stock purchase program, the ability to receive a portion of earned wages before the end of the payroll cycle through our On-Demand Payment product, market competitive retirement benefits, paid time off, the ability to consolidate and refinance federal and private student loans, interest free employee loans and many other benefits. Retaining talent is key to our compensation strategy, and we provide time-based restricted stock grants to certain employees based on role. We partner with best-in-class organizations to ensure that we utilize the most current data to serve as a foundation of our compensation strategy.

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We are also committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our employees and offer a multitude of resources to assist in these efforts. In addition to traditional benefit offerings, we provide all employees with innovative perks and benefits that help to support their health and overall wellbeing. Such offerings include paid parental leave, adoption assistance, health advocacy services, personalized training to measure and improve resiliency and mental health, paid time off to volunteer, tuition reimbursement and many others.

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PCTY Gives

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Giving back to our local communities takes many forms at Paylocity. Through PCTY Gives, we mobilize our technology, people and resources across the country through in-kind donations, our Elevate Your Passions (“EYP”) Grant Program, Volunteers in Action paid time-off, signature program funding and many other initiatives. To support our employees and their communities, each quarter we donate to a qualified 501 (c)(3) charity nominated by our employees through the EYP program. In addition to local charities, Paylocity partners with national organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Blessings in a Backpack and American Red Cross. To support the children of Paylocity employees, the Peter J. McGrail Scholarship program, named after our late CFO, provides higher education tuition assistance for selected participants.

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Available Information

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Our Internet address is www.paylocity.com and our investor relations website is located at http://investors.paylocity.com. We make available free of charge on our investor relations website under the heading “Financials” our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such materials are electronically filed with (or furnished to) the SEC. Information contained on our websites is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, the public may read and copy materials we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. In addition, the SEC maintains an Internet site, www.sec.gov, that includes filings of and information about issuers that file electronically with the SEC.

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Item 1A. Risk Factors.

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Our business, prospects, financial condition or operating results could be materially adversely affected by any of these risks, as well as other risks not currently known to us or that are currently considered immaterial. The trading price of our common stock could decline due to any of the risks and uncertainties described below, and you may lose all or part of your investment. In assessing these risks, you should also refer to the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes.

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Risks Related to our Business and Industry

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Our quarterly operating results have fluctuated in the past and may continue to fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control.

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Our number of new clients typically increases more during our third fiscal quarter ending March 31 than during the rest of our fiscal year, primarily because many new clients prefer to start using our payroll and human capital management, or HCM, solutions at the beginning of a calendar year. Client funds and year-end activities are also traditionally higher during our third fiscal quarter. As a result, our total revenue and expenses have historically grown disproportionately during our third fiscal quarter as compared to other quarters. Due to this seasonality in our business, quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our operations are not necessarily meaningful and such comparisons should not be relied upon as indications of future performance. Additionally, fluctuation in quarterly results may negatively impact the price of our common stock.

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In addition to other risk factors listed within this “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, some other important factors that may cause fluctuations in our quarterly operating results include the following:

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In addition, a significant portion of our operating expenses are related to compensation and other items which are relatively fixed in the short-term, and we plan expenditures based in part on our expectations regarding future needs and opportunities. Accordingly, changes in our business or revenue shortfalls could decrease our gross and operating margins and could negatively impact our operating results from period to period.

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Changes in regulatory laws or requirements applicable to our software and services could impose increased costs on us, delay or prevent our introduction of new products and services and impair the function or value of our existing products and services.

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Our products and services may become subject to increasing and/or changing regulatory requirements, including changes in tax, benefit and other laws, and as these requirements proliferate, we may be required to change or adapt our products and services to comply. Changing regulatory requirements might reduce or eliminate the need for some of our products and services, block us from developing new products and services or have an adverse effect on the functionality and acceptance of our solution. This might in turn impose additional costs upon us to comply, modify or further develop our products and services. It might also make introduction of new products and services more costly or more time-consuming than we currently anticipate or prevent introduction of such new products and services. For example, the adoption of new money transmitter or money services business statutes in jurisdictions or changes in regulators’ interpretation of existing state and federal money transmitter or money services business statutes or regulations, could subject us to registration or licensing or limit business activities until we are appropriately licensed. These occurrences could also impact how we conduct some aspects of our business or invest client funds, which could adversely impact interest income from investing client funds. Should any state or federal regulators determine that we have operated as an unlicensed money services business or money transmitter, we could be subject to civil and criminal fines, penalties, costs, legal fees, reputational damage or other negative consequences. Any of these regulatory implementations or changes could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.

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If we do not continue to innovate and deliver high-quality, technologically advanced products and services, we will not remain competitive and our revenue and operating results could suffer.

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The market for our solutions is characterized by rapid technological advancements, changes in client requirements, frequent new product introductions and enhancements and changing industry standards. The life cycles of our products are difficult to estimate. Rapid technological changes and the introduction of new products and enhancements by new or existing competitors, or development of entirely new technologies to replace existing offerings could limit the demand for our existing or future solutions and undermine our current market position.

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Our success depends in substantial part on our continuing ability to provide products and services that organizations will find superior to our competitors’ offerings and will continue to use. We intend to continue to invest significant resources in research and development to enhance our existing products and services and introduce new high-quality products that clients will want. If we are unable to predict user preferences or industry changes, or if we are unable to modify our products and services on a timely basis or to effectively bring new products to market, our revenue and operating results may suffer.

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Failure to manage our growth effectively could increase our expenses, decrease our revenue, and prevent us from implementing our business strategy and sustaining our revenue growth rates.

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We have and we believe we will continue to experience rapid revenue and client base growth. However, the growth in our number of clients puts significant demands on our business, requires increased capital expenditures and increases our operating expenses. To manage this growth effectively, we must attract, train, and retain a significant number of qualified sales, implementation, client service, software development, information technology and management personnel. We also must maintain and enhance our technology infrastructure and our financial and accounting systems and controls. We must also expand and develop our network of third-party service providers, including 401(k) advisors, benefits administrators, insurance brokers, third-party administrators and HR consultants, which represent a significant source of referrals of potential clients for our products and implementation services. Failure to effectively manage our growth could adversely impact our business and results of operations. We could also suffer operational mistakes, a loss of business opportunities and employee losses. If our management is unable to

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effectively manage our growth, our expenses might increase more than expected, our revenue could decline or might grow more slowly than expected, and we might be unable to implement our business strategy.

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The markets in which we participate are highly competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, our operating results could be adversely affected.

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The market for payroll and HCM solutions is fragmented, highly competitive and rapidly changing. Our competitors vary for each of our solutions and primarily include payroll and HR service and software providers, such as Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Paychex, Inc., Paycom Software, Inc., Paycor, Inc., Ultimate Kronos Group and other local and regional providers.

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Several of our competitors are larger, have greater name recognition, longer operating histories and significantly greater resources than we do. Many of these competitors are able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products and services. Furthermore, our current or potential competitors may be acquired by third parties with greater available resources and the ability to initiate or withstand substantial price competition, which may include price concessions, delayed payment terms, or other terms and conditions that are more enticing to potential clients. As a result, our competitors may be able to develop products and services better received by our markets or may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, regulations, or client requirements.

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In addition, current and potential competitors have established, and might in the future establish, partner or form other cooperative relationships with vendors of complementary products, technologies or services to enable them to offer new products and services, to compete more effectively or to increase the availability of their products in the marketplace. New competitors or relationships might emerge that have greater market share, a larger client base, more widely adopted proprietary technologies, greater marketing expertise, greater financial resources, and larger sales forces than we have, which could put us at a competitive disadvantage. In light of these advantages, current or potential clients might accept competitive offerings in lieu of purchasing our offerings. We expect competition to continue for these reasons, and such competition could negatively impact our sales, profitability or market share.

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If we fail to manage our technical operations infrastructure, including operation of our data centers, our existing clients may experience service outages and our new clients may experience delays in the deployment of our modules.

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We have experienced significant growth in the number of users, transactions and data that our operations infrastructure supports. We seek to maintain sufficient excess capacity in our data centers and other operations infrastructure to meet the needs of our clients. We also seek to maintain excess capacity to support new client deployments and the expansion of existing client deployments. In addition, we need to properly manage our technological operations infrastructure in order to support version control, changes in hardware and software parameters and the evolution of our modules. We may experience website disruptions, outages and other performance problems. These problems may be caused by a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, viruses, security attacks, fraud, spikes in client usage and denial of service issues. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. If we do not accurately predict our infrastructure requirements, our existing clients may experience service outages that may subject us to financial penalties, financial liabilities and client losses. If our operations infrastructure fails to keep pace with increased sales, clients may experience delays as we seek to obtain additional capacity, which could adversely affect our reputation and our revenues.

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In addition, our ability to deliver our cloud-based modules depends on the development and maintenance of Internet infrastructure by third parties. This includes maintenance of a reliable network backbone with the necessary speed, data capacity, bandwidth capacity, and security. We may experience future interruptions and delays in services and availability from time to time. Any interruption may affect the availability, accuracy, or timeliness in our services and could damage our reputation, cause our clients to terminate their use of our software, require us to indemnify our clients against certain losses due to our own errors and prevent us from gaining additional business from current or future clients. In the event of a catastrophic event with respect to one or more of our systems, we may experience an

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extended period of system unavailability, which could negatively impact our relationship with clients. To operate without interruption, both we and our clients must guard against:

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We use multiple cloud hosting and third-party data center providers to host our solutions, including data centers in Franklin Park, Illinois and Kenosha, Wisconsin (for backup and disaster recovery). We also may decide to employ additional offsite data centers in the future to accommodate growth. Problems faced by our data center locations (such as a hardware or other supply chain disruption), with the telecommunications network providers with whom we or they contract, or with the systems by which our telecommunications providers allocate capacity among their clients, including us, could adversely affect the availability and processing of our solutions and related services and the experience of our clients. If our data centers are unable to keep up with our growing needs for capacity, this could have an adverse effect on our business and cause us to incur additional expense. Any changes in service levels at our third-party data center or any errors, defects, disruptions or other performance problems with our modules could adversely affect our reputation and may damage our clients’ stored files or result in lengthy interruptions in our services. Interruptions in our services might reduce our revenues, subject us to potential liability or other expenses or adversely affect our renewal rates.

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In addition, while we own, control and have access to our servers and all of the components of our network that are located in our backup data centers, we do not control the operation of these facilities. The operators of our third-party data center facilities have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to renew these agreements on commercially reasonable terms, or if the data center operators are acquired, we may be required to transfer our servers and other infrastructure to new data center facilities, and we may incur costs and experience service interruption in doing so.

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We typically pay client employees and may pay taxing authorities amounts due for a payroll period before a client’s electronic funds transfers are finally settled to our account. If client payments are rejected by banking institutions or otherwise fail to clear into our accounts, we may require additional sources of short-term liquidity and our operating results could be adversely affected.

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Our payroll processing business involves the movement of significant funds from the account of a client to employees and relevant taxing authorities. Though we debit a client’s account prior to any disbursement on its behalf, due to Automated Clearing House, or ACH, banking regulations, funds previously credited could be reversed under certain circumstances and timeframes after our payment of amounts due to employees and taxing and other regulatory authorities. There is therefore a risk that the employer’s funds will be insufficient to cover the amounts we have already paid on its behalf. While such shortage and accompanying financial exposure has only occurred in very limited instances in the past, should clients default on their payment obligations in the future, we might be required to advance funds to cover such obligations. Depending on the magnitude of such an event, we may be required to seek additional sources of short-term liquidity, which may not be available on reasonable terms, if at all, and our operating results and our liquidity could be adversely affected and our banking relationships could be harmed.

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Our business could be negatively impacted by disruptions in the operations of third-party providers.

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We rely on third-party couriers such as the United Parcel Service, or UPS, to ship printed checks to our clients, and any disruptions in their operations that impact their ability to successfully perform their tasks may negatively impact our business.

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We also currently have agreements with eleven major U.S. banks to execute ACH and wire transfers to support our client payroll, benefit and tax services. If one or more of the banks fails to process ACH transfers on a timely basis, or at all, then our relationship with our clients could be harmed and we could be subject to claims by a client with respect to the failed transfers. In addition, these banks have no obligation to renew their agreements with us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. If a material number of these banks terminate their relationships with us or restrict the dollar amounts of funds that they will process on behalf of our clients, their doing so may impede our ability to process funds and could have an adverse impact on our business.

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We depend on our senior management team and other key employees, and the loss of these persons or an inability to attract and retain highly skilled employees, including product development, sales, implementation, client service and other technical persons, could adversely affect our business.

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Our success depends largely upon the continued services of our key executive officers. We also rely on our leadership team in the areas of product development, sales, client service, and general and administrative functions. From time to time, there may be changes in our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives, which could disrupt our business. While we have employment agreements with our executive officers, these employment agreements do not require them to continue to work for us for any specified period and, therefore, they could terminate their employment with us at any time. The loss of one or more of our executive officers or key employees could have an adverse effect on our business.

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We believe that to grow our business and be successful, we must continue to develop products that are technologically advanced, are highly integrable with third-party services, provide significant mobility capabilities and have pleasing and intuitive user experiences. To do so, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel, particularly employees with high levels of experience in designing and developing software. We must also identify, recruit and train qualified sales, client service and implementation personnel in the use of our software. The amount of time it takes for our sales representatives, client service and implementation personnel to be fully trained and to become productive varies widely. Competition for skilled employees across the United States and globally is intense. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be severely harmed. We follow a practice of hiring the best available candidates wherever located, but as we grow our business, the productivity of our product development and direct sales force may be adversely affected. In addition, if we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees have breached their legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources.

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Our software might not operate properly, which could damage our reputation, give rise to claims against us, or divert application of our resources from other purposes, any of which could harm our business and operating results.

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Our payroll and HCM software is complex and may contain or develop undetected defects or errors, particularly when first introduced or as new versions are released. Despite extensive testing, from time to time, we have discovered defects or errors in our products. In addition, because changes in employer and legal requirements and practices relating to benefits, filing of tax returns and other regulatory reports are frequent, we may discover defects and errors in our software and service processes in the normal course of business compared against these requirements and practices. Defects and errors could also cause the information that we collect to be incomplete or contain inaccuracies that our clients, their employees and taxing and other regulatory authorities regard as significant.

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Defects and errors and any failure by us to identify and address them could result in delays in product introductions and updates, loss of revenue or market share, liability to clients or others, failure to achieve market acceptance or expansion, diversion of development and other resources, injury to our reputation, and increased service and maintenance costs. The costs incurred in correcting any defects or errors or in responding to resulting claims or liability might be substantial and could adversely affect our operating results. Our clients might assert claims against us in the future alleging that they suffered damages due to a defect, error, or other failure of our product or service processes. A product liability claim and errors or omissions claim could subject us to significant legal defense costs and adverse publicity regardless of the merits or eventual outcome of such a claim.

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Our agreements with our clients typically contain provisions intended to limit our exposure to such claims, but such provisions may not be effective in limiting our exposure. Contractual limitations we use may not be enforceable and may not provide us with adequate protection against product liability claims in certain jurisdictions. A successful claim for product or service liability brought against us could result in substantial cost to us and divert management’s attention from our operations. We also maintain insurance, but our insurance may be inadequate or may not be available in the future on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, our policy may not cover all claims made against us and defending a suit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and divert management’s attention.

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If third-party software used in our products is not adequately maintained or updated, our business could be materially adversely affected.

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Some of our products utilize certain third-party software. Although we believe that there are alternatives for these products, any significant interruption in the availability of such third-party software could have an adverse impact on our business unless and until we can replace the functionality provided by these products at a similar cost. Additionally, we rely, to a certain extent, upon such third parties’ abilities to enhance their current products, to develop new products on a timely and cost-effective basis and to respond to emerging industry standards and other technological changes. We may be unable to replace the functionality provided by the third-party software currently offered in conjunction with our products in the event that such software becomes obsolete or incompatible with future versions of our products or is otherwise not adequately maintained or updated.

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We may acquire other companies or technologies, which could divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders and otherwise disrupt our operations and adversely affect our operating results.

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We have acquired and may in the future seek to acquire or invest in other businesses or technologies. The pursuit of potential acquisitions or investments may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing suitable acquisitions, whether or not they are consummated.

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We may not be able to integrate the acquired personnel, operations and technologies successfully, or effectively manage the combined business following the acquisition. Factors that may negatively impact our operating results, business and financial position, without limitation include the following:

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In addition, a significant portion of the purchase price of companies we acquire may be allocated to acquired goodwill and other intangible assets, which must be assessed for impairment at least annually. In the future, if our

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acquisitions do not yield expected returns, we may be required to take charges to our operating results based on this impairment assessment process, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

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Risks Related to Cybersecurity and Intellectual Property Rights

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If our security measures are breached or unauthorized access to client data or funds is otherwise obtained, our solutions may be perceived as not being secure, clients may reduce the use of or stop using our solutions and we may incur significant liabilities.

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Our solutions involve the storage and transmission of our clients’ and their employees’ proprietary and confidential information. This information includes bank account numbers, tax return information, social security numbers, benefit information, retirement account information, payroll information, system passwords, and in the case of our benefit administration solution, BeneFLEX, health information protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as amended, or HIPAA. In addition, we collect and maintain personal information on our own employees in the ordinary course of our business. Finally, our business involves the storage and transmission of funds from the accounts of our clients to their employees, taxing and regulatory authorities and others. As a result, unauthorized access or security breaches of our systems, the systems of our clients or use of confidential information we obtain during the normal course of our business could result in the unauthorized disclosure of confidential information, identity and financial theft, litigation, indemnity obligations and other significant liabilities. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are employed, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures in advance. As cyber threats continue to evolve, we are focused on ensuring that our operating environments safeguard and protect personal and business information. We may be required to invest significant additional resources to comply with evolving cybersecurity regulations and to modify and enhance our information security and controls, and to investigate and remediate any security vulnerabilities. We have security measures and controls in place to protect confidential information, prevent data loss, theft and other security breaches, including penetration tests of our systems by independent third parties. However, if our security measures are breached, our business could be substantially harmed, and we could incur significant liabilities. The costs of investigating, mitigating, and reporting such a breach to affected individuals (if required) can be substantial. In addition, if a high-profile security breach occurs with respect to an industry peer, our clients and potential clients may generally lose trust in the security of payroll and HCM modules. Any such breach or unauthorized access could negatively affect our ability to attract new clients, cause existing clients to terminate their agreements with us, result in reputational damage and subject us to lawsuits, regulatory fines or other actions or liabilities which could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.

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There can be no assurance that the limitations of liability in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from any such liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim related to a breach or unauthorized access. We also cannot be sure that our existing general liability insurance coverage and coverage for errors or omissions will continue to be available on acceptable terms or will be available in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims, or that the insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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Any failure to protect our intellectual property rights could impair our ability to protect our proprietary technology and our brand.

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Our success is dependent, in part, upon protecting our proprietary technology. We rely on a combination of copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secret laws, and contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary rights in our products and services. Our proprietary technologies are not covered by any patent or patent application. However, the steps we take to protect our intellectual property may be inadequate. We will not be able to protect our intellectual property if we are unable to enforce our rights or if we do not detect unauthorized use of our intellectual property. Despite our precautions, it may be possible for unauthorized third parties to copy our products and use information that we regard as proprietary to create products and services that compete with ours. Some license

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provisions protecting against unauthorized use, copying, transfer and disclosure of our products may be unenforceable under the laws of certain jurisdictions and foreign countries.

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We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants and enter into confidentiality agreements with the parties with whom we have strategic relationships and business alliances. No assurance can be given that these agreements will be effective in controlling access to and distribution of our products and proprietary information. The confidentiality agreements on which we rely to protect certain technologies may be breached and may not be adequate to protect our proprietary technologies. Further, these agreements do not prevent our competitors from independently developing technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to our solutions.

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In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to spend significant resources, including cybersecurity resources, to monitor and protect these rights. Our intellectual property could be wrongfully acquired as a result of a cyberattack or other wrongful conduct by employees or third parties. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights and to protect our trade secrets. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time consuming, and distracting to management and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property. Furthermore, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims, and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. Our inability to protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, as well as any costly litigation or diversion of our management’s attention and resources, could delay further sales or the implementation of our solutions, impair the functionality of our solutions, delay introductions of new solutions, result in our substituting inferior or more costly technologies into our solutions, or damage our reputation. In addition, we may be required to license additional technology from third parties to develop and market new solutions, and we cannot assure you that we could license that technology on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Although we do not expect that our inability to license this technology in the future would have a material adverse effect on our business or operating results, our inability to license this technology could adversely affect our ability to compete.

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We may be sued by third parties for alleged infringement of their proprietary rights.

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There is considerable patent and other intellectual property development activity in our industry. Our success depends, in part, upon our not infringing upon the intellectual property rights of others. Our competitors, as well as a number of other entities and individuals, may own or claim to own intellectual property relating to our industry. From time to time, third parties may claim that we are infringing upon their intellectual property rights, and we may be found to be infringing upon such rights. In the future, others may claim that our modules and underlying technology infringe or violate their intellectual property rights. However, we may be unaware of the intellectual property rights that others may claim cover some or all of our technology or services. Any claims or litigation could cause us to incur significant expenses and, if successfully asserted against us, could require that we pay substantial damages or ongoing royalty payments, prevent us from offering our services, or require that we comply with other unfavorable terms. In connection with any such claim or litigation, we may also be obligated to indemnify our clients or business partners or pay substantial settlement costs, including royalty payments, and to obtain licenses, modify applications, or refund fees, which could be costly. Even if we were to prevail in such a dispute, any litigation regarding our intellectual property could be costly and time-consuming and divert the attention of our management and key personnel from our business operations.

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The use of open source software in our products and solutions may expose us to additional risks and harm our intellectual property rights.

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Some of our products and solutions use or incorporate software that is subject to one or more open source licenses. Open source software is typically freely accessible, usable and modifiable. Certain open source software licenses require a user who intends to distribute the open source software as a component of the user’s software to disclose publicly part or all of the source code to the user’s software. In addition, certain open source software licenses require the user of such software to make any derivative works of the open source code available to others on potentially unfavorable terms or at no cost.

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The terms of many open source licenses to which we are subject have not been interpreted by U.S. or foreign courts. Accordingly, there is a risk that those licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our solutions. In that event, we could be required to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our products or solutions, to re-develop our products or solutions, to discontinue sales of our products or solutions, or to release our proprietary software code under the terms of an open source license, any of which could harm our business. Further, given the nature of open source software, it may be more likely that third parties might assert copyright and other intellectual property infringement claims against us based on our use of these open source software programs.

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While we monitor the use of all open source software in our products, solutions, processes and technology and try to ensure that no open source software is used in such a way as to require us to disclose the source code to the related product or solution when we do not wish to do so, it is possible that such use may have inadvertently occurred in deploying our proprietary solutions. In addition, if a third-party software provider has incorporated certain types of open source software into software we license from such third party for our products and solutions without our knowledge, we could, under certain circumstances, be required to disclose the source code to our products and solutions. This could harm our intellectual property position and our business, results of operations and financial condition.

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Risks Related to Legal and Regulatory Matters

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Privacy concerns and laws or other domestic regulations may increase the cost of our solutions or reduce the effectiveness of our modules and adversely affect our business.

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Our clients collect, use and store personal or identifying information regarding their employees and their family members in our solutions. Federal and state government bodies and agencies have adopted, are considering adopting, or may adopt laws and regulations regarding the collection, use, storage and disclosure of such personal information. In addition, HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and its implementing regulations, applies to our benefit administration solution, BeneFLEX, as a business associate. The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, such laws and regulations that are applicable to our clients’ businesses may limit the use and adoption of our modules and reduce overall demand, or lead to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for any noncompliance with such privacy laws. Even the perception of privacy concerns, whether or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our solutions.

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Additionally, we expect that existing laws, regulations, and standards may be interpreted in new and differing manners in the future and may be inconsistent among jurisdictions. Future laws, regulations, standards, and other obligations, and changes in the interpretation of existing laws, regulations, standards, and other obligations could result in increased regulation, increased costs of compliance and penalties for non-compliance, and limitations on data collection, use, disclosure, and transfer for Paylocity and our clients. In 2016 the EU adopted a new regulation governing data privacy called the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which became effective in May 2018. The GDPR establishes new requirements applicable to the handling of personal data and imposes penalties for non-compliance of up to 4% of worldwide revenue. California also enacted legislation, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), effective as of January 1, 2020, and the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), which expands upon the CCPA, passed in November 2020, that affords California residents expanded privacy protections and a private right of action for security breaches affecting their personal information. In addition, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act regulates the collection, use, safeguarding and storage of “biometric identifiers” or “biometric information” by private entities, and provides a private right of action of persons who are aggrieved by violations of the regulation. All of these legislative and regulatory initiatives may adversely affect our clients’ ability to process, handle, store, use and transmit demographic and personal information regarding their employees and family members, which could reduce demand for our solutions.

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In addition to government activity, privacy advocacy groups and the technology and other industries are considering various new, additional or different self-regulatory standards that may place additional burdens on us. If the processing of personal information were to be curtailed in this manner, our products would be less effective, which may reduce demand for our modules and adversely affect our business.

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If third parties we work with violate applicable laws or regulations or our policies, such violations may also put our clients’ content at risk and could in turn have an adverse effect on our business. Any significant change to applicable laws, regulations, or industry practices regarding the collection, use, retention, security, or disclosure of our clients’ content, or regarding the manner in which the express or implied consent of clients for the collection, use, retention, or disclosure of such content is obtained, could increase our costs and require us to modify our services and features, possibly in a material manner, which we may be unable to complete, and may limit our ability to store and transmit client data or develop new services and features.

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Adverse tax laws or regulations could be enacted or existing laws could be applied to us or our clients, which could increase the costs of our services and adversely impact our business.

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The application of federal, state, and local tax laws to services provided electronically often involve complex issues and significant judgment. New or changes to existing income, sales, use or other tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be enacted at any time, possibly with retroactive effect, and could be applied solely or disproportionately to services provided over the Internet. These enactments could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition due to the inherent cost increase.

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Moreover, each state has different rules and regulations governing sales and use taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that change over time. We review these rules and regulations periodically and, when we believe we are subject to sales and use taxes in a particular state, we may voluntarily engage state tax authorities to determine how to comply with that state’s rules and regulations. We cannot, however, assure you that we will not be subject to sales and use taxes or related penalties for past sales in states where we currently believe no such taxes are required. If one or more taxing authorities determines that taxes should have, but have not, been paid with respect to our services, we might be liable for past taxes and the associated interest and penalty charges, in addition to taxes going forward, which will adversely affect our business, sales activity, results of operations and financial condition.

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Any future litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend.

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We may become subject, from time to time, to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business such as claims brought by our clients in connection with commercial disputes, employment claims made by our current or former employees, or lawsuits related to breaches of personal information. Litigation might result in substantial costs and may divert management’s attention and resources, which might seriously harm our business, overall financial condition, and operating results. Insurance might not cover such claims, might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, thereby harming our operating results and leading analysts or potential investors to lower their expectations of our performance, which could reduce the trading price of our stock.

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Risks Related to Financial Matters

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Certain of our debt agreements contain covenants that may constrain the operation of our business, and our failure to comply with these covenants could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.

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The five-year revolving credit agreement that we entered into in July 2019 contains restrictive covenants including restrictions regarding the incurrence of liens and indebtedness, substantial changes in the general nature of our business and our subsidiaries (taken as a whole), certain merger transactions, certain sales of assets and other matters, all subject to certain exceptions. Failure to comply with these covenants could have a negative impact on our business and financial condition.

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Corporate investments and client funds that we hold are subject to market, interest rate, credit and liquidity risks. The loss of these funds could have an adverse impact on our business.

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We invest portions of excess cash and cash equivalents and funds held for our clients in liquid, investment-grade marketable securities such as corporate bonds, commercial paper, asset-backed securities, U.S. treasury securities, money market securities, and other cash equivalents. We follow an established investment policy and set of guidelines to monitor and help mitigate our exposure to liquidity and credit risks. Nevertheless, our corporate investments and client fund assets are subject to general market, interest rate, credit, and liquidity risks. These risks may be exacerbated, individually or in unison, during periods of unusual financial market volatility. Any loss of or inability to access our corporate investments or client funds could have adverse impacts on our business, results of operations, financial condition and liquidity.

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In addition, funds held for clients are deposited in consolidated accounts on behalf of our clients, and as a result, the aggregate amounts in the accounts exceed the applicable federal deposit insurance limits. We believe that since such funds are deposited in trust on behalf of our clients, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or the FDIC, would treat those funds as if they had been deposited by each of the clients themselves and insure each client’s funds up to the applicable deposit insurance limits. If the FDIC were to take the position that it is not obligated to provide deposit insurance for our clients’ funds or if the reimbursement of these funds were delayed, our business and our clients could be materially harmed.

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Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.

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Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, including increased volatility, and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of a change. Our accounting policies that have been or may be affected by changes in accounting principles include, but are not limited to, revenue recognition and accounting for leases.

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Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

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Insiders have substantial control over us, which may limit our stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters and delay or prevent a third party from acquiring control over us.

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As of July 30, 2021, our directors, executive officers and holders of more than 5% of our common stock, together with their respective affiliates, beneficially owned, in the aggregate, approximately 29.1% of our outstanding common stock. This significant concentration of ownership may adversely affect the trading price for our common stock because investors often perceive disadvantages in owning stock in companies with controlling stockholders. In addition, these stockholders will be able to exercise influence over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and approval of corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or its assets. This concentration of ownership could limit the ability of our other stockholders to influence corporate matters and may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control, including a merger, consolidation, or other business combination involving us, or discouraging a potential acquirer from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control, even if that change in control would benefit our other stockholders.

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Our stock price may be subject to wide fluctuations.

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The market price of our common stock has experienced, and may continue to experience, wide fluctuations and increased volatility. Factors that may impact our performance and market price include those discussed elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and others such as:

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In addition, the stock market in general and the market for software or technology-related companies in particular, have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the overall market and in the market price of a company’s securities. This litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs, divert our management’s attention and resources, and harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.

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We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock and, consequently, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.

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We have not declared or paid dividends on our common stock in the past three fiscal years and do not currently intend to do so for the foreseeable future. We currently intend to invest our future earnings to fund our growth and other corporate initiatives. Therefore, you are not likely to receive any dividends on your common stock for the foreseeable future, and the success of an investment in shares of our common stock will depend upon future appreciation in its value, if any. There is no guarantee that shares of our common stock will appreciate in value or even maintain the price at which our stockholders purchased their shares.

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Future sales of shares of our common stock by existing stockholders could depress the market price of our common stock.

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As of July 30, 2021, we had an aggregate of 54,601,434 outstanding shares of common stock. The 17,362,750 shares sold in our initial public offering, follow-on offering and secondary offering can be freely sold in the public market without restriction. The remaining shares can be freely sold in the public market, subject in some cases to volume and other restrictions under Rule 144 and 701 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and various agreements.

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In addition, we have registered 19,253,893 shares of common stock that we have issued and may issue under our equity plans. These shares can be freely sold in the public market upon issuance, subject in some cases to volume and other restrictions under Rules 144 and 701 under the Securities Act, and various vesting agreements. In addition, some of our employees, including our executive officers, have entered into 10b5-1 trading plans regarding sales of shares of our common stock. These plans provide for sales to occur from time to time. If any of these additional shares are sold, or if it is perceived that they will be sold, in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline.

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Also, in the future, we may issue additional securities in connection with investments and acquisitions. The amount of our common stock issued in connection with an investment or acquisition could constitute a material portion

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of our then outstanding stock. Due to these factors, sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our common stock.

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Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and Delaware law could discourage, delay, or prevent a change in control of our company and may affect the trading price of our common stock.

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We are a Delaware corporation and the anti-takeover provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which apply to us, may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control by prohibiting us from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder for a period of three years after the stockholder becomes an interested stockholder, even if a change in control would be beneficial to our existing stockholders. In addition, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws may discourage, delay or prevent a change in our management or control over us that stockholders may consider favorable. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws:

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Our bylaws provide that the state and federal courts located within the state of Delaware are the sole and exclusive forums for certain legal actions involving the company or our directors, officers and employees.

On February 2, 2016, we amended our bylaws to designate the state and federal courts located within the state of Delaware as the sole and exclusive forums for claims arising derivatively, pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law or governed by the internal affairs doctrine. The choice of forum provision is expressly authorized by the Delaware General Corporation Law, which was amended so that companies would not have to litigate internal claims in more than one jurisdiction. If a court were to find the exclusive forum provision contained in our bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such extra-forum claims, which could adversely affect our business and financial condition. This bylaws provision, therefore, may dissuade or discourage claimants from initiating lawsuits or claims against us or our directors and officers in forums other than Delaware.

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General Risk Factors

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Our business, results of operations and financial condition have been, and will continue to be, adversely impacted by the uncertainties and consequences stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The spread of COVID-19 has continued to cause economic and individual uncertainty and disruption across the country and world. Many of our clients have also been unfavorably impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is outside of our control, and as a result some clients have reduced employee headcount. If a significant number of our clients are unable to continue as viable businesses or otherwise are required to further reduce headcount, or we experience longer sales cycles, reduced demand for our solutions, clients failing to pay us under the terms of our agreements, lower renewal rates by our clients and increased competition, such factors could have an adverse impact on

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our business and financial condition. If the COVID-19 pandemic has a prolonged substantial impact on our employees, partners or clients, our results of operations and overall financial performance may be unfavorably impacted.

​Our business depends on the overall demand for payroll and HCM software and services, and on the economic health of our current and prospective clients. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, clients, partners, employees, markets and financial results and condition are uncertain, evolving and dependent on numerous unpredictable factors outside of our control, including:

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Any of these factors may impact our business unfavorably. While economic conditions have begun improving as vaccine distribution has accelerated in the United States, there can be no assurance that the economic recovery will continue or offset the uncertainty and instability resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, we may continue to experience adverse impacts to our business as a result of its global economic impact, including any recession, economic downturn, or increased unemployment that has occurred or may occur in the future.

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If we are unable to maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our common stock may be negatively affected.

As a public company, we are required to maintain internal controls over financial reporting and to report any material weaknesses in such internal controls. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requires that we evaluate and determine the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting and provide a management report on the internal controls over financial reporting. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that our management report on the internal controls over financial reporting be attested to by our independent registered public accounting firm. If we have a material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting, we may not detect errors on a timely basis and our financial statements may be materially misstated. Compliance with these public company requirements has made some activities more time-consuming, costly and complicated. If we identify material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting, if we are unable to assert that our internal controls over financial reporting are effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our common stock could be negatively affected, and we could become subject to investigations by the stock exchange on which our securities are listed, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.

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Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.

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None.

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Item 2. Properties.

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As of June 30, 2021, our corporate headquarters occupied approximately 326,000 square feet in Schaumburg, Illinois under leases with final expiration in October 2032. We also utilize office spaces consisting of approximately 92,000 square feet in Lake Mary, Florida and approximately 69,000 square feet in Meridian, Idaho as other major operations centers. We lease other smaller facilities across the U.S. that serve as data centers, sales offices and distribution centers.

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For additional information regarding obligations under operating leases, see Note 12 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8: “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

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From time to time, we may become involved in litigation related to claims arising from the ordinary course of our business. We believe that there are no claims or actions pending or threatened against us, the ultimate disposition of which would have a material adverse effect on us.

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Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

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Not applicable.

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PART II

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Item 5.  Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

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Market Information

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Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “PCTY”.

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On July 30, 2021, the last reported sale price of our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market was $207.46 per share, and there were 13 holders of record of our common stock. The actual number of holders of common stock is greater than these numbers of record holders and includes stockholders who are beneficial owners, but whose shares are held in street name by brokers and nominees. The number of holders of record also does not include stockholders whose shares may be held in trust by other entities.

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Use of Proceeds from Initial Public Offering of Common Stock

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On March 24, 2014, we completed our initial public offering, or IPO, of 8,101,750 shares of common stock, at a price of $17.00 per share, before underwriting discounts and commissions. We sold 5,366,667 of such shares and existing shareholders sold an aggregate of 2,735,083 of such shares. The offer and sale of all of the shares in the IPO were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-193661), which was declared effective by the SEC on March 18, 2014.

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With the proceeds of the IPO, we repaid amounts outstanding under a note issued by us to Commerce Bank & Trust Company on March 9, 2011, which totaled $1.1 million, paid $9.4 million for the purchase of substantially all of the assets of BFKMS Inc., and paid $9.5 million for the purchase of substantially all of the assets of Synergy Payroll LLC.

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Use of Proceeds from Follow-On Offering of Common Stock

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On December 17, 2014, we completed a follow-on offering of 4,960,000 shares of common stock at a price of $26.25 per share, before underwriting discounts and commissions. We sold 750,000 of such shares and existing shareholders sold an aggregate of 4,210,000 of such shares. The offer and sale of all of the shares in the follow-on offering were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-200448) which was declared effective by the SEC on December 11, 2014. There have been no material changes in the planned use of proceeds from the follow-on offering as described in the final prospectus filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b) on December 12, 2014.

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Use of Proceeds from Secondary Offering of Common Stock

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On September 30, 2015, we completed a secondary offering of 4,301,000 shares of common stock at a price of $29.75 per share, before underwriting discounts and commissions. The offer and sale of all of the shares in the secondary offering were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-206941) which was declared effective by the SEC on September 25, 2015. The Company did not receive any proceeds from the sale of common stock, as all the shares were sold by shareholders of the Company.

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Dividend Policy

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We have not declared or paid dividends on our common stock since our IPO. Neither Delaware law nor our amended and restated certificate of incorporation requires our board of directors to declare dividends on our common stock. Any future determination to declare cash dividends on our common stock will be made at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, general business conditions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant. We do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future.

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Equity Compensation Plan Information

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Information regarding the securities authorized for issuance under our equity compensation plans will be included in our Proxy Statement relating to our 2022 annual meeting of stockholders to be filed with the SEC within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended June 30, 2021 and is incorporated herein by reference.

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Performance Graph

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Notwithstanding any statement to the contrary in any of our filings with the SEC, the following information shall not be deemed “filed” with the SEC or “soliciting material” under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and shall not be incorporated by reference into any such filings irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filing.

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The following graph compares the total cumulative stockholder return on our common stock with the total cumulative return of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 1500 Application Software Index during the period commencing on June 30, 2016 and ending on June 30, 2021. The graph assumes that $100 was invested at the beginning of the period in our common stock and in each of the comparative indices, and the reinvestment of any dividends. Historical stock price performance should not be relied upon as an indication of future stock price performance.

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Item 6. [Reserved]

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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

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The statements included herein that are not based solely on historical facts are “forward looking statements.” Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated by us in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those discussed below and under Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors.”

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The following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations covers fiscal 2021 and 2020 items and year-over-year comparisons between fiscal 2021 and 2020. Discussion of fiscal 2019 items and year-over-year comparisons between fiscal 2020 and 2019 that are not included in this Form 10-K can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020 that was filed with the SEC on August 7, 2020.

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Overview

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We are a cloud-based provider of payroll and human capital management (“HCM”) software solutions. Our comprehensive product suite delivers a unified platform to create a modern workplace for our clients through automation, data-driven insights and engagement. Our product suite enables professionals to make strategic decisions in the areas of payroll, human capital management, workforce management, talent management, benefits, modern workforce solutions and analytics & insights, all while promoting a modern workplace and improving employee engagement.

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Effective management of human capital is a core function in all organizations and requires a significant commitment of resources. We believe payroll is the most critical system of record for organizations and an essential gateway to other HCM functionalities. We designed our cloud-based platform to provide a unified suite of modules using a multi-tenant architecture. Our solutions are highly flexible and configurable and feature a modern, intuitive user experience. Our platform offers automated data integration with over 400 related third-party systems, such as 401(k), benefits and insurance provider systems. We have invested in, and we intend to continue to invest in, research and development to expand our product offerings and advance our platform.

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We believe there is a significant opportunity to grow our business by increasing our number of clients and we intend to invest in our business to achieve this purpose. We market and sell our solutions through our direct sales force. We have increased our sales and marketing expenses as we have added sales representatives and related sales and marketing personnel. We intend to continue to grow our sales and marketing organization across new and existing geographic territories. In addition to growing our number of clients, we intend to grow our revenue over the long term by increasing the number and quality of products that clients purchase from us. To do so, we must continue to enhance and grow the number of solutions we offer to advance our platform.

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We also believe that delivering a positive service experience is an essential element of our ability to sell our solutions and retain our clients. We seek to develop deep relationships with our clients through our unified service model, which has been designed to meet the service needs of mid-market organizations. We expect to continue to invest in and grow our implementation and client service organization as our client base grows.

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In order to continue to grow our business over the long term, we will continue to invest, across our entire organization. These investments include increasing the number of personnel across all functional areas, along with improving our solutions and infrastructure to support our growth. The timing and amount of these investments vary based on the rate at which we add new clients, add new personnel and scale our application development and other activities. Many of these investments will occur in advance of experiencing any direct benefit from them, which will make it difficult to determine if we are effectively allocating our resources. We expect these investments to increase our costs on an absolute basis, but as we grow our number of clients and our related revenues, we anticipate that we will gain economies of scale and increased operating leverage. As a result, we expect our gross and operating margins will improve over the long term.

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Paylocity Holding Corporation is a Delaware corporation, which was formed in November 2013. Our business operations are conducted by our wholly owned subsidiaries.

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COVID-19 Impact

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In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (“COVID-19”) as a pandemic which has caused a global slowdown of economic activity. The duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the long-term effects the pandemic will have on our clients and general economic conditions, remain uncertain and difficult to predict. Many of our prospective and existing clients’ businesses have been impacted by stay-at-home, business closure and other restrictive orders, which has resulted in reduced employee headcount, temporary and permanent business closures, and/or delayed sales/starts. Our business and financial performance may continue to be unfavorably impacted in future periods by a reduction in client employee counts, reduction in business confidence and activity, a decrease in payroll and HCM solutions spending by organizations, the pace of the macro-economic recovery or a continued low interest rate environment, among other factors. Refer to “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic to our business and financial performance.

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Key Metrics

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We regularly review a number of metrics, including the following key metrics, to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections and make strategic decisions.

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Revenue Growth

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Our recurring revenue model and high annual revenue retention rates provide significant visibility into our future operating results and cash flow from operations. This visibility enables us to better manage and invest in our business. Total revenues increased from $467.6 million in fiscal 2019 to $561.3 million in fiscal 2020, representing a 20% year-over-year increase. Total revenues increased from $561.3 million in fiscal 2020 to $635.6 million in fiscal 2021, representing a 13% year-over-year increase. During fiscal 2021, total revenue growth was impacted by the ongoing effects from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our revenue growth in future periods may continue to be impacted by a reduction in client employee counts, potential increases in client losses, a continued low interest rate environment and the pace of the macro-economic recovery, among other factors.

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Client Count Growth

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We believe there is a significant opportunity to grow our business by increasing our number of clients. Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, we have increased the number of clients using our payroll and HCM software solutions from approximately 20,200 as of June 30, 2019 to approximately 28,750 as of June 30, 2021, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 19%. The table below sets forth the total number of clients using our payroll and HCM software solutions for the periods indicated, rounded to the nearest fifty.

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The rate at which we add clients is highly variable period-to-period and highly seasonal as many clients switch solutions during the first calendar quarter of each year. Although many clients have multiple divisions, segments or locations, we only count such clients once for these purposes.

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Annual Revenue Retention Rate

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Our annual revenue retention rate has been in excess of 92% during each of the past three fiscal years. We calculate our annual revenue retention rate as our total revenue for the preceding 12 months, less the annualized value of revenue lost during the preceding 12 months, divided by our total revenue for the preceding 12 months. We calculate the annualized value of revenue lost by summing the recurring fees paid by lost clients over the previous twelve months

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prior to their termination if they have been a client for a minimum of twelve months. For those lost clients who became clients within the last twelve months, we sum the recurring fees for the period that they have been a client and then annualize the amount. We exclude interest income on funds held for clients from the revenue retention calculation. We believe that our annual revenue retention rate is an important metric to measure overall client satisfaction and the general quality of our product and service offerings.

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Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA

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We use Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA to evaluate our operating results. We prepare Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA to eliminate the impact of items we do not consider indicative of our ongoing operating performance. However, Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are not measurements of financial performance under generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or GAAP, and these metrics may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies.

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We define Adjusted Gross Profit as gross profit before amortization of capitalized internal-use software costs and stock-based compensation expense and employer payroll taxes related to stock releases and option exercises. We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income before interest expense, income tax expense (benefit), depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense and employer payroll taxes related to stock releases and option exercises, and other items as defined below.

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We disclose Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP measures, because we believe these metrics assist investors and analysts in comparing our performance across reporting periods on a consistent basis by excluding items that we do not believe are indicative of our core operating performance. We believe these metrics are commonly used in the financial community to aid in comparisons of similar companies, and we present them to enhance investors’ understanding of our operating performance and cash flows.

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Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA have limitations as analytical tools. Some of these limitations include the following:

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Additionally, stock-based compensation will continue to be an element of our overall compensation strategy, although we exclude it from Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA as an expense when evaluating our ongoing operating performance for a particular period.

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Because of these limitations, you should not consider Adjusted Gross Profit as an alternative to gross profit or Adjusted EBITDA as an alternative to net income or net cash provided by operating activities, in each case as determined in accordance with GAAP. We compensate for these limitations by relying primarily on our GAAP results, and we use Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA only as supplemental information.

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Directly comparable GAAP measures to Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are gross profit and net income, respectively. We reconcile Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA as follows:

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* Represents nonrecurring costs including lease exit and acquisition-related costs of $0.4 million, $1.6 million and $1.9 million incurred during the years ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, and the settlement of a certain legal matter and related litigation costs of $2.1 million during the year ended June 30, 2020.

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Basis of Presentation

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Revenues

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Recurring and Other Revenue

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Beginning in fiscal 2020, we simplified the presentation of revenue. Recurring fees and Implementation services and other have been combined into one revenue line: Recurring and other revenue. We changed the presentation of revenue as Implementation services and other has become a smaller component of our overall revenue mix as our HCM suite has become a larger part of the portfolio. Previously reported results for the year ended June 30, 2019 have been reclassified to conform to the current presentation.

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We derive the majority of our revenues from recurring fees attributable to our cloud-based payroll and HCM software solutions. Recurring fees for each client generally include a base fee in addition to a fee based on the number of client employees and the number of products a client uses. We also charge fees attributable to our preparation of W-2 documents and annual required filings on behalf of our clients. We charge implementation fees for professional services provided to implement our payroll and HCM solutions. Implementations of our payroll solutions typically require only one to eight weeks, depending on the size and complexity of each client, at which point the new client’s payroll is first

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processed using our solution. We implement additional HCM products as requested by clients and leverage the data within our payroll solution to accelerate our implementation processes. Our average client size has continued to be over 100 employees.

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While the majority of our agreements with clients are generally cancellable by the client on 60 days’ notice or less, we also have entered into term agreements, which are generally two years in length. Our agreements do not include general rights of return and do not provide clients with the right to take possession of the software supporting the services being provided. We recognize recurring fees in the period in which services are provided and the related performance obligations have been satisfied. We defer implementation fees related to our proprietary products over a period generally up to 24 months. Recurring and other revenue accounted for approximately 96%, 97% and 99% of our total revenues during the years ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

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Interest Income on Funds Held for Clients

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We earn interest income on funds held for clients. We collect funds for employee payroll payments and related taxes in advance of remittance to employees and taxing authorities. Prior to remittance to employees and taxing authorities, we earn interest on these funds through demand deposit accounts with financial institutions with which we have automated clearing house, or ACH, arrangements. We also earn interest by investing a portion of funds held for clients in highly liquid, investment-grade marketable securities.

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Cost of Revenues

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To correspond with the simplification of the presentation of revenue discussed above, we also simplified the presentation of cost of revenue beginning in fiscal 2020. As a result, Cost of revenues - recurring revenues and Cost of revenues - implementation services and other have been combined into one line: Cost of revenues. Cost of revenues includes costs to provide our payroll and other HCM solutions which primarily consists of employee-related expenses, including wages, stock-based compensation, bonuses and benefits, relating to the provision of ongoing client support and implementation activities, payroll tax filing, distribution of printed checks and other materials as well as delivery costs, computing costs, and bank fees associated with client fund transfers. Costs related to recurring support are generally expensed as incurred. Implementation costs related to our proprietary products are capitalized and amortized over a period of 7 years. Our cost of revenues is expected to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as we increase our client base. However, we expect to realize cost efficiencies over the long term as our business scales, resulting in improved operating leverage and increased margins.

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We also capitalize a portion of our internal-use software costs, which are then all amortized as Cost of revenues. We amortized $16.9 million, $19.3 million and $23.2 million of capitalized internal-use software costs in fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

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Operating Expenses

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Sales and Marketing

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Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of employee-related expenses for our direct sales and marketing staff, including wages, commissions, stock-based compensation, bonuses, benefits, marketing expenses and other related costs. Our sales personnel earn commissions and bonuses for attainment of certain performance criteria based upon new sales throughout the fiscal year. We capitalize certain selling and commission costs related to new contracts or purchases of additional services by our existing clients and amortize them over a period of 7 years.

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We will seek to grow our number of clients for the foreseeable future and therefore our sales and marketing expense is expected to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we grow our sales organization and expand our marketing activities.

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Research and Development

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Research and development expenses consist primarily of employee-related expenses for our research and development and product management staff, including wages, stock-based compensation, bonuses and benefits. Additional expenses include costs related to the development, maintenance, quality assurance and testing of new technologies and ongoing refinement of our existing solutions. Research and development expenses, other than internal-use software costs qualifying for capitalization, are expensed as incurred.

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We capitalize a portion of our development costs related to internal-use software. The timing of our capitalized development projects may affect the amount of development costs expensed in any given period. The table below sets forth the amounts of capitalized and expensed research and development expenses for each of fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021.

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We expect to grow our research and development efforts as we continue to broaden our product offerings and extend our technological leadership by investing in the development of new technologies and introducing them to new and existing clients. We expect research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars but to vary as a percentage of total revenue on a period-to-period basis.

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General and Administrative

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General and administrative expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs, including wages, stock-based compensation, bonuses and benefits for our finance and accounting, legal, information systems, human resources and other administrative departments. Additional expenses include consulting and professional fees, occupancy costs, insurance and other corporate expenses. We expect our general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as our company continues to grow.

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Other Income (Expense)

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Other income (expense) generally consists of interest income related to interest earned on our cash and cash equivalents and corporate investments, net of losses on disposals of property and equipment and interest expense related to our revolving credit facility.

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Results of Operations

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The following table sets forth our statements of operations data for each of the periods indicated.

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The following table sets forth our statements of operations data as a percentage of total revenue for each of the periods indicated.

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Comparison of Fiscal Years Ended June 30, 2019, 2020 and 2021

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Revenues

($ in thousands)

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Recurring and Other Revenue

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Recurring and other revenue for the year ended June 30, 2021 increased by $85.5 million, or 16%, to $631.7 million from $546.2 million for the year ended June 30, 2020. Recurring and other revenue increased primarily as a result of incremental revenues from new and existing clients, partially offset by a reduction in client employees on our platform due to the ongoing impact from COVID-19. Excluding clients acquired through acquisitions, the number of clients using our payroll and HCM software solutions at June 30, 2021 increased by 18% to approximately 28,750 from approximately 24,450 at June 30, 2020.

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Interest Income on Funds Held for Clients

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Interest income on funds held for clients for the year ended June 30, 2021 decreased by $11.2 million, or 74%, to $3.9 million from $15.1 million for the year ended June 30, 2020. Interest income on funds held for clients decreased primarily as a result of lower average interest rates due to the interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact from the reduction in interest rates was partially offset by higher average daily balances for funds held due to the addition of new clients to our client base.

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Cost of Revenues

($ in thousands)

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Cost of revenues for the year ended June 30, 2021 increased by $37.3 million, or 20%, to $219.3 million from $182.0 million for the year ended June 30, 2020. Cost of revenues increased primarily as a result of the continued growth of our business, in particular, $25.9 million in additional employee-related costs resulting from additional personnel necessary to provide services to new and existing clients, $5.4 million in delivery and other processing-related fees, $4.0 million in increased internal-use software amortization and $2.0 million of additional stock-based compensation associated with our equity plan. Gross margin decreased from 68% in fiscal 2020 to 65% in fiscal 2021, primarily due to COVID-19 related headwinds and a near zero interest rate environment.

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Operating Expenses

($ in thousands)

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Sales and Marketing

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Sales and marketing expenses for the year ended June 30, 2021 increased by $16.7 million, or 11%, to $161.8 million from $145.1 million for the year ended June 30, 2020. The increase in sales and marketing expense was primarily the result of additional employee-related costs, including those incurred to expand our sales team, partially offset by reduced overall spending on travel and entertainment.

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Research and Development

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Research and development expenses for the year ended June 30, 2021 increased by $13.9 million, or 22%, to $76.7 million from $62.8 million for the year ended June 30, 2020. The increase in research and development expenses was primarily the result of $13.0 million of additional employee-related costs related to additional development personnel and $3.0 million of additional stock-based compensation associated with our equity incentive plan, partially offset by higher year-over-year capitalized internal-use software costs of $2.9 million.

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General and Administrative

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General and administrative expenses for the year ended June 30, 2021 increased by $14.5 million, or 14%, to $119.8 million from $105.2 million for the year ended June 30, 2020. The increase in general and administrative expense was primarily the result of $8.8 in additional stock-based compensation associated with our equity incentive plan, $3.6 million of additional employee-related costs, $1.3 million in additional amortization of acquired intangible assets and $1.2 million of increased occupancy costs. Stock-based compensation expense for the year ended June 30, 2021 was higher than the year ended June 30, 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19 on performance targets starting from the third quarter of fiscal 2020 and the modification of certain performance awards during the first quarter of fiscal 2021. See Note 15 of the Notes to Consolidated financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8: “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this annual Report on Form 10-K for further details.

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Other Income (Expense)

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