Ultimate Software Ranked #1 Best Medium Company to Work For in America…from Ultimate Software

July 2, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider. If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, talk to HRchitect first. We have unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation.

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of strategic end-to-end human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that it has been named the #1 medium company to work for in America for the second consecutive year by the Great Place to Work Institute (GPTW), the same research and management consultancy that produces FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work for” list for large companies, and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). A family-like culture, unique benefits, and a down-to-earth management style contribute to the cohesive, productive business environment at Ultimate.

No other company has ever been recognized as the #1 place to work twice in the medium company rankings. This is the fifth consecutive year that Ultimate has been ranked in the top eight. The “Top 50 Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America” for 2009 were announced today in New Orleans at SHRM’s 61st Annual Conference & Exposition.

“We are honored to be ranked the number one medium company to work for again. Taking care of our people is the cornerstone of all that we do at Ultimate, and our people have rewarded us by creating a first-rate suite of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for human capital management and by providing our customers with world-class service,” said Scott Scherr, Ultimate’s founder, president, and CEO. “We are grateful to have a business culture driven by a passion for excellence, respect, and honor, and that combination has given us a significant competitive edge in our industry.”

Hundreds of companies across the United States submitted entries in the very detailed and competitive analysis conducted by GPTW. The rankings are primarily determined from employee opinion surveys that analyze an organization’s workplace culture. Employee-survey responses count for two-thirds of an organization’s score. The evaluation process also includes the assessment of organization practices and perspectives from the leadership team, which accounted for one-third of the group’s score.

Full coverage of the award ceremony and other details are available at www.shrm.org. Organizations on the “Top 50 Best” list will also be listed at www.greatplacetoworkinstitute.com and www.cnnmoney.com.

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Leading Software Developer Transforms Human Capital Management with UltiPro Workplace…from Ultimate Software

June 17, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider. If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, talk to HRchitect first. We have unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation.

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, today announced that Minitab Inc., one of the world’s leading developers of statistical analysis and process improvement software for academic and commercial users, is taking advantage of UltiPro Workplace to streamline human capital management (HCM) processes, improve information delivery and availability, and enhance internal services across the organization.

Before Minitab deployed UltiPro Workplace in July 2008, the company was using a payroll service bureau and a separate HR solution that it had outgrown. To manage expansion while controlling costs, the company sought a unified HR, payroll, and benefits solution with robust reporting tools and Web access for its workforce. The technology company selected UltiPro Workplace.

“UltiPro is adding tremendous value to our business,” said Jill Skipper, HRIS manager for Minitab. “We now need one less person to handle the same responsibilities we had before UltiPro, because we have automated so many employee management processes that previously required manual intervention.”

For Skipper, who handles much of the business intelligence for Minitab, responding to requests for reports used to require compiling information from a dozen different solutions and databases. Today, with UltiPro, the information is not only in one central location, but the reports are also highly configurable in order to address unique reporting needs.

“I use UltiPro’s reporting on a daily basis to address everything from HR compliance requirements to company asset tracking, benefits deduction analysis, and employee tenure reports,” said Skipper. “Leaders in business today need access to meaningful real-time HR metrics in order to manage employees effectively. All of our HCM reporting is so much easier with UltiPro.”

Another benefit for Minitab is UltiPro’s Web access for the entire workforce. With UltiPro, approximately 300 Minitab employees can view their individual HR/payroll details as well as direct deposit selections, the schedule of upcoming pay dates, and instructions for adjusting tax withholdings because of the federal stimulus package.

“Employees can get information quickly without disrupting their daily workload whenever they need something. We believe this kind of benefit to our workforce is important to employee satisfaction, productivity, and efficiency,” said Skipper. “Because UltiPro is accessible to everyone in our organization, the benefits of the solution have extended beyond HR and are positively affecting the entire company.”

Minitab has also discontinued printing direct deposit advices because employees can see their fully secured paycheck details from their homes or offices. Building on its success with UltiPro, the software developer has just started using UltiPro for recruitment to automate its talent acquisition and applicant management processes.

“With its comprehensive HCM functionality, analytical tools, and Web portal, UltiPro Workplace is an end-to-end solution that midsized organizations can leverage to manage their people like a FORTUNE 500 company,” said Chris Phenicie, vice president of UltiPro Workplace. “We are pleased that a leader in the technology industry like Minitab selected UltiPro and is experiencing significant improvements as a result.”

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Ultimate Software Wins People’s Choice Award for Favorite New SaaS Product…from Ultimate Software

June 10, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider. If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, talk to HRchitect first. We have unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation.

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that Ultimate’s UltiPro delivered through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has won first place in the People’s Choice Stevie® competition for Favorite New SaaS Product, sponsored by the American Business AwardsSM.

More than 100,000 votes were cast in 12 People’s Choice categories including Favorite New SaaS Product, Favorite Entertainment/Media Product or Service, Favorite Gadget, Favorite Telecom Product or Service, and Favorite Smartphone/PDA. In addition to Ultimate, some of the other People’s Choice winners were Apple, Hulu.com, Mozilla, Symantec, and Quicken. Other companies competing in the best new SaaS solution category were Salesforce.com, Cisco WebEx, Citrix Online, NetSuite, and Peopleclick. The nationwide online vote was open to the public.

For businesses of nearly all sizes, Ultimate provides payroll, human resources, benefits management, business intelligence, and a portal for conducting business functions conveniently – and provides strategic talent management solutions like recruitment, onboarding, performance management, salary planning and compensation, and career planning – all through SaaS. Ultimate’s newest HCM solution, UltiPro. NET, delivered as SaaS, reinvents the customer experience with a redesigned enterprise-wide portal that allows businesses to streamline management of a global workforce while putting individual users in control, based on their personal preferences. In addition to social networking integration with sites such as Facebook to promote team collaboration, the new SaaS solution also includes multiple languages, many convenience shortcuts, and dashboards. More than 1 million employees across North America are being supported in Ultimate’s SaaS environment.

Winners of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards will be presented their awards at the 7th annual American Business Awards banquet in New York on Monday, June 22.

“Businesses need every dollar spent to count in order to be successful in a highly competitive market,” said Scott Scherr, president, CEO, and founder of Ultimate Software. “Without requiring organizations to invest in hardware or dedicate internal IT staff to manage systems, Ultimate’s SaaS solution helps businesses achieve their goals to align performance, compensation, and human capital management to ensure that they acquire and retain the best talent to drive business success.”

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Ultimate Software Honored with 2009 IHRIM Partners Award…from Ultimate Software

April 15, 2009

 

Ultimate Software Honored with 2009 IHRIM Partners Award for Contributions to the Practice of Human Capital Management

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider.

 

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, today announced it has received the 2009 Partners Award from the International Association for Human Resource Information Management (IHRIM). IHRIM’s Partners Award is presented to organizations that have significantly contributed to the practice of human resources information management and/or to supporting the mission and goals of the association.

 

Ultimate’s CIO, Bill Hicks, will accept the award on April 20 at IHRIM’s 2009 HRMStrategies Conference & Technology Exposition in San Diego, Calif.

 

“Ultimate Software continues to be a leader and visionary in the HCM marketplace. It is our pleasure to recognize the entire Ultimate team as a 2009 Partner Award recipient,” said Lynne Mealy, IHRIM president and CEO.

 

Since 1980, the International Association for Human Resource Information Management (IHRIM), the world’s leading HRIM clearinghouse, has been uniting a dynamic group of practitioners, vendors, consultants, students, and faculty to share best practices and the latest technological trends. Through membership, educational programming, listservs, networking forums, and IHRIM’s annual conference, HRIM professionals can receive valuable knowledge that will enhance both their own careers and their companies’ success.

 

“We are honored to accept the 2009 Partners Award from IHRIM,” said Hicks. “As a company, Ultimate is committed to delivering quality HCM solutions that support strategic HR objectives. Being recognized by a national association of IHRIM’s caliber underscores our commitment to providing organizations with HR solutions that meet the demands of today’s businesses.”

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

 

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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7,700-Employee Company Chooses UltiPro for Human Capital Management Delivered through Software-as-a-Service…from Ultimate Software

March 27, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider.

 

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, today announced that Safelite AutoGlass, the nation’s leading provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services, has chosen UltiPro for its human resources, recruitment, and performance management solution.

 

Since it started using a payroll service bureau’s solution several years ago to manage human resources information, Safelite expanded and grew its workforce dramatically. Now, with close to 8,000 employees to manage, the HR team needed a more sophisticated HR solution with strategic talent management tools and real-time reporting and analytics. The company selected UltiPro in January 2009 for its comprehensive HR feature-set, reporting capabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model.

 

“We have been using a solution that required a great deal of customization, but still required us to compile reports manually and use paper for many employee transactions,” said Donna Gibson, senior manager of compensation and benefits at Belron US, the parent company of Safelite AutoGlass. “When we selected UltiPro, we were looking for more functionality, better performance, and more automation than our current solution. With its software-as-a-service model and its broad range of strategic human resource tools, Ultimate was a very good fit for us.”

 

Because Safelite had been using an in-house solution for HR, the company’s IT team needed to devote resources to support it. Now Ultimate Software will manage the hardware and software so Safelite’s IT team will be able to focus on other projects, while HR will have the tools it needs to build efficiencies, operate more strategically, and deliver information to employees over the Internet. Considering Ultimate’s numerous awards for SaaS and customer service, Gibson and the decision-making team were confident that Ultimate’s service model was the right choice for Safelite.

 

“One decision driver for us was based on our personal experiences with Ultimate’s associates and its reputation for quality customer service,” said Gibson. “We look forward to working with a vendor who has both superior solutions and service.”

 

“Ultimate offers cost-effective, scalable solutions for large businesses that want powerful HR business functionality, but do not want to tap their own internal resources to maintain it,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “Our complete HCM solution can handle HR throughout the employee life cycle, and we look forward to helping Safelite enhance its employee management to stay competitive.”

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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2,000-Employee Caterpillar Dealer Achieves Savings and Efficiencies with UltiPro Delivered through SaaS…from Ultimate Software

March 6, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider.

 

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, recently announced that its customer HOLT CAT has improved reporting, reduced expenses, and improved numerous business processes since going live on UltiPro delivered through Ultimate’s software-as-a-service (SaaS).

HOLT CAT, a 2,000-employee Caterpillar dealership with 27 locations, chose UltiPro to reduce expenses and streamline its human capital management processes. With multiple offices to manage, Texas-based HOLT CAT needed a unified HCM that would allow it to easily generate HR/payroll-related reports on individual dealerships, specific regions, or on the company as a whole. HOLT CAT had been using an HR/payroll application provided by a payroll service bureau, and after 18 months of using the system, the heavy equipment dealership found the solution and its reporting tools inadequate. HOLT CAT selected UltiPro in 2003 and deployed the solution rapidly.

“The system we had before didn’t perform as we’d hoped, and it was causing us to spend too much time manually compiling information for reports, such as those needed for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. With UltiPro, we were able to roll out the solution fast and gain control over our information. Now we can pull reports we need in seconds,” said Beth Heffeman, HRIS business manager for HOLT CAT. “UltiPro is also less expensive than our previous solution. Our initial analysis predicted a $100,000 annual savings. I think we are achieving or exceeding that figure.”

By using UltiPro to automate human resource and payroll business processes, organizations like HOLT CAT can minimize the cost and effort required to print, handle, mail, and store paper forms and paychecks while alleviating duplicate data entry. Because HOLT CAT’s employees and managers have access to their information via the Web portal, the company has moved to a paperless payroll and improved paper-intensive processes such as talent acquisition.

“With UltiPro Recruitment, we can get applicant details to hiring managers in the field quickly, and when a candidate is selected, the new hire’s HR/payroll information automatically moves into UltiPro without data entry,” said Bonnie Downey, payroll manager for HOLT CAT. “Before UltiPro, we had forms moving between dozens of different locations, bogging everyone down with paper and slowing our time-to-hire.”

HOLT CAT selected Ultimate’s SaaS delivery model, relieving the dealership of system maintenance responsibilities because Ultimate supports the servers, performs backups, and manages upgrades.

“Our IT staff has found UltiPro’s security to be excellent, and they are not only comfortable with Ultimate maintaining the hardware and software, they are happy about it,” said Downey. “With our previous provider, we didn’t need IT resources to support my team, and we didn’t want to go backwards. With UltiPro delivered through SaaS, every move we are making is a step forward.”

“Ultimate’s SaaS model gives businesses the best of both worlds—a sophisticated, end-to-end HCM solution that includes strategic reporting and analysis tools, without the IT burden of managing on-premise software or investing in infrastructure,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “We are pleased that HOLT CAT has been able to improve its bottom line, cut costs, and reduce the amount of time staff spends on non-value added activities like data entry and handling paper forms.”

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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7,000-Employee Cumberland Farms Selects Ultimate Software’s UltiPro Delivered through Software-as-a-Service…from Ultimate Software

February 25, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider.

 

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that Cumberland Farms, Inc. has selected Ultimate Software’s UltiPro for comprehensive human capital management (HCM) and talent management, delivered through Ultimate’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model.

With a network of 650 retail convenience stores and gas stations, and a support system that includes petroleum and grocery distribution operations, Cumberland Farms had outgrown the in-house solution it had been using. Human resource leadership wanted to find an HCM solution that would maximize the HR department’s strategic contributions to the company. After the team completed an extensive and thorough due diligence, Ultimate’s SaaS offering was unanimously selected in December 2008.

“During our analysis, we investigated Ultimate’s solution, vision, and service, and found the company had a proven history of success. Of the options we reviewed, we found UltiPro to be the most comprehensive, flexible, and intuitive solution hands down,” said Patti Firing, vice president of human resources for Cumberland Farms. “We look forward to deploying UltiPro so we achieve savings and efficiencies.”

“UltiPro through SaaS benefits businesses of any size,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “With the SaaS model, human resources and payroll staff, like the team at Cumberland Farms, can take advantage of comprehensive functionality without needing to commit IT resources to the project. I believe all businesses can benefit from our combination of leading HCM functionality and award-winning IT services.”

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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The Boston Red Sox Select Ultimate Software’s UltiPro Delivered through SaaS…from Ultimate Software

February 20, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider. I personally am a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox!

 

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that the Boston Red Sox, a professional baseball team based in Boston, MA, has selected UltiPro for human capital management (HCM), along with its performance management and recruitment feature-sets, all delivered through software-as-a-service (SaaS), in 2008.

 

The UltiPro solution delivers strategic HR and talent management tools, a key selling point for Red Sox Vice President of Human Resources Mary Sprong, as she and the organization considered how to address the goal of streamlining operations. Sports teams have complex payroll requirements, with the number of employees often tripling during baseball season. The Red Sox were eager to obtain a more robust payroll engine as part of a comprehensive solution that also provided scalability to meet evolving needs.

 

“Baseball players, coaches, and managers are subject to complex taxation that varies from state to state. On the other hand, we have employees like security staff, ushers, and marketing professionals who have different HR and payroll needs,” said Steve Fitch, chief financial officer for the Red Sox. “UltiPro can handle the uniqueness of our workforce efficiently.”

 

The Red Sox HR/payroll team learned about UltiPro through recommendations from other professional baseball teams that were already Ultimate customers.

“Months ago, we attended an HR/payroll conference hosted by Major League Baseball, and we had the opportunity to talk in depth with other UltiPro users,” said Erin Walsh, senior tax accountant for the Red Sox. “Those Ultimate customers impressed us with their positive comments on both UltiPro’s capabilities and the solid reputation of the company. Their highly favorable word-of-mouth endorsements made us eager to move forward and get UltiPro onboard in our own organization.”

 

“Sports teams have some of the most complex payroll requirements of any industry. With its payroll flexibility and integrated HR/payroll database, UltiPro is an excellent fit for the Red Sox, as well as businesses of every type and size that want a solution to meet their unique HCM needs,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “The Red Sox join our roster of leading professional baseball organizations, including the New York Yankees, Major League Baseball, the Florida Marlins, the Los Angeles Anaheim Angels, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Chicago White Sox, the Texas Rangers, and the Houston Astros.”

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Ultimate Software Surpasses One Million Employees Live on UltiPro…from Ultimate Software

February 12, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider.

 

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, today announced that more than 1 million employees across North America are being paid with Ultimate’s UltiPro human capital management solution (HCM) delivered through its software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, Intersourcing.

 

The industry’s first HCM solution to deliver core Payroll/HRMS through SaaS, UltiPro’s software-as-a-service model has been available since 2002. Today it is the most widely used end-to-end HCM SaaS solution in North America, providing comprehensive payroll and human capital management through SaaS to companies including Nikon Inc., Sony Music Entertainment, International Dairy Queen, Elizabeth Arden, JVC Americas Corporation, and Major League Baseball.

 

UltiPro through SaaS provides customers with Ultimate’s award-winning customer service and highly configurable HR, payroll, benefits, and talent management functionality—including strategic HR feature-sets and business intelligence across all areas of HCM. Through the SaaS model, businesses get the maximum benefits of UltiPro as an on-demand service without the complexities or costs of implementing and maintaining traditional on-premise software. Ultimate handles all system maintenance; applies new version upgrades; and maintains the hardware, software, and customer data at multiple secure data centers. Customers receive a level of data protection and security most businesses are unable to attain with on-premise infrastructure.

 

“Our SaaS offering has steadily gained increasing momentum in the market over the past several years,” said Scott Scherr, CEO, president, and founder of Ultimate Software. “Today, we see a majority of companies opting for the convenience and cost advantages of our SaaS model. In fact, in the fourth quarter of 2008, more than 97 percent of our new annual recurring revenues came from our SaaS customers.”

 

The increasing demand for Ultimate’s SaaS offering is consistent with findings from the November 2008 Gartner report, “User Survey Analysis: Software as a Service, Enterprise Application Markets, Worldwide, 2008,” which determined that nearly 90 percent of organizations expect to maintain or grow their usage of SaaS.

 

Because UltiPro through SaaS is priced on a per-employee-per-month subscription basis—with no add-on fees for items such as ad hoc reports or off-cycle checks—companies reduce large upfront capital expenditures typical of licensed software. Ultimate’s SaaS option provides businesses with a cost-effective HCM solution that can be particularly attractive to businesses today looking to reduce spending, improve efficiencies, and experience fast payback. Because UltiPro through SaaS can be activated rapidly, customers begin experiencing increased efficiencies and strategic gains quickly.

 

“UltiPro through SaaS is really the perfect solution for managing human capital. We can accomplish tasks using the Internet from either home or office, we get cutting-edge functionality, and there are no software maintenance worries. I love it because I can focus on my primary goal: to serve our employees,” said Linda Mullenbach, director of human resources for International Dairy Queen. “The customer support is great, which I attribute to the culture at Ultimate Software. Dedication to service radiates throughout the organization.”

 

UltiPro delivered via SaaS can streamline HR and payroll to save companies time and increase productivity, something that’s even more appealing when organizations must be especially diligent in how they manage their resources. And because Ultimate’s SaaS does not require dedicated IT staff or hardware, organizations can direct IT resources to other critical business projects.

 

“With UltiPro through SaaS, we’ve been able to change our approach to information technology so that our IT team performs at a higher level—managing core business projects rather than applying software updates or running reports. Since the solution does not require dedicated IT staff, servers, or a software license, we’ve been able to free up our IT staff and eliminate related expenses from our budget,” said Richard Martonchik, manager of human resources operations for the City of Ann Arbor. “By automating our entire HCM program with Ultimate’s unified solution, we anticipate the soft- and hard-cost savings to total approximately $1 million over five years.”

 

“We’re proud to be the first comprehensive HCM SaaS provider in our space to reach this important 1 million-employee milestone,” said Scherr. “We believe that reaching this goal reflects not only the growing demand for HCM through SaaS, but also validates the strength of the delivery model as the best method to manage human capital—in any economic climate. By combining all of the advantages of traditional software with the convenience of on-demand services, we believe we can help businesses achieve their HCM objectives affordably and effectively.”

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

 

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Ultimate Reports Q4 and Year-End 2008 Financial Results…from Ultimate Software

February 6, 2009

 

HRchitect includes Ultimate Software in our list of top HRIS vendors that businesses should consider.

 

The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2008. For the fourth quarter of 2008, Ultimate reported total revenues of $49.7 million, an increase of 18%, and recurring revenues of $28.9 million, a 19% increase, both compared with 2007’s fourth quarter. GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2008 was $0.6 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, versus $23.1 million, or $0.86 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2007. Included in GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2007 was the release of the valuation allowance against deferred tax assets, which contributed $19.9 million to net income during the fourth quarter, or $0.74 per diluted share (“Valuation Release Income Tax Benefit”).

 

Non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2008, which excludes stock-based compensation and amortization of acquired intangibles, was $2.7 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, compared with non-GAAP net income of $6.2 million, or $0.23 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2007, which excluded stock-based compensation, amortization of acquired intangibles and the Valuation Release Income Tax Benefit.

 

For 2008, recurring revenues increased 23% to $106.7 million and total revenues increased 18% to $178.6 million, both as compared to the prior year. For 2008, GAAP net loss was $2.9 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, as compared with GAAP net income of $33.1 million, or $1.24 per diluted share, for 2007, which included the Valuation Release Income Tax Benefit. Excluding stock-based compensation and amortization of acquired intangible assets for both 2008 and 2007 (and, in the case of 2007, also excluding the Valuation Release Income Tax Benefit), non-GAAP net income for 2008 was $7.1 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared with non-GAAP net income of $23.6 million, or $0.88 per diluted share for 2007.

 

New annual recurring revenues (ARR) attributable to sales during the fourth quarter of 2008 were $12.0 million, compared with $11.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2007. New ARR for the 2008 year were $41.3 million compared with $31.1 million for 2007, representing a 33% increase. (See “Financial Highlights” below for the definition of new ARR.)

 

“With new ARR the best indicator of success in our business, we are pleased with the record $12 million in new ARR for the 2008 fourth quarter. Our Workplace offering contributed 23% of that amount. Our software-as-a-service delivery model Intersourcing, which includes our Workplace offering, continued to be the solution-of-choice for our new customers, accounting for 97% of new ARR in the quarter,” said Scott Scherr, CEO, president, and founder of Ultimate.

 

“For the 2008 year, our new ARR increased by 33% and recurring revenues increased by 23%, both over those in 2007. We are especially proud that our all-important customer retention rate remained strong at 97%.”

 

Business Highlights for 2008

  • Ultimate was ranked the #1 best medium-size company to work for in America by The Great Place to Work Institute, the same research and management consultancy that produces FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work for” list for large companies.
  • Ultimate’s Development team was named the #1 “Best Product Development Team” in the nation by the American Business Awards in its Stevie Award competition.
  • Ultimate was the only HR Management System provider in the U.S. Midmarket view to be named a “Leader” in Forrester’s October 2008 report, The Forrester Wave™: Human Resource Management Systems, Q4 2008. In the U.S. Midmarket evaluation, Ultimate received the highest score in Product Strategy and Vision; Cost and Value; and overall Current Offering. In the Multinational Enterprise Wave for HR Management Systems, Ultimate was also named a “Leader” and received the top score for Strategy.
  • Ultimate was the first HR/payroll software-as-a-service provider in the industry to be audited and awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification for security management.
  • Ultimate’s support center was awarded its tenth consecutive certification under the Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Standards, representing best practices in the industry and based upon a stringent set of performance benchmarks.

 

For more information on Ultimate Software, please visit www.ultimatesoftware.com

Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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