Bottomline Technologies Earnings Preview

Bottomline Technologies (Nasdaq: EPAY  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Thursday. Bottomline Technologies provides electronic payment, invoice, and document automation solutions to financial institutions and banks. Its processes and transactions involve global payments, invoice receipt and approval, collections and reporting.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Bottomline Technologies as a buy. But with 55.6% of analysts rating it a buy, Bottomline Technologies is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 58.4% buys. Analysts don't like Bottomline Technologies as much as competitor Vocus overall. Six out of 10 analysts rate Vocus a buy compared with five of nine for Bottomline Technologies. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared with three months ago.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $52.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 25.8% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.15 per share. Estimates range from $0.14 to $0.17.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 84.2% giving it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 71.2% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are keen on Bottomline Technologies, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 21 posts in the past 30 days. Bottomline Technologies' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Bottomline Technologies' profit has risen year over year by an average of 51.4% over the past five quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 3.4 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 22.6% while cost of sales rose 32.1% to $23.2 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Bottomline Technologies movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your watchlist.

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