- FY21 pro forma revenues of £480 million, up 53%, or £166 million growth on FY20
- FY21 pro forma adjusted EBITDA of £180 million, up 65%, or £71 million growth on FY20
- Continued high quality organic revenue of 10%, and 15% recurring revenue growth
- Continued strategic M&A with 18 acquisitions completed
- Achieved target of 1 million Access Workspace users
- Formation of the £7 million Access Foundation expanding charitable support in UK and APAC.
Organic revenue growth of 10% demonstrates the underlying power of Access technology and services. The total number of Access Workspace users, its global SaaS solution, grew to more than 1 million during FY21 and Access added approximately 20,000 new customers bringing the total to more than 55,000 customers across the company.
Commenting on today’s announcements, Chris Bayne, CEO of The Access Group, said: “This year’s outstanding financial results demonstrate the value our customers are receiving from Access. In what was the most challenging year for businesses globally, Access remained committed to assisting our people, our customers and partners. I’m very proud of how Access has shown, not only resilience, but also such progress and growth during the past incredibly challenging 18 months.”
Bayne continued, “We have continued our significant investment in our Access Workspace digital workplace – a simple and accessible way of joining the dots for an organisation’s moving parts of people, processes and technology so they can address the challenges and opportunities ahead of them with confidence and certainty. We’ve spent a long time listening to our customers and they told us that a single view of their organisation coupled with a clear ability to take action would be the most valuable way to get more done - so that’s what we’ve built. Access’ organic growth of 10% demonstrates that Access is trusted by our customers to bring them the software and solutions they need as they move into growth mode out of the pandemic”.
Access completed 18 acquisitions in FY21 which have contributed to the company’s accelerated growth. These included “HAS Technology” in Health & Social Care; “My School Portal” in the independent Education sector; “Eazipay” has been added as a fundamental element to Access PaySuite; “EasyBuild”, “Ezitracker” and “Unleashed” support the growing ERP business in the UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand. “Acteol” expanded the Access Hospitality offering by bringing CRM and managed services capabilities, and “CPL Learning” added industry leading learning and development solutions at a critical time for the hospitality and retail sectors.
Access People launched in September 2020 by joining all existing Access Group HR operations with seven acquired companies, plus adding “Abintegro” in December, to improve candidate attraction, employee development, engagement and retention. The flexibility, unparalleled breadth, depth and scalability across all areas of HCM, payroll, learning & development and compliance are a pivotal part of Access Group’s growth across all sectors from small and mid-sized to upper mid-market organisations in the UK and Asia Pacific.
The largest acquisition of FY21 was of Sage Group PLC’s local businesses in Australia and Asia, completed in May this year and continues Access’ focus on the Asia Pacific region as a centre of growth. This significant acquisition followed the purchases of Attaché and Unleashed in the Asia Pacific region and strengthens Access’ global market presence. Bringing Access Workspace to the region connects payroll, finance, HR and digital learning applications to one platform and the union of Sage Group’s local businesses in Asia and Australia, and The Access Group’s established presence in the region presents a unique opportunity for customers and partners to leverage a leader in integrated people and financial management software services.
In April 2021 Access formally launched its new legal software division, Access Legal, promising to help the UK’s most ambitious law firms achieve their potential through a powerful suite of technology. The launch followed the acquisitions of case and practice management providers Eclipse Legal Systems and DPS Software during 2020, as well as previous acquisitions of legal online training, compliance and risk management solution providers Riliance and Socrates. The acquisitions of “Select Legal” and “Oosha” in June 2021, both leaders in legal technology, accelerated the Access Legal division and further supports the approximately 3,500 law firms who use Access software.
Access PaySuite was launched in May 2021, delivering payment solutions to 5000+ mid-market organisations and has processed over 82 million transactions. FCA authorised, PaySuite is supporting organisations who during the last 18 months in many cases had to re-think their approach to implementing digital payment methods. Integrated or embedded payments are an increasingly popular solution, able to connect the payments system with existing financial and business management software. Access PaySuite drastically cuts the cost and time spent on manual duties such as invoice processing, chasing payments and providing a more flexible, efficient and less error-prone organisation.
Access has formed The Access Foundation, a charitable status entity with a £7M fund that will be launched later this year. It will support charities linked to employees in a meaningful way, and community causes close to its offices in the UK, Ireland, Romania and Asia Pacific. With the intention of striking the right balance between company, employee and customer, the Access culture is focused on giving back and devoting time to causes that are important to its people. Access has increased its fundraising total by 775% in the last three years and continued activities during the pandemic by adapting to online events to maintain momentum and commitment to its charity partners.
The Access team raised a total of £376,495 for the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) as its chosen Charity of The Year with more than 50 fundraising initiatives and events taking place during the partnership.
The Access Group global employee base has grown to over 3,850 with continued investment in hiring people expected in FY22. Access has continued to focus on embedding its values through “The Access Way” – a platform of behaviours that supports personal and company success - by uniquely developing and engaging its people. This was central to its COVID-19 response, driving strong teamwork and customer focus while colleagues continued to work largely from home.