Paychex - Q1 2025
October 1, 2024
Executive Summary
- Q1 FY2025 revenue was $1.3185B (+3% YoY) and diluted EPS was $1.18 (+2% YoY); ex-ERTC expiration and one less processing day, revenue growth was 7%, with operating margin at 41.5%.
- Management Solutions grew 1% to $961.7M, PEO & Insurance Solutions grew 7% to $319.3M, and interest on funds held rose 15% to $37.5M; PEO momentum remained strong with double‑digit growth discussed on the call.
- Guidance update: the company lowered FY2025 interest on funds held for clients to $145–$155M (from $150–$160M) and lowered other income, net to $30–$35M (from $35–$40M), while maintaining ranges for revenue, margins, tax rate and adjusted EPS; Q2 revenue growth color was 4–5% with ~40% operating margin.
- Returned $457M to shareholders (dividends $353.4M; buybacks $104.0M); operating cash flow was $546.1M; 12‑month ROE stood at 46%.
- Potential stock reaction catalysts: continued PEO/retirement strength, new AI‑driven product launches (Flex Engage, Flex Perks, Recruiting Copilot), and interest‑rate‑sensitive metrics reduction (interest on client funds, other income).
What Went Well and What Went Wrong
What Went Well
- Strong PEO momentum: category +7% in Q1 with management citing double‑digit PEO growth, strong WSE adds, medical enrollment and insurance attachment; PEO expected to outgrow the company’s average rate across FY25.
- Expense discipline and margin resilience: operating income +2% to $546.7M; Q1 operating margin of 41.5% despite ERTC/processing day headwinds; CFO emphasized margin expansion ex‑ERTC and maintained FY25 margin guidance (42–43%).
- New AI/digital solutions launched: “We are excited to announce… Paychex Flex Engage, Paychex Flex Perks, and Paychex Recruiting Copilot… AI‑driven solutions designed to help our clients attract, retain, and engage”. CEO: “Paychex is uniquely positioned to be a leader in bringing the power of AI to small and midsized businesses”.
What Went Wrong
- ERTC roll‑off and calendar headwind: management quantified ~400bps headwind in Q1 from ERTC expiration and one less processing day; full‑year ERTC headwind ~200bps persists in H1.
- Management Solutions growth muted (+1%) due to lower ancillary revenue from ERTC; operating margin dipped slightly YoY (41.5% vs 41.7%).
- Insurance agency headwinds: workers’ comp rates remained a drag, tempering overall Insurance revenue growth even as PEO performed strongly.
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning, and welcome to the First Quarter 2025 Paychex Earnings Conference Call. Participating on the call today are John Gibson and Bob Schrader. After the speakers' opening remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and your participation implies consent to our recording of this call. If you do not agree with these terms, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Bob Schrader, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Thank you for joining us for our review of Paychex first quarter 2025 financial results. Joining me today is our CEO, John Gibson. This morning, before the market opened, we released our financial results for the first quarter, ended August 31st, 2024. You can access our earnings release and investor presentation on the SEC's website, as well as on our investor relations website. Our Form 10-Q will be filed with the SEC in the next few days. This teleconference is being broadcast over the internet and will be archived and available on our website for approximately ninety days. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from our current expectations.
During our call, we will also reference some non-GAAP financial measures. A description of these items, along with our reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, John Gibson.
John Gibson (CEO)
Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to start today's call with an update on business highlights for the first quarter, and then turn it back over to Bob for a financial update. And then, of course, we will open it up for your questions. As we enter the post-pandemic era of Paychex, we are off to a good start in fiscal year 2025, with total revenue growth exceeding expectations during the first quarter. Excluding the impact of the nonrecurring benefits from the ERTC program and having one less processing day in the quarter, revenue growth was 7%. As the best operators in the business, we also delivered earnings per share growth despite these headwinds through strong expense discipline. Small and mid-sized businesses remain resilient as the U.S. labor market gradually returns to its pre-pandemic level.
While growth and hiring has moderated, hiring within our client base during the first quarter was positive and better than expected across our HCM and HR outsourcing businesses. We continue to make investments and transition our go-to-market capabilities and product suite to meet the post-pandemic market and drive continuous innovation in our technology and advisory solutions. We are excited to launch several new products that are specifically designed to address a constant challenge for small and mid-sized businesses, and that simply is finding and retaining qualified employees. Our Paychex Flex Engage offering, combined with Paychex Flex Perks, which was named a Top HR Product of the Year by HR Resource Executive magazine, and the recently announced Paychex Recruiting Copilot, are digitally and AI-driven solutions designed to help our clients succeed and win the war for talent in a very challenging labor market.
These are examples how we are constantly looking for ways to bring enterprise solutions to the SMB market to really level the playing field. Flex Engage is a comprehensive digital solution with generative AI capabilities to help businesses manage their workflows, promote communication within the organization, and increase collaboration between employees, many of whom are remote. Since its launch, we have seen interest from businesses across the spectrum of industries and size groups. Our award-winning Paychex Perks offering is a digital marketplace that provides employees access to affordable benefits and discounted products and services. Paychex Perks is attractive to employers, as it is available at no cost to the employer, and the payments are processed automatically through payroll deductions by the employee. This allows us to establish a long-term customer relationship with our clients' employees.
Our initial and launch includes 17 unique products, ranging from voluntary lifestyle benefits to early wage access. We will continue to be opportunistic when considering adding other products and services to our marketplace. This new capability, which we have been investing in for years, allows us to engage our clients' employees with AI-driven offerings that meet their specific needs in our Flex HCM app. It also opens up an exciting new market for us and is another example of how we are helping small and mid-sized businesses compete for talent against larger companies. Recruiting, as we all know, is a costly and time-consuming process. According to a recent Paychex customer study, 80% of respondents reported that finding qualified candidates is challenging. Last year, we launched a new program in our PEO called the Employer of Choice Playbook, which was designed to help our customers find qualified candidates.
We are excited to add a new solution to the playbook, not only for the PEO, but also all Paychex customers and non-Paychex customers, with the recent announcement of an AI-assisted recruiting tool for small and mid-sized business owners and HR professionals called the Paychex Recruiting Copilot. We believe this new solution will revolutionize the recruiting and hiring process by enabling Paychex customers to quickly find top talent instead of relying solely on traditional recruiting methods. Paychex Recruiting Copilot analyzes millions of potential employees through a natural language search engine to quickly produce an active list of qualified individuals for open positions, based upon numerous requirements and other attributes. This puts advanced technology that is often only available to enterprise-level organizations or large professional recruiting firms into the hands of small and mid-sized companies, so they can more effectively compete for talent.
As you know, Paychex has a long history and experience with AI, and we believe generative AI offers an entirely new set of opportunities. We have a large and growing data set, which we believe provides us with a significant competitive advantage in the years ahead. We have tens of millions of interactions with our clients and their employees every month. We have predictive and AI models deployed across the company, with a focus on sales and service, and the ability to deliver actionable insights based upon our vast data set to help our customers succeed. Paychex is uniquely positioned to be a leader in bringing the power of AI to small and mid-sized businesses. The breadth and quality of our solutions allows us to solve problems for business owners by leveraging our best-in-class data set and HR advisory capabilities to help them win in today's economy.
We continue to gain recognition for the strength of our HCM technology innovations as well. In addition to winning a Top HR Product of the Year for Paychex Perks, which I would remind everyone, is the fourth time a Paychex solution has been named to the Top HR Product of the Year list four of the past five years - four of the past five years. We also earned an HR Tech Award for Best Small Business-Focused Solution in the Core HR Workforce category for the fifth consecutive year from Lighthouse Research and Advisory. This is an area I continue to believe we are not getting our due recognition. Paychex was also recently included in Time's inaugural list of America's Best Midsize Companies, based on the strength of the company's culture, business results, and corporate responsibility efforts.
Paychex is uniquely well-positioned to solve the problems for small and mid-sized businesses based upon our comprehensive suite of HCM solutions, our advisory expertise, and the insights gained from our large data set and constant interactions with small and mid-sized businesses. We remain firmly committed to our purpose of helping businesses succeed, while also making a positive impact on our clients, employees, communities, and shareholders. I will now turn it over to Bob to give us a brief update on our financial results for the first quarter. Bob?
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with a summary of our fiscal quarter financial results, and then provide an update on our fiscal 2025 outlook. Total revenue increased 3% to $1.3 billion in the first quarter, which reflects headwinds from the expiration of the ERTC program and having one less processing day as compared to the prior year period. These two items impacted growth by approximately 400 basis points, which is consistent with the expectation we shared with you last quarter. As John mentioned, excluding these headwinds, total revenue in the quarter grew 7%. Management Solutions revenue increased 1% to $962 million. This was primarily driven by growth in the number of clients served across our suite of HCM solutions and higher client worksite employees in our HR solutions, as well as higher product penetration.
Those items were partially offset by the ERTC headwind that we previously discussed. PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue increased 7% to $319 million, primarily driven by higher average worksite employees and higher PEO insurance revenues. Interest on funds held for clients increased 15% to $38 million. This is primarily due to higher average interest rates and higher invested balances. Total expenses for the quarter increased 3% to $772 million, and this is primarily due to higher PEO direct insurance costs related to growth in our average worksite employees within the PEO, as well as higher PEO insurance revenues. We've also had continued investments in product innovation, AI, and our go-to-market strategies. Operating income grew 2% to $547 million, with an operating margin of 41.5%.
I'd like to remind everyone, operating income was also impacted by the expiration of the ERTC program, as well as the one less processing day during the quarter. Diluted earnings per share increased 2% to $1.18 per share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 2% to $1.16 per share in the first quarter, and those items were also impacted by the headwinds that we previously discussed. Now, turning to our financial position. Our financial position remains strong. We ended the quarter with cash, restricted cash, and total corporate investments of $1.6 billion, and borrowings of approximately $818 million. Cash flow from operations was $546 million in the first quarter, driven by net income and changes in working capital, influenced by timing. We returned a total of $457 million to shareholders during the quarter.
This included $353 million of dividends and $104 million of share repurchases, and our 12-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 46%. I'll now turn to our guidance for the fiscal year ended May 31st, 2025. We have maintained our guidance. Pretty much in all of the categories, with the exception of updates to our interest rate assumptions for the remaining of the fiscal year. Our outlook now assumes a total of 125 basis points of cuts to the short-term rate on a full year basis, which directly impacts our interest on funds held for clients' revenue and other income. Our outlook also assumes a continuation of the current macro environment.
Our current outlook is as follows: Total revenue is still expected to grow in the range of 4%-5.5%, and I'd like to remind everyone, this does include approximately 200 basis points of headwind from the expiration of the ERTC program. Management Solutions is still expected to grow in the range of 3%-4% for the year. No changes to our PEO and insurance guidance. That is still expected to grow in the range of 7%-9%. The two changes that we have in guidance are, as I mentioned, are related to interest rates. The first being interest on funds held for clients, is expected to be in the range of $145 million-$155 million. That's down from our previous guidance of $150 million-$160 million.
Other income net is expected to be income in the range of $30 million-$35 million, and that's down from our previous guidance of $35 million-$40 million. No change to our operating income margin guidance. It's still expected to be in the range of 42%-43%. Our effective income tax range is still expected to be in the range of 24%-25%. And despite the changes to the interest rates that I discussed, our adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance is still expected to grow in the range of 5%-7% for the year. Now, turning to the second quarter, provide a little bit of color.
We would anticipate total revenue growth in the second quarter to be between 4%-5%, and this too includes approximately 200 basis points of headwind from the expiration of the ERTC program. Then we would also expect operating margin in the quarter to be, in the second quarter, to be approximately 40%. Of course, all this is based on our current assumptions, which are subject to change, and we'll update you again when we get to the second quarter call. I will refer you to our investor slides on our website for additional information. With that, I'll turn the call back to John.
John Gibson (CEO)
Thank you, Bob, and we will now open the call up to your questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and ladies and gentlemen, at this time, the floor is open for your questions. To ask a question, please press star one of your telephone keypad. To get out of the queue, press star two. We do ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up so that everyone has a chance to ask their questions, and we will take our first question from Mark Marcon with Baird.
Mark Marcon (Senior Research Analyst)
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Two questions. First, with regards to, you know, the environment that you're currently seeing, how would you differentiate, the true small business market relative to, you know, the upper end of your target range, you know, companies with 50 to, say, 1,000 employees?
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, Mark, this is John. How are you?
Mark Marcon (Senior Research Analyst)
Great.
John Gibson (CEO)
I would say this is what we're seeing pretty consistently across the board. We continue to see moderate growth, both in the small and the mid-market. I would say from a demand perspective, certainly what we're seeing across the board is a lot more demand for driving efficiency, our HR outsourcing. I think the pure tech play, particularly up in the mid-market to enterprise, I see a little bit slower decision-making going on there, but we're not seeing that in the upper end of our HR outsourcing market. I think right now, what I see across the board, are businesses are trying to drive efficiency and are looking for opportunities to reduce costs in their business.
Mark Marcon (Senior Research Analyst)
Great. And then the second question is, you know, I had the pleasure of you know reviewing all of your new solutions at HR Tech, and, and the team there just did a tremendous job in terms of giving a really professional presentation. But the solutions were very impressive. I was really struck by the Recruiting Copilot. The one thing that struck me also was that it seems like a lot of the tools, like, for example, the Flex benefits, I think, would benefit, you know, every company. Some of the other tools, you know, seem to be more geared towards companies that were a little bit larger. And so what I was wondering is, you know, to what extent do you think you could become an even bigger player in the upper end of your market?
Or, how would you characterize, you know, where the tools are best, you know, best employed?
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, Mark, I think first of all, I would start with, you know, we have a very large upper mid-market business, and have for decades. I think I said, I don't think we get the recognition, or people recognize the strength that we have there, both in terms of a capability, from a technology perspective and an advisory solution perspective. I think when you step back and look at the products and services that we're focused on delivering, we believe those things really apply across the spectrum of the market that we serve. Finding qualified people is a problem that every small business is having, every mid-sized business is having.
And I think what we've had a reputation of doing, whether you look at it, what we did to bring 401(k)s down to the small market, you know, over 20 some years ago. When you look at what we've done to bring an efficient PEO workers' comp programs to the small market and do that efficiently, that's always kind of been in our DNA. So I think what we're trying to do is take what are typically tools and capabilities that are reserved for large enterprises and figure out how to economically bring those down to small business owners so they can succeed. So recruiting is a big issue. We're real excited about the Copilot product. The other thing I would tell you about the Copilot product is that's not just for Paychex clients.
You can go on Paychex.com today on our website. You can buy that digitally. You can try it for a one time, or you can sign up for a subscription service. So, regardless of who your HCM provider may be, we want to help small businesses grow, and so that's pretty important. The second thing that I think you would say is getting access to affordable benefits or providing affordable benefits, both to attract and retain qualified employees, a problem that's always faced small and medium-sized businesses. So that's where you get into our Paychex Perks product. We already have a full suite of insurance products, as you know, both in terms of through our agency as well as in our PEO.
But the Perks product, I really like it because it gives those employers who maybe can't afford to offer benefits, a means to afford it. Because basically, the way that works is we've curated digitally a set of benefits for their employees, that when their employees get onboarded into our Flex app, they're going through an open enrollment, and all of these benefits cost the employer nothing. So the employer can tell a new employee, "If you join me, you're going to get all these benefits." And then the employee signs up for these benefits, we do the payroll deduct. Another neat thing that we built into this is the capability that if that employee leaves that employer, they can continue their relationship with Paychex, and we'll continue to collect via a credit card for those services.
So again, it opens up a new market for us. So you know, look, what we see across the board is the problems of finding and attracting quality employees, getting access to affordable benefits to be able to retain and attract those employees. And then the third thing is really around the funding area and getting access to growth capital, it's continued to be a big problem, not only in the small micro market, but also in the mid-market, and we're trying to address those problems.
Mark Marcon (Senior Research Analyst)
That sounds really compelling. Are you going to advertise a little bit more? Because those are compelling solutions.
John Gibson (CEO)
Stay tuned, Mark. But I think, as you know, we're just beginning to get into our selling season, and certainly, it's not a coincidence that we've launched all of these products. I would tell you, we've been working on this for some time. We knew during the pandemic that we were going to have to, when the pandemic ended, that we were going to have to come out with a different value proposition. Because, you know, what won business in the last three years isn't going to win it in the next three. And it's not going to be a pure tech play. It's not going to be on bells and whistles. It's really going to be about solving problems in our estimation. And so we've been working on this for some time.
You look at the Perks product. We had to really reengineer and redesign our core product so that we could actually create the employee to be able to be a customer of ours. Never been able to do that before. These are all investments we've been making as interest rates were going up, as we were getting the benefits of the ERTC programs. Kind of behind the scenes, we've been making these investments, and so it's not a coincidence that now that we're in the post-pandemic era, we're launching these products, and I would expect as we go into selling season, you're going to hear us talk a lot about it.
Mark Marcon (Senior Research Analyst)
Thanks, and congratulations on the awards. Well deserved.
John Gibson (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and we will take our next question from Pete Christiansen with Citigroup.
Pete Christiansen (Director and VP of Payments, Processors, and IT Services Equity Research)
Good morning. Thanks for the question. Good morning, John and Bob. Just curious if there's any sense of how seasonal hiring is shaping up. I know it was a bit of an issue in the December quarter, sorry, the November quarter last year. Any sense of how that's trending? Appreciate it. Thank you.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yes. So far, Pete, you know, I think we made reference to this in the script, in the press release. You know, hiring within our base, both, you know, within the HCM base and then in our HR outsourcing solutions, was positive in the quarter. And, you know, for the second quarter in a row has been slightly above our expectations. You know, we had a couple of quarters last year where things were a little bit below where we expected them to be. We tweaked that in our forecast. Again, we didn't build our plan this year assuming a lot of growth in those areas.
But you know, for the second quarter in a row, hiring has been positive within our base and slightly running ahead of our expectations in our plan.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, Pete, I would add to that. We're working on this problem very aggressively. And what we're trying to figure out is how do we help make sure that our clients don't have vacancies? All these things you see us doing from recruiting, we've talked about what we did in the PEO. Last year, you mentioned where you had some seasonal softness. We actually created a program there to go out and do that, and then with this new Copilot product. So you know, we've been aggressively trying to figure out ways that we can fill every vacancy that our clients have. As you can imagine, having 740,000 clients, if all of them have two or three vacancies, that adds up to a lot of checks.
And so you look at our in our HR consulting business. Our HR consultants increased their year-over-year interactions on both hiring and retaining by 273%. So we're packaging information. We're using analytics to identify clients that we know are having turnover problems, and then we're proactively reaching out to try to help them develop individualized strategies to fill those jobs. And so very pleased in this environment to continue to see that the checks and worksite employees exceeded our expectations, and we're going to continue to work on that problem.
Pete Christiansen (Director and VP of Payments, Processors, and IT Services Equity Research)
The recruiting tool certainly sounds exciting here. Just curious if this deepens your relationship with staffing agencies. I know that's a reasonable portion of your base. Just curious if this tool has potential to broaden that exposure. Thank you.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, I don't think we designed this tool specifically for the staffing. Certainly, as you know, we do some funding in the staffing business. We have staffing companies that are on our HCM platform, as a matter of fact, and we also have some staffing companies that leverage our PEO as well. So this is for all not only all of our clients, but this is for all small businesses. Again, I'll go out, this is a unique thing for Paychex. Not only is this going to allow us to have further product penetration inside our base, but this is actually a way for us to begin to have a relationship with a non-Paychex payroll customer. So, anyone can go on Paychex.com today, and sign up and search for a job today.
We really wanna encourage and help small businesses attract and retain employees.
Pete Christiansen (Director and VP of Payments, Processors, and IT Services Equity Research)
That's great. Thank you. Nice execution.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Kevin McVeigh with UBS.
Kevin McVeigh (Managing Director)
Great. Thanks so much, and congrats on the quarter. Hey, if I think about the pacing of the Q1 to Q2 revenue, is that primarily less headwinds from ERTC, John? Or is it, you know, maybe a little bit better than expected, client interaction, or just any thoughts around that?
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, yeah, Kevin, this is Bob. So when you look at the... I think, you know, answered a lot of questions and talked a lot to a lot of you over the last quarter about kind of the gating of the plan. And, you know, I think it was a little bit misunderstood. You know, probably some of that's on us as it relates to the ERTC. But when you look at the gating of the plan this year, it's fairly evenly gated throughout the entire year. So if we go back to last year, we can, you know, we saw momentum in the second half of last year.
You know, we saw an acceleration of growth in the back half versus the first half, and that really continued in Q1. You know, ex the headwinds we mentioned, you know, revenue growth of 7%. And when you look at the guidance, you know, by quarter, it's pretty much the same. You know, I know the guide implies a ramp in performance as we move through the year, but that's really doesn't have to do with this year. It has to do with the compare of last year getting easier. So the ERTC headwind was 200 basis points on a full year standpoint. It was pretty large in Q1. As we move into Q2, it becomes less.
I mentioned that in the prepared remarks, that it was about 200 basis points in Q2. It'll become less in Q3, and then it's basically zero in Q4. So I have two more quarters of having to talk about an ERTC headwind, and then it's behind us. But really, there's not an assumed ramp in performance in our business. We got good momentum that started in the second half of last year. It's continued into Q1, and we expect that to continue, you know, through the balance of the year.
Kevin McVeigh (Managing Director)
That's super helpful. And then just the, the adjustments on the float, where was the offset? Because obviously, nice job being able to reaffirm that the margin targets. Was there any offset on that, or is it just where you think you're gonna fall in the range?
Bob Schrader (CFO)
No. Listen, I mean, Q1 was slightly better than what we expected, so I think that, that gives us, gives us confidence in maintaining the ranges. And we've been able to. You know, we rolled through the I mentioned 125 basis points of cuts. Our plan only had 25 basis points of cuts. We've now pretty much aligned with where the Fed, you know, would expect the short-term rate to be at the end of this calendar year, which is another 50 basis points worth of cuts. And then we also have another 25 basis points of cuts assumed in our back half, which is the first half of the calendar year. But just given, you know, the momentum in the business, retention was good. Losses were down year over year.
John mentioned the demand environment being strong. We continue to see strong demand and performance in our HR outsourcing solutions and in our retirement business. We actually had three businesses during the quarter that were double-digit growers, the PEO, retirement, and then our funding business organically was a double-digit grower. So just based on the momentum in the business, the Q1 performance, we've been able to kind of cover the changes to the short-term rates and really maintain guidance. I wouldn't expect guidance to be any different apart within the ranges than where we were in the beginning of the year.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah. We've got a lot of things in front of us, election, a lot of global items I think that we have to, you know, continue to monitor, and we're just really getting into our selling season, as everyone knows, so we're off to a good start, solid start, as Bob says. We like the setup with our products. All the stuff we've been doing to set ourselves up for the post-pandemic era are in place. We've got a lot of changes we've made to our go-to-market approach and strategies, and those investments are showing good signs early in the fiscal year.
So we, like I said, there's still headwinds out there that we're trying to manage around as well.
Kevin McVeigh (Managing Director)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen.
Bryan Bergin (Managing Director)
Hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you. I wanted to dig in a little bit on the modestly better 1Q revenue growth. You noted client hiring was better than expected. Can you comment on how bookings and retention, just how do those perform versus your plan?
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, no, you know, Bryan, I would tell you retention was positive, continues to be at near record levels, and particularly in our HR outsourcing business. Our client retention, actually was better year over year as well, both controllable and uncontrollable. The latter being a good sign relative to, you know, non-recessionary type of activities, the fact that we actually have less kind of out of business and financial distress losses, so retention was solid in the quarter.
Bryan Bergin (Managing Director)
Okay. And then on PEO growth, can you remind us what makes the PEO accelerate from here as you go through the year? And maybe just comment on how, from a PEO health enrollment standpoint, how the October one enrollment period is going versus expectation.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, yeah. So, Bryan, I mean, you know, the fact of the matter is, PEO acceleration is going to happen by continuing to see worksite employee acceleration, which we continue to see, and we had solid bookings in the first quarter. Now, as you know, PEO starts off. The first quarter is important because as you pointed out, that's a time that we roll out our new benefits plans. And obviously, those plans are resonating both with our clients and with the marketplace. And you know, we're through the first part of our enrollment, and that enrollment is meeting and slightly exceeding our expectations, both in terms of client retention as well as participant penetration as well. So pleased with where we are there.
We still have, as you know, more to go, as we finish out January. But I would say that where we are at this point right now is where we were last year at this point. I feel really good about the setup for the PEO.
Bryan Bergin (Managing Director)
Okay, very good. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks. Hi, Bob. Hi, John. I just wanted to ask on the well. Definitely some good product velocity, echoing a lot of the comments said on the call. Just going into the selling season, would you expect some of the new products you're showcasing to impact unit growth more, or was it more about upselling and higher revenue per? Just wanted to better understand that.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, I think, Tien-Tsin, what we're trying to focus on, and I'll keep going back to this.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yep.
John Gibson (CEO)
There's three core problems that we're focused on putting our energy that we think have been consistent problems before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and have accelerated in post-pandemic. That is recruiting and retaining quality employees. And we believe that the solutions that we're applying in that area not only help us drive more unit growth, but we also believe that it improves our retention. That if we're helping our clients solve that problem, then that's going to help them see the value of Paychex. And if we can provide a value proposition that says, "I can help you find people you have not been able to find," we think that's gonna attract new clients as well. So we think it's retentive. We think it gives us an additional upsell opportunity with existing clients to add that module on.
We also think it's a way to attract new clients as well. I'll remind you on the copilot. You don't have to be an existing Paychex client to buy it today. What we certainly hope is that when you come and start using our small business recruiting tool to find individuals, that you're gonna get a call from one of our HR advisors and talk to you about what else we could be doing to help you engage your employees and keep them as well. So we also think that's a good thing. Then you look at the second problem that we're trying to do, which is affordable benefits. I mean, I think we still have not heard the sonic boom of the pandemic in healthcare costs.
And I think a lot of the contract negotiations with hospitals and carriers, all that's coming through, and what we see from a health inflation perspective, is that people are looking for someone who has the scale and the capability and the relationships to be able to help them manage costs. Now, look, we're not gonna provide cheap insurance, but at least we think we can certainly help people manage over the long term their costs, and we've demonstrated that in our PEO, and our agency can do that as well. And then the third thing that we're still working on, and more to come on this, is trying to help our clients gain access to growth funding.
One of the things I would tell you that's been a headwind for us, it was a headwind this quarter, it's been a headwind for some time, is typically within our client base, our clients are adding new locations, and so that's why we get a natural growth, we call it client referrals, but it's really not client referrals, it's a client. You know, again, we deal with a lot of entrepreneurs, they open a lot of businesses. The fact that they're not adding additional sites has actually kind of hurt our unit growth a little bit for several years, and I think with the Fed rate going down, that's gonna help.
But we've also been working with fintechs and others, and what we wanna do is create an ecosystem where we can help support our clients gain access to affordable funding to be able to grow their business, because if they're growing their business, you know, that's gonna help Paychex.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
On that latter, that's a great point, because I've been attending a lot of Fintech conferences. So this concept you mentioned, early wage access, the concept of maybe doing more of that directly versus with partners, has your view changed on, on that?
John Gibson (CEO)
No, I think that's what we're trying to do is create – think about it this way, like, in our app today, if you're an employee and you're gonna onboard an employee, we want to create an onboarding experience like you would with a large company like Paychex, so you're gonna come in, you're gonna give us your information, you're gonna fill out your, you know, your tax information for us so we can load you up, and then we're gonna offer you an open enrollment experience to look at benefits that you can buy on your own, you don't need your employer chipping in. The same thing we're trying to do for the employer when they're going to run their payroll, because for most small businesses, their payroll is their largest expense.
So what we're trying to do is set up an ecosystem that when it comes time to fund your payroll, we want to bring a set of partners right there in the app with your ability to say: Look, you're pre-qualified for a $10,000 loan, or you could potentially get access to funds if you needed to float your payroll for a period of time. So we're trying to create that ecosystem. Nothing yet, but that's the vision we have in talking to our small business owners about how we can help them. We have a program called Paychex Promise, which for a lot of our long-standing clients that have demonstrated that they're good risk, that we'll actually work with them a little bit on a payroll-to-payroll basis on what we can do.
So again, just one of those things that we believe if we do that, it's gonna attract more customers, it's gonna retain more customers, and it's really addressing a critical need that the small business owners have.
Tien-Tsin Huang (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Makes great sense. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and we will take our next question from James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.
Michael Infante (VP of Equity Research)
Hi, everyone, it's Michael Infante for James. Thanks for taking our question. I just wanted to go back to some commentary that you provided last quarter, just in terms of, you know, some of the challenges that you maybe saw just in terms of the, your capacity to sort of get deals across the finish line and how, you know, pricing and discounting is playing into that. Was that sort of one time in nature? Did you see any of that in the quarter? And how should we expect that to play out over the near to medium term? Thanks.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, I would say that the competitive environment is stable in terms of that. You know, certainly it's a highly competitive environment, but I'm not seeing anything relative to anything dramatically different in terms of the pricing environment.
Michael Infante (VP of Equity Research)
Got it. That's helpful. Maybe just to piggyback on Brian's earlier question, just in terms of bookings composition, if you sort of had to stratify it between, you know, two buckets, payroll and HCM versus insurance and retirement, I think insurance and retirement were sort of some of the key drivers last quarter. But sort of what's driving the relative strength now? Is it fairly broad-based? And how do you think that, you know, strength is gonna persist over the near term? Thanks.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, I think what I would say, I think the demand is out there across the suite. Actually, when I look at proposals, our proposals in almost all segments are up year over year. I think there are a lot of people out there kind of shopping and looking. Again, as we know, we're just entering our the selling season for most of our market segments. This is when people really are making their decisions. But I do think there's a lot of people that are out there shopping and looking and comparing providers. I've seen that. I see that in the numbers that we see. And now it's just a matter of giving them the compelling value proposition to close as we get into the selling season.
So I see a very, you know, stable demand environment, and feel good about, you know, how we're positioned going into the selling season. But we have a lot of work to do, and that's really what we're gonna see over the second and third quarter.
Michael Infante (VP of Equity Research)
Appreciate the color.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Samad Samana with Jefferies.
Samad Samana (Managing Director)
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe first, just on the new kind of benefits or financial wellness solutions, could you just remind us how the monetization works there, and what type of contribution you've embedded into the fiscal 2025 outlook? And just remind us what segment it goes into as well, and I have one follow-up.
John Gibson (CEO)
I'll describe. You know, look, this is something we're just beginning to launch. We've been working on. We're only eight weeks into it. I'm pleased with the initial results. We've been testing this for a while, but it basically works like this: You're an employee of our client, you get onboarded, you're a new employee coming on. You go through the onboarding process, where you're loading your address, your information, your tax information. We then put you into a traditional open enrollment screen, where you then have a menu of choices, both in terms of, you know, benefits as well as earned wage access. You sign up for those, and then we deduct that from your wages each payroll.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
And I would say that-
Samad Samana (Managing Director)
Great, I guess-
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Go ahead.
Samad Samana (Managing Director)
I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, please, yeah, go ahead.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Just on the second part of your question, Samad, I mean, it's early innings. We do have some dollars assumed in the plan, but I would say at this point in time, it's not material. And a lot of that is insurance related and would hit the PEO and insurance category. But it's small dollars assumed in the plan. As John said, we're just kicking this off, and it's early innings, but we think it has a lot of potential.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, again, I, I would continue to look at these types of things as being items that we look for that are not only going to increase revenue and profit, but also are going to improve our ability to attract by differentiating ourselves for new clients... and creating a retainer factor with existing clients because we're providing something that's not being offered in the market.
Samad Samana (Managing Director)
Gotcha. And then maybe just a follow-up. I know the last couple of quarters, you guys have talked about the discounting environment and the pricing environment. So I'm curious just what you saw in this most recent quarter from a discounting perspective and the frequency and magnitude that you're having to discount, and just maybe what trends you've observed, and if there's been any change from what you've observed over the prior couple of quarters.
John Gibson (CEO)
No, I would say that what we're seeing is a little more stability to what we've seen over the last, you know, probably couple quarters. It's still a competitive environment, but what I would say, it's a little more stable in terms of what we've seen. Now, I always say that we're about ready to enter the selling season, and we'll see what things come up with. Look, I do think an interesting phenomenon is running itself across our industry. It's a thing that's called profitability, and so that tends to drive rationality as well.
Samad Samana (Managing Director)
Understood. Thank you again for taking my questions. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question from Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.
Andrew Nicholas (Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning. Wanted to first follow up on that last question, just specific to the PEO business. I want to make sure that you could speak to, like, the competitive dynamics and the pricing there. It seems like some of your peers, both public and private, are talking about increased aggressiveness on the pricing front. You've had very good growth in that business now for several quarters in a row, so just curious if your comment about it being a little bit more stable also applies to that part of your business.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, like I said, I would say across each one of our business segments, I would say that that's true, and particularly the PEO.
Andrew Nicholas (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, understood. And then, for a follow-up, just curious on the agency business or the Insurance Solutions business specifically. I know you've had some growth headwinds on the rate side over the past couple of years. Just curious if there's any signs of stabilization there or that bottoming, and what that could potentially mean for growth in the back half of this year or out into future years if there's a trough in that part of the business. Thank you.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, that's unfortunately, Andrew, that headwind continued into Q1 on the workers' comp rate side. I think if you picked up on the comment that I made earlier as it relates to the strength of the PEO business. I mean, overall, the category grew at 7%, but PEO is a double-digit grower with strong, you know, sales performance, retention in just overall, really good strength in that PEO business. Insurance continues to be a drag on that category. So, you know, we had factored that into the plan, so I don't see a lot of risk as we move forward to what we're calling out here from a guide standpoint.
But the print numbers here, they don't really do the justice for the PEO business, you know, because it's combined with insurance, because it just continues to be a strong performer for us again this quarter.
John Gibson (CEO)
As we mentioned, we're gonna, you know, continue to innovate around the insurance business. The Perks launch is one example, extending that market now to include being able to have a relationship with our clients' employees directly, and we're gonna continue to look for ways that we can expand the market opportunity for the insurance business, because certainly to the point Bob made, the workers' comp market has been challenging for several years. We keep thinking it's going to turn around, and the macros, they're just not happening, so we've got to take control of our own destiny, and we're gonna continue to work on that business and come up with new ways to add revenue there.
Andrew Nicholas (Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Ashish Sabadra with RBC.
David Paige (Assistant VP of Equity Research)
Hi, this is David Paige on for Ashish. Thanks for taking our question. Just a quick follow-up on what was discussed a little earlier. The 5.5% year-over-year growth at cost of service revenues. Can you provide more color on what was driving that growth year over year? And then, I guess, how should we think about that line item for the rest of the year? Thank you.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
I mean, we don't specifically break that out and provide guidance on expenses. I would tell you over, you know, between the different lines, David, you know, I think, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, expenses were up 3% in the quarter. A lot of that was driven by the performance in the PEO business, in the higher insurance revenues that we've seen. I think excluding those higher costs, our expenses were essentially flat in the quarter. And, you know, as John mentioned earlier, we spent a lot of time last year on our cost structure, getting our costs in line, knowing that we had a fairly big headwind this year from an earnings standpoint and margin standpoint with ERTC.
So we spent a lot of time last year, and obviously, we announced our top cost optimization project at the end of last year to really get costs in line so we could continue to invest in the business. And I think you're seeing, you know, the fruits of those investments with a lot of the new solutions that John highlighted and that we were able to showcase last week at HR Tech and really still being able to deliver some margin expansion. You know, the midpoint of the guide assumes about 50 basis points of margin expansion, you know, enabling us to invest in deliver margin expansion in the face of that ERTC headwind, which has a fairly significant earnings headwind as well.
David Paige (Assistant VP of Equity Research)
Great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank.
Nate Svensson (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Payments, Processors, and IT Services)
Hi, guys. This is Nate Svensson on for Bryan. I just kind of wanted to follow up on the margin comments there. So you're expecting 2Q margins of 40%, maybe a little bit lower than we had expected, and you still maintain the full year guide, calling for-
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah
Nate Svensson (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Payments, Processors, and IT Services)
... 42%-43%. So I, I know there's seasonality in the business, and, you know, the back half tends to be stronger for you guys in terms of margin. But maybe you can talk about your confidence in realizing, I guess, some, some pretty material margin, sequential margin experience in the back half, particularly as it looks like there's still gonna be some ERTC headwinds in the third quarter?
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, it's really the same story as the revenue. I mean, it's really the comparison, you know, margins ex ERTC. Margin expansion in Q1 was about 200 basis points of margin expansion in Q1, ex ERTC. You know, I gave you the 40% for Q2 color, which implies a slight contraction of margin versus last year. But again, if you exclude ERTC, it's between 150-200 basis points of margin expansion in Q2 as well. And then obviously, the headwind subsides in the back half of the year, and that's where you get the margin expansion on the full year basis.
You know, similar to the revenue acceleration that appears to be in the plan, it's the same story with margin expansion. It really relates to the prior year compare.
Nate Svensson (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Payments, Processors, and IT Services)
Got it. That's helpful. And then for the follow-up, you know, you mentioned updates on the go-to-market strategy a couple of times in the prepared remarks. And so I know last quarter, we talked about some, maybe some rollout issues with the digital channel, but assume those are behind us now. Maybe beyond that, are you starting to see some traction on the changes you made with your go-to-market approach? Are there any lessons you've learned, maybe positive proof points on the things that you've changed and some early progress that you're seeing there?
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, good question. We learn something new every day on this front, which is one of the things that we're very pleased about. So I would say when I looked at the quarter, you know, we started in the PEO a year ago, beginning some of these go-to-market, which includes a totally revised marketing and sales technology stack implementation. So think about the margin story Bob just told. We've been delivering these margins while investing significantly in preparing for the post-pandemic world. So while interest rates were going up and we were having the benefit of ERTC, we had been putting money into the business to prepare for what we knew was coming.
I'm most pleased in the quarter with the results that we're seeing from the numerous investments that we made in the PEO, that we've now extended across all of our market segments. We've changed our marketing approach. We've changed our sales technology stack. We're exceeding our expectations in these new go-to-market teams that we've put together. We've refined our segmentation, and we're gonna continue to refine that. One of the things that we're doing digitally is collecting all of our interactions, and we're looking on a daily basis about what's resonating with our clients and how our sales teams are executing. We've been very pleased with the execution that our go-to-market transformation teams have been working on.
When you think about that, it's really about retooling and retraining, you know, over three thousand sellers in the marketplace, and we've actually increased our segmentation. So I think a question was asked earlier about a little bit more in the mid and the upper market. We have a lot of confidence we can do that. We've actually added hunters in that particular segment. And given the results that we've seen in the first quarter in these go-to-market pilots that we've done across the various other segments, we are actually accelerating sales hiring. So we're going into the selling season, not only fully staffed, but given the results we've had, we're gonna be accelerating hiring into this new go-to-market strategy.
Nate Svensson (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Payments, Processors, and IT Services)
Great call. I appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.
Owen Callahan (Assistant VP)
This is Owen on for Ramsey. I appreciate you taking our question this morning. You just touched on kind of your sales team and wanted to get an update on sort of the growth drivers within Management Solutions. Just wondering if the focus has shifted a bit from new client wins to further penetration in your existing client base with the additional HCM services. Any of your expectations going forward, given all the new product rollouts, which you expect to lean into more, one versus the other, any insight there would be helpful? Thanks.
John Gibson (CEO)
No, and I would say, look, our growth formula hasn't changed. It's, you know, grow clients, drive further penetration of new products, continue to innovate, so we have more products to drive into the client base, and continue to provide value to our clients so that we have pricing capacity, the ability to pass price on. I would say that's been Paychex's fifty-two-year history, and that's what we're gonna continue to work against.
Owen Callahan (Assistant VP)
... Got it. And just on cost of service revenues, you touched on that a bit early in the call. Just also interested on the benefit side, if any increase in cost is associated with kind of the utilization in kind of claims costs, any color there and kind of expectations going forward would be helpful as well. Thanks.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, I just add to my comment, you know, overall, I think what you're seeing there is cost being driven by, not so much higher claims, but really a worksite employee and higher insurance attachment that we've seen over the last year. So, you know, worksite employee growth in the PEO was strong. You know, that's what we're focused on, is driving a worksite employee growth. And I think when you do that, coupled with the insurance attachment, you get some wage inflation and medical inflation, then you're able to put together a PEO business that's growing in the double digit range, like ours did this quarter and has, you know, for the past couple of quarters.
That's what's really driving the higher cost is just the performance of the business, not so much unfavorable claims history or anything like that.
Owen Callahan (Assistant VP)
Understood. Appreciate the clarity there. Thanks.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and we will take our next question from Kartik Mehta with Northcoast Research.
Kartik Mehta (Executive Managing Director and Director of Research)
Hey, good morning, John and Bob. Hey, John.
John Gibson (CEO)
Hey, Kartik.
Kartik Mehta (Executive Managing Director and Director of Research)
Hey, just getting your thoughts on acquisitions versus buyback. You know, you've talked a lot about some of the new products you have, maybe change of what businesses want and need. So I'm wondering, you know, as you look forward, just your thoughts on maybe what you're trying to prioritize and how you might allocate capital.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, I would say, Kartik, thanks for your question. Hope you're doing well. I would say that, you know, we are constantly and have always been looking at... We talked about the growth formula, grow our clients, increase our product penetration, you know, provide value so that we can get a proper price for what we deliver for our clients, and then, you know, tuck in inorganic growth on top of that. That's always been kind of what we've looked at. I think we've talked several times. The market, I would say, over the last 12 months has changed a little more rational of what we're seeing. I would tell you that our pipeline is robust at this point in time.
And I think there's more rationality coming in to the industry at this point in time, in terms of a willingness to look at potential, you know, combinations. I just- You know, I can just see it in our pipeline and the way deals are coming together. But what we're looking at hasn't really changed. We're looking at opportunities at scale in our existing markets, where we can drive our advisory and really the full breadth of our services. Remember, we're just not a tech company, and we have a ton of other products and services that we can bring to those markets. We're looking for opportunities to expand our product suite, so ways in which we can continue to add products and services that we can sell to all of our clients.
We're continually looking at digital capabilities, where we can add that into our business, and then looking for adjacent growth platforms. So all of those right there, what I told you, I would have said three years ago, we had a lot of interest and prices were unreasonably high, for the value, and we're very, as you know, very conservative in looking at deals that we're going to do. What I've seen over the last two years is more rationality, the last 12 months, even more rationality. And now I think, you know, more and more individuals are willing to have serious conversations. And so again, we're out there, we're looking, but we're going to make sure it's a smart deal and one that is going to, you know, be accretive for our shareholders long term.
Kartik Mehta (Executive Managing Director and Director of Research)
Just one follow-up. Bob, I think, when you initially gave guidance, you anticipated kind of flat PEO. Seems like things are going a little bit better than you expected. Any thoughts in terms of, you know, kind of as you look out, if those expectations need to be changed or, maybe feel better about, the guidance for PEO?
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, I would say it's more of the latter, Kartik. We feel better. Again, it wasn't assumed in the plan to be a big contributor to growth. We had it, I would say, in the checks per client part of the business on the HCM side, we had assumed it, you know, was going to be flattish on a full year basis, and it trended a little bit more positive there. So I think that gives us confidence in the guide. And again, you know, we're maintaining the guide in the face of some interest rate headwinds on the top line as well. And then when we look at our bigger client sizes, particularly our HR outsourcing models, we did assume a little bit of growth there in the plan.
Again, not a huge contributor to growth, but certainly expected it to be positive, and it was slightly better than where we expected to be in Q1. I think that gives us confidence in kind of maintaining the guide in where we're at, but again, neither one of them were big contributors to revenue growth on a full year basis.
Kartik Mehta (Executive Managing Director and Director of Research)
Thanks, Bob, John. I appreciate it.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And we will take our next question from Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America.
Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks, guys. Good morning. I wanted to start on Management Solutions. Can you give us a sense of what you expect for second quarter growth there? I know you will still have the ERTC headwind, but you won't have the processing day headwind. And then just any comments on visibility-
... on the second half's acceleration implied in the guide. It doesn't sound like you're seeing any real improvement in underlying performance, but just any other color on that aspect, too? Thanks.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, Jason, I mean, I think you might have asked me a similar question last quarter. I could be wrong, but I, you know, I don't want to get into giving quarterly guidance, you know, particularly on the splits. We're trying to, you know, maintain our approach, which is to provide annual guidance, and provide updates quarterly. You know, I try to give you guys a little bit of color on the next quarter to help you out with your models, but I don't want to get into the specifics. As I mentioned, you know, we'd expect the Q2 to be 4%-5%. You know, the headwind is in Management Solutions. It's ERTC. It's you know, two hundred basis points on total revenue.
So I'd like to kind of stick to that. And again, I'll just reiterate my prior comments as it relates to the acceleration in the back half. When you look at the guidance by quarter and you exclude the ERTC headwind, the guidance by quarter from a growth standpoint is very consistent quarter to quarter and is in line with kind of where we were exiting last year, which, again, was an acceleration versus where we were in the first half of the business. So again, we feel like we got a lot of positive momentum in the business, lots of great things to talk about, certainly from new product and solution introductions that have rolled out here in the last month or so, and, you know, we expect that momentum to continue through the balance of the year.
But there really is not an acceleration assumed. It's really the compare last year that makes it look like the growth accelerates in the back half.
Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, understood. Just on operating margins, I think you came in above the guide for the first quarter. Were there any expense timing, dynamics there or other factors? I mean, I know you're staying in the full year how it looks.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'd say a couple things. I mean, revenue was a little bit favorable to our expectations, so that certainly helped. And, hey, we put together a plan and, you know, when we look at expenses, we have investments that we want to make, you know, headcount that we're adding, and maybe that takes us a little bit longer than what we assumed in the plan. Like, you know, we thought we were going to get it in the first month, and it takes a little bit longer. So I'd say, you know, we had a little bit of expense favorability, a little bit of revenue favorability, and those two things combined, you know, provided a little bit better margin than what we had guided to.
Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you, Bob.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and we will take our final question from Scott Wurtzel with Wolfe Research.
Scott Wurtzel (Director of Equity Research)
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just wanted to touch on the two key margin guidance a little bit more. You know, I know we touched on-
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yep
Scott Wurtzel (Director of Equity Research)
... sort of the cadence for the full year, but, you know, just kind of looking, obviously, guidance implies a similar year-over-year change, I guess, relative to what you reported in first quarter, but we have, you know, a little bit of a, you know, improving or better ERTC headwind. Just wondering if there's any, you know, kind of items we should think about with respect to the 2Q margin. I understand we're getting into the selling season, if there's any items around that or others that we should be contemplating.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Yeah, I think if you look at the gating of the margin, you know, throughout the year, it's not exactly the same quarter by quarter. I think someone had referenced it. It's higher in the back half. It's typically higher in Q3 because of some of the year-end processing that is high margin that occurs in that quarter. But, you know, I would say nothing specific to call out, Scott, other than, you know, the guide implies a slight contraction versus prior year, but again, that's really coming from the headwind from ERTC. When you exclude that, you're seeing good margin, and, you know, we'd expect to see good margin expansion in Q2, you know, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred basis points.
I think if you did the math, that's what you would get to if you exclude the ERTC headwind, but nothing specific to call out. Yes, we're going into selling season. Want to make sure we're gearing up, and we feel like we're in a good position, fully staffed and making the investments, so we're going to have a successful, you know, so we can have a successful selling season.
Scott Wurtzel (Director of Equity Research)
Got it. Then just as just to follow up, I mean, I'm just looking at the presentation. You called out, you know, high single-digit growth in HR outsourcing WSEs, which, you know, seems pretty impressive, and, you know, just want to maybe understand the drivers there a little bit better, and if you can talk about maybe some of the growth that you saw, you know, in the ASO business during the quarter would be very helpful.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, yeah. I would say that what's driving that is the power of the value proposition. Like I said, I don't think what won the last three years in our industry is going to be what is going to win in the next few years. And I think it's not about the bells and whistles, and I think when you look at our comprehensive HR outsourcing offering and the assistance that we provide, that's beyond just the tech play, that seems to be resonating. And I do think the outsourcing message of our PEO is once again, we're tilting back. You remember when there was a page where ASO was a little more tilted than PEO?
We now see that tilt back to the PEO value proposition, and the team has done a great job of putting together a powerful set of, I think, benefit offerings and execution in the PEO market. So that's been what's driving the accelerated employee growth.
Scott Wurtzel (Director of Equity Research)
Got it. Thanks, guys.
John Gibson (CEO)
Yeah, thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Is that it?
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions at this time.
Bob Schrader (CFO)
Okay. Well, listen, thanks, everyone. At this point, we're going to close the call. If you're interested in a replay of the webcast, it will be archived for approximately ninety days. Again, I want to thank you for your interest in Paychex and hope everyone has a great day.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. That concludes today's First Quarter 2025 Paychex Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.