Cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh quý 1 năm tài chính 2027 của Paychex (PAYX): Tăng trưởng PEO và AI thúc đẩy biên lợi nhuận

Điểm tin chính

• Paychex đã báo cáo doanh thu quý 1 năm tài chính 2027 đạt 1,6 tỷ USD, tăng 6%, trong khi EPS pha loãng tăng 14% lên 1,21 USD và EPS pha loãng đã điều chỉnh tăng 10% lên 1,34 USD.
• Doanh thu từ Giải pháp PEO và Bảo hiểm tăng 12% lên 368 triệu USD. Tăng trưởng số lượng nhân viên PEO tại nơi làm việc đạt mức một chữ số ở mức cao, tiệm cận mức hai chữ số, trong khi tỷ lệ duy trì khách hàng đạt mức kỷ lục.
• Biên lợi nhuận hoạt động mở rộng 280 điểm cơ bản lên 38%. Biên lợi nhuận hoạt động đã điều chỉnh tăng khoảng 130 điểm cơ bản lên 42%, nhờ năng suất, kỷ luật chi phí và hiệu quả từ ứng dụng AI.
• Doanh thu từ Giải pháp Quản lý tăng 4% lên 1,2 tỷ USD. Ban lãnh đạo cho rằng kết quả này chủ yếu do số lượng chuyển đổi từ ASO sang PEO cao hơn dự kiến, chứ không phải do chính sách giá yếu đi hay áp lực cạnh tranh.
• Paychex đã nâng triển vọng tăng trưởng doanh thu Giải pháp PEO và Bảo hiểm năm tài chính 2027 lên 7%-8% và tái khẳng định dự báo tăng trưởng tổng doanh thu ở mức 5%-6%.
• Mức độ áp dụng AI tiếp tục mở rộng. Paychex đã triển khai hơn 2.000 tác vụ và tính năng AI, trong khi hệ thống tính lương tự động đã tăng tỷ lệ xử lý tự động thêm gần 20% từ tháng 1 đến tháng 8.

Dữ liệu tài chính cốt lõi

Kết quả hoạt động và kinh doanh

PEO là động lực tăng trưởng chính. Tăng trưởng số lượng nhân viên PEO tại nơi làm việc đạt mức một chữ số ở mức cao và được mô tả là tiệm cận mức hai chữ số. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết cả doanh số bán cho khách hàng mới và chuyển đổi trong tập khách hàng hiện hữu đều tăng tốc, trong khi tỷ lệ duy trì khách hàng PEO lập kỷ lục mới.

Tỷ lệ chuyển đổi từ ASO sang PEO cao gấp đôi so với kỳ vọng của ban lãnh đạo. Lượng khách hàng giới thiệu từ đội ngũ bán hàng HCM sang PEO tăng gần 50% so với cùng kỳ năm ngoái. Paychex cho biết một khách hàng ASO chuyển sang PEO mang lại doanh thu gấp khoảng 3,5 lần, đồng thời đem lại tỷ lệ duy trì và giá trị vòng đời cao hơn.

Mảng Giải pháp Quản lý tăng trưởng chậm hơn do doanh thu chuyển sang bộ phận báo cáo PEO. Công ty cho biết định giá vẫn duy trì ổn định so với lịch sử, tỷ lệ duy trì khách hàng được cải thiện và mức độ thâm nhập sản phẩm đạt kỳ vọng. Ban lãnh đạo chỉ ra rằng khung tăng trưởng cả năm của mảng này được chia đều giữa yếu tố giá và việc bán kèm sản phẩm bổ trợ.

Lượng đơn hàng doanh nghiệp tăng ở mức hai chữ số, nhờ sự tăng trưởng mạnh mẽ ở đơn hàng qua môi giới và giá trị hợp đồng trung bình. Tăng trưởng doanh thu trên toàn bộ các mảng kinh doanh của Paychex phục vụ khách hàng có trên 100 nhân viên vẫn duy trì ở mức một chữ số ở mức cao, tương đương với quý 4 năm tài chính 2026. Số lượng khách hàng giới thiệu từ môi giới tăng 43%, và Paychex đã ký thỏa thuận hợp tác môi giới cấp quốc gia thứ ba trong sáu tháng với IMA Financial Group.

Cộng hưởng doanh thu liên quan đến Paycor vẫn đi đúng hướng so với kỳ vọng trước đó. Paychex đã ra mắt sản phẩm Perks cho 2,5 triệu nhân viên trên nền tảng Paycor. Tổng số nhân viên đăng ký sản phẩm Perks đã vượt quá 450.000 người và tiếp tục ghi nhận mức tăng trưởng hai chữ số.

AI tiếp tục là lĩnh vực đầu tư trọng điểm, với chi tiêu trong năm tài chính 2027 gấp năm lần so với năm trước. Công cụ trí tuệ WISE sử dụng hơn 50 nghìn tỷ điểm dữ liệu độc quyền. Trong chương trình thử nghiệm với sự tham gia của hơn 50.000 doanh nghiệp, WISE đã giúp ngăn chặn khoảng 90% các lỗi tính lương mục tiêu.

Paychex đã triển khai các công cụ AI cho hơn 10.000 nhân viên và hiện có hơn 2.000 tác vụ và tính năng AI vận hành trên toàn bộ doanh nghiệp. Xử lý tính lương tự động đã tăng gần 20% từ tháng 1 đến tháng 8. Công ty cũng đã ra mắt WISE Hire, một giải pháp tuyển dụng tự động dành cho các doanh nghiệp vừa và nhỏ.

Dự báo của Ban lãnh đạo

Ban lãnh đạo tái khẳng định dự báo tăng trưởng tổng doanh thu năm tài chính 2027 ở mức 5%-6%, dựa trên cầu ổn định và quy mô việc làm không đổi.

Đối với quý 2 năm tài chính 2027, ban lãnh đạo dự báo tăng trưởng doanh thu đạt khoảng 4% và biên lợi nhuận hoạt động đã điều chỉnh đạt khoảng 40%. Mức so sánh bao gồm hai yếu tố trong năm trước: lợi ích cộng hưởng doanh thu từ M&A và lợi nhuận thực hiện từ việc tái cơ cấu danh mục đầu tư. Nếu loại trừ các yếu tố này, ban lãnh đạo cho biết tăng trưởng doanh thu quý 2 sẽ xấp xỉ mức 6% đã đạt được trong quý 1.

Rủi ro và các yếu tố cần theo dõi

• Mức so sánh của mảng PEO sẽ trở nên khó khăn hơn khi Paychex bước qua giai đoạn tăng tốc PEO và tỷ lệ đăng ký MPP mạnh mẽ hơn của năm ngoái.
• Triển vọng PEO cập nhật vẫn phụ thuộc vào các đợt đăng ký trong tháng 10 và tháng 1. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết việc lựa chọn gói dịch vụ của nhân viên, đặc biệt là ở bang Florida, tạo ra yếu tố không chắc chắn.
• Chi phí chăm sóc sức khỏe gia tăng có thể thúc đẩy nhiều chủ lao động tìm kiếm các giải pháp thay thế, nhưng cũng có thể ảnh hưởng đến việc lựa chọn gói dịch vụ trong các kỳ gia hạn.
• Mức độ việc làm nhìn chung đi ngang, làm hạn chế động lực tăng trưởng liên quan đến việc làm cho Paycor và các sản phẩm dành cho phân khúc cao cấp hơn.
• Ban lãnh đạo đã đề cập đến các cú sốc tiềm ẩn về kinh tế toàn cầu, giá dầu và lạm phát như những yếu tố bất ổn vĩ mô, mặc dù chưa ghi nhận sự suy giảm đáng kể nào trong hoạt động tuyển dụng, cầu của khách hàng hay môi trường cạnh tranh.

Điểm nhấn phiên Hỏi & Đáp với chuyên gia phân tích

Tại sao tăng trưởng của mảng Giải pháp Quản lý lại chậm lại? Ban lãnh đạo cho biết yếu tố chính là sự dịch chuyển nhanh hơn của khách hàng ASO sang PEO, chứ không phải do chính sách giá yếu đi. Công ty đánh giá đây là sự thay đổi cơ cấu sản phẩm thuận lợi vì PEO mang lại doanh thu, tỷ lệ duy trì khách hàng và giá trị vòng đời cao hơn.

Tăng trưởng PEO có phải chủ yếu do lạm phát bảo hiểm? Ban lãnh đạo cho biết tăng trưởng số lượng nhân viên PEO là động lực chính. Tăng trưởng diễn ra trên diện rộng toàn quốc, trong khi chỉ có chương trình MPP ở Florida mới có cơ chế chuyển giao doanh thu bảo hiểm liên quan được thảo luận trong cuộc họp.

Đà tăng trưởng của PEO có thể tiếp tục không? Paychex đã nâng triển vọng cho mảng này nhưng vẫn duy trì sự thận trọng. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết hoạt động chuyển đổi trong quý 1 vượt xa kỳ vọng và có thể sẽ bình thường hóa, trong khi các đợt đăng ký vào tháng 10 và tháng 1 sẽ mang lại tầm nhìn rõ ràng hơn.

Các khoản đầu tư vào AI có đang mang lại hiệu quả? Ban lãnh đạo cho biết Paychex vẫn đang trong giai đoạn đầu tư, nhưng những cải thiện năng suất ban đầu đã xuất hiện trong việc tự động hóa tính lương, kết quả phục vụ khách hàng và sự mở rộng biên lợi nhuận. Các sản phẩm AI đang được tích hợp vào các gói cao cấp, trong khi WISE Hire và công cụ tuân thủ nhân sự của công ty cũng có thể được bán riêng lẻ.

Yếu tố nào hỗ trợ tăng trưởng trong nửa cuối năm? Ban lãnh đạo cho biết mức tăng trưởng doanh thu cần thiết trong nửa cuối năm để đạt được điểm giữa của dự báo cả năm là tương đối phù hợp với mức tăng trưởng đã đạt được trong hai quý trước. Cơ cấu chính xác giữa mảng Giải pháp Quản lý và PEO vẫn chưa chắc chắn.

Toàn văn biên bản cuộc họp kết quả kinh doanh

Toàn văn cuộc gọi công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Phần trình bày của ban lãnh đạo

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Paychex's First Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Call. Participating on the call today are John Gibson and Bob Schrader. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, and your participation implies consent to our recording of this call.

I would now like to turn the call over to Bob Schrader, Paychex's Chief Financial Officer.

Robert Schrader

Thank you for joining us to discuss Paychex's first quarter fiscal '27 results. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our Investor Relations website. We plan to file our Form 10-Q with the SEC within the next couple of days. This call is being webcast live and will be available for replay on our Investor Relations portal.

Today's call includes 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. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures. A description of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release.

I would now like to turn the call over to John Gibson, Paychex President and CEO.

John Gibson

Thanks, Bob. We delivered a solid start to fiscal year '27 with double-digit growth in operating income and earnings per share. Total revenue growth of 6% was driven by strong revenue growth in PEO and Insurance Solutions and continued progress against our strategic objectives, including accelerating AI across our business and executing on our go-to-market strategy. More broadly, our performance reflects the strength of our differentiated high-value advisory solutions.

This year, we are focused on 3 growth drivers: data and AI leadership, go-to-market evolution and advisory differentiation to strengthen our competitive position to deliver more value to customers and expand earnings over time. First, let me talk about data and AI leadership. We see AI as a way to augment the capabilities of our advisers and customers and help them operate more efficiently, make better decisions and deliver more value and improved outcomes. We believe our combination of proprietary workforce data, purpose-built HCM platforms and advisory expertise creates a differentiated advantage for Paychex.

WISE, our AI-powered intelligence engine now draws on more than 50 trillion proprietary data points across payroll, HR, benefits and other workforce workflows. Because that data is domain-specific and embedded in real customer activity, it enables us to deliver AI-driven automation that is more actionable. As our AI agents take action with our experts in the loop, they create a continuous feedback cycle that help improve outcomes and strengthens our solutions over time. We believe that is where AI creates the most value, not as a stand-alone tool or a search engine, but has intelligence built directly into the system of record and the moment where action needs to happen.

We are very proud to be recognized for our AI leadership as WISE was recently named one of HR Tech's top HR products for 2026. Another source of differentiation is our ability to combine AI with trusted human expertise. As more routine work becomes automated, we believe the value of expert guidance increases in areas where businesses are navigating complexity such as labor, tax, benefits and workforce management. That is why we see AI as enhancing, not replacing the role of our trusted advisers, and that's why we believe our combined technology and service model is difficult to replicate.

We're already seeing early proof points that this strategy is creating tangible value. This summer, we piloted intelligent pace cycle to proactively address the top sources of payroll errors. Based upon the results from more than 50,000 businesses, WISE helped prevent approximately 90% of his payroll errors. Based upon that success, we are expanding those capabilities across additional use cases across the company. This week, we announced WISE Hire an agentic recruiting solution designed to help SMBs find and hire qualified talent faster. Solutions uses AI recruiting agents to help customers source candidates, screen applicants, manage outreach and schedule interviews, all while keeping employers in control and providing access to human recruiting expertise when needed.

We are also extending WISE into business applications where customers already work such as Microsoft, making life easier to access for our customers and their employees. We are also further accelerating AI across our service model and operations. We now have more than 2,000 agents and features deployed across the business. WISE agentic payroll continues to enhance operational efficiency increasing automated payroll processing by nearly 20% from January through August, while also maintaining high service quality and accuracy rates. As this scales, it enables us to automate transactional work and free our teams to focus on more proactive and higher-value advisory support.

Our second area of focus is our go-to-market evolution. We continue to advance our go-to-market strategy by positioning Paychex not simply as a provider of products, but as a strategic partner, helping businesses succeed. Through our One Paychex approach, we are equipping all of our sales and customer success teams to take full advantage of the breadth of our technology and advisory solutions. With this approach, we are better aligning customers to the right solution from the beginning of their relationship with Paychex.

Our partner ecosystem also remains a strategic advantage. Our CPA, bank and broker relationships drive a significant portion of our leads and generate higher win rates. Continued investment in those channels drove higher referral activity year-over-year. We continue to build momentum in the broker channel, signing our third national broker partnership in 6 months with IMA Financial Group. We saw strong growth in broker bookings, supported by higher average deal size and strong ancillary attachment. At the same time, we're expanding our reach to embedded, partner-led and stand-alone channels, creating additional pathways for future growth; and finally, advisory differentiation.

Customers are looking for more than just software. Our Advisory and Benefit Solutions remain an important part of how we help businesses navigate increasingly complex workforce needs. By combining innovative technology with human expertise, we provide trusted support across ASO, PEO and retirement often serving businesses with limited or no in-house HR resources. All 3 advisory solutions delivered strong revenue growth this quarter. We continue to see traction in the enterprise segment for our advisory solutions, which reinforces the strategic rationale of the Paycor acquisition.

PEO remains a key growth driver and delivered industry-leading high single-digit worksite employee growth and delivered record retention. We also saw strong upgrades of ASO clients into PEO relationships, reflecting the trust we've built with clients and the value of our full-service advisory model. In addition to all these things, we improve client retention. We continue to see price realization and strong product penetration, all of which contributed to the strength of our results this quarter and continues to demonstrate the value we deliver for our customers.

I'm pleased to see our progress recognized externally including being named to Times World's Best Companies and Newsweek's America's greatest companies list, reflecting the strength of our brand, culture and operating performance. In addition, our human capital management platforms were recognized by Nucleus Research and Nelson Hall for innovation and capability and talent and workforce management.

Stepping back, we believe Paychex has never been better positioned and continues to offer a compelling investor value proposition. With our multiple durable recurring revenue streams and businesses, industry-leading margins, strong free cash flow, disciplined capital allocation, we see continued opportunity to expand our earnings power through scale, mix, productivity and AI-enabled efficiency. We have a focused strategy, a resilient operating model and increasing momentum in the areas that we believe matter most for long-term growth and profitability. I'm proud of the work that the team has done this quarter.

I will now turn it over to Bob to discuss our financial performance and outlook.

Robert Schrader

Thanks, John. I'll begin with our first quarter results, and then I'll turn to our updated outlook for fiscal 2027. For the first quarter, total revenue increased 6% to $1.6 billion driven by the strength in our advisory solutions, particularly PEO. Management solutions revenue grew 4% to $1.2 billion driven by product penetration and price realization. And as John mentioned, we saw a high volume of ASO to PEO upgrades in the quarter. as well as strong PEO referral activity from our HCM sales teams, which contributed to strong PEO growth.

PEO insurance growth in the quarter was 12% to $368 million primarily driven by strong growth in PEO worksite employees and increased PEO insurance volumes. Interest on funds held for clients increased 5% to $50 million driven by stronger reinvestment yields on our long-term portfolio. Total expenses for the quarter increased 1% as higher PEO direct insurance costs and continued investments in our go-to-market expansion and strategic priorities were largely offset by lower acquisition-related costs and continued AI efficiencies.

Operating margins for the quarter increased 280 basis points to 38% and our adjusted operating margins increased approximately 130 basis points to 42%, driven by productivity and cost discipline even as we continue to invest in our strategic priorities. Diluted earnings per share increased 14% to $1.21 per share and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 10% to $1.34.

Our financial position remains strong with cash, restricted cash and total corporate investments of approximately $1 billion and total borrowings of approximately $4.6 billion at quarter end. Cash flow from operations were $414 million and were impacted by the timing of client and corporate tax payments. And our capital allocation strategy is centered on delivering long-term shareholder value. This quarter, we returned $424 million to shareholders through cash dividends. We continue to focus on the drivers of long-term shareholder returns within our control, including strong earnings growth sustained dividend growth and disciplined capital deployment. Our 12-month rolling return on equity remains robust at 47%.

I'll now turn to our updated outlook, which assumes the current macro environment, including stable demand and flat employment levels. We are reaffirming our full year fiscal '27 guidance with updates to segment revenue growth to reflect continued strength in PEO and the latest short-term interest rate change. For fiscal we now expect PEO and Insurance Solutions revenue growth to be in the range of 7% to 8%. This is up from our prior guidance due to continued strength in PEO. As a reminder, comparisons become more challenging over the remainder of the year as we lapped the prior year acceleration in PEO stronger MPP enrollment.

Interest on funds held for clients is now expected to be in the range of $200 million to $210 million, which includes the most recent 25 basis point increase to the Fed funds rate. The remainder of our outlook is unchanged. However, I would like to provide some additional color on the categories. If the strength that we saw in Q1 in PEO upsells and HCM referrals continues, we could see PEO and Insurance Solutions trending toward the high end of the updated range with Management Solutions trending towards the low end. And as I think we've discussed many times with many of you, we view that mix shift favorably as PEO represents not only our highest value solution, the best retention solution that we have, but certainly our highest lifetime value solution.

Now let me turn to provide some color on the second quarter. Second quarter revenue and earnings growth reflect a difficult comparison to prior year due to 2 onetime items that were recognized in Q2 of last year. One, we had a revenue synergy benefit from the acquisition that was recognized in the quarter. as well as the realized gains that we had in Q2 from the repositioning of the portfolio that we did. We would expect Q2 revenue growth to be approximately 4% with an adjusted operating margin of approximately 40%. Excluding those 2 items that I just mentioned, second quarter total revenue growth would be in line with our first quarter growth rate. And as always, this outlook reflects current assumptions and is subject to change.

Our business fundamentals remain strong. We continue to operate from a position of financial strength, supported by our durable recurring revenue, strong cash generation and disciplined investment in areas we believe will drive long-term growth. With a resilient operating model, continued margin opportunity, increasing momentum in AI, go-to-market evolution and advisory solutions. We remain confident in our strategy to drive long-term growth and shareholder value.

And with that, we'll now open up the call for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first to Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.

Phần hỏi đáp

Andrew Nicholas

I wanted to start on HRMS quarter. Curious if this was in line with your expectations, what additional color could you give us in terms of the underlying drivers of the 4.3% growth number? And if you could speak to the implied ramp throughout the rest of this year considering you did maintain the 5% to 6% outlook?

Robert Schrader

Maybe I'll -- you want me start and add some color.

John Gibson

Yes, you can start.

Robert Schrader

Yes, Andrew, listen, I think Management Solutions was, I would say, slightly below our expectations, and I think it's due to 2 things. that we talked about in the prepared remarks, it's really the strength of the PEO. And I think it's driven by 2 dynamics. We certainly saw a strong performance in upgrades from ASO to PEO, that was certainly ahead of our plan and it was up significantly year-over-year. And then the other dynamic that we saw during the quarter is we're seeing a higher level of referral activity from our HCM sales teams into PEO, that was up almost 50% year-over-year. And that's actually driving new sales into the PEO.

And it was really broad-based across the board. Certainly, we're benefiting from our enterprise reps out in the field, not only selling technology, but really selling the full breadth of our solutions, including PEO. And so that -- we're gaining a lot of traction there. As we mentioned in the call, we do view that as favorable overall just because of the economics around the PEO business. So it was probably slightly below our expectation, but PEO obviously, overachieved our expectation, and that's why you see some of the changes that we made to the full year guide.

As far as the acceleration in the back half, in Management Solutions, I mean, we continue to see strength in ancillary attachment. And although PEO has been strong, ASO and retirement continued to be strong. A lot of that is coming from the revenue synergy opportunity. We've been adding sales head count over the last year, those heads are ramping, getting more productive. Our retention trends are very positive, and we would expect that to continue.

And then we have a lot of news of other revenue streams like our Perks product, our employee Perks product, that's probably our strongest growing product that we have. We just launched that. into the Paycor platform into 2.5 million employees. We announced WISE Hire this morning. We have our 650 products. So we expect all those products to continue to gain traction as we move into the back half of the year.

John Gibson

Yes, I'd [indiscernible]. The thing that happened to us, quite frankly, is that the execution of our go-to-market evolution exceeded our expectations. What we're trying to do there is we're trying to put stronger focus on higher lifetime value solutions. We're really driving training, enablement and incentives so that all of our reps are presenting the best solution across all of our sales team and also our customer success team. So we're trying to enable every one of our sellers and everyone that's in direct contact with our clients to be able to represent each one of our products and services.

And I think anyone knows anything about Paychex that used to be a lot more siloed and compartmentalized, if you will. We get a client -- we become a payroll client that we'd go and sell the ASO, then we sell them PEO and we kind of moving them up the ramp. And we've done a lot. We're using AI as one of the tools we're using to enable our reps to be able to speak to these different solutions and capabilities, the same thing with our customer success rep. So quite frankly, that actually exceeded our expectations. I mean, Bob mentioned it, our ASO to PEO conversions were double our expectations. And then we were even better in the referral side of the shop.

In terms of the enterprise, 100 plus the sales teams that we have out there referring PEOs. So you've got a situation where that immediately you got a geography question in terms of management solutions versus PEO. So an ASO client upgrades to the PEO, the revenue is about 3.5x, and you're moving from one bucket to the other. When you look at an HCM sales rep that's out there, potentially going to put them on a HCM platform, and they refer to PEO. Again, that's even more than 3.5x the revenue uptake.

And so if we can get the client in the right solution upfront, the advisory solution, we think that's the right thing to do, and that's actually exceeded our expectations in the quarter. If that continues, I believe that's a good thing for the company and a good thing for our shareholders.

Andrew Nicholas

I agree. For my second question, I just wanted to touch on PEO a bit further. One of the bigger themes we've heard in kind of talking to private companies in the space over the past couple of weeks is the potential for health care renewals to accelerate from the low double-digit level during the upcoming renewal season. So I guess a 2-part question. Are you seeing or hearing of that dynamic from your business heads? And second, how do you see that affecting Paychex retention in your PEO business, your ability to take share and maybe the broader sales environment as medical rates continue to move higher?

John Gibson

Yes. Well, look, medical and health and really providing benefits to employees is a major issue that's facing our markets, and that's why our advisory solutions and our benefit solutions are resonating so strong. And at our scale, I think we have a demonstrated track record over a long period of time of being able to manage that cost and give some sort of comfort. I think there's no question when you see the type of health inflation that we're seeing in the marketplace, that causes people to look around.

What I would tell you is we're at record level PEO retention, and that beat our record of last year in the first quarter. We are just beginning our first renewal. If you remember, we have 2 renewal processes, one in October and one in December -- one in January. What I can tell you is, I think we've managed our book well and our rates are going to be highly competitive in the marketplace. And I think that's going to give us a competitive advantage there. So this is a big issue. I think it's going to drive more people shopping and looking for alternatives to access economic benefits. And the good thing is, I think we have the products and solutions to be able to do that.

So I think it's -- that's why I -- part of this acceleration is all things you just talked about. That's why I think when our HCM reps are out there and they're talking to clients about what their problems are, we're hearing, hey, health inflation is a problem. Can you help me here? Guess what? I can't. Let me get one of my PEO partners in to talk to you, and I think that's resonating.

Operator

Our next question comes from Daniel Jester with BMO Capital.

Daniel Jester

I guess I wanted to go back to all the commentary around AI, and it's great to see all of the product advancements there. Can you just spend a moment like talking about 2 things, I guess. Number one, is the advancements in all of these technologies? Are you actually seeing an improvement in your win rate or your seller productivity? I guess, number 2 is can you speak to sort of how these are resonating with your customers repeat usage like on some of these new tools? Just want to get a sense for the customer demand.

John Gibson

Yes. So I think we -- I said some of the stuff in our opening remarks, just as background, our WISE platform just won the HR Tech top HR product for 2026. We're just beginning to launch that. We just started that process. What we've seen thus far, we've got about 50,000 of our clients that were utilizing our advanced payroll processing capabilities and we're actually capturing 90% of the errors up in advance. So what that's doing is driving 2 things. Better customer outcome and less back office work for us organizationally. So that's the kind of uptick.

We just started with the Paycor WISE assistant. We just started a small group of clients, early days. The feedback has been extremely positive. We're just starting to launch -- we just launched the Paycor WISE Pro into the marketplace in August, so that -- we'll start seeing that in the September time frame.

What I'm most happy with is the work that we're seeing going on internally right now. Of course, we've been adopting this internally faster than we probably have from a product perspective. And we now have -- I have like 600 active agents in the company a quarter ago. We have over 2,000 today. We've now deployed AI to over 10,000 of our employees and we're encouraging them to a governance process to figure out how they can enable those tools. And we're seeing 20% reductions in payroll -- manual payroll process using our agentic payroll capabilities and tools. So we're seeing a lot of pick up internally. And I think when we began to embed this into our workflows at the customer level, our customers are going to see a similar type of uptick and the benefits that they're going to have.

So I think we're early there. We just announced today our WISE Hire product, that's going to be agentic recruiting solution, a design for small and midsized businesses. It's going to help them find qualified talent, which is another big issue we hear. And again, when you look at that, it really takes you from the start of engaging a client posting a job looking for a qualified candidate screening the candidate, scheduling the interview and take you all the way through the onboarding process into all 3 of our platforms, all of that embedded into WISE. And so again, that's going to save time. That's going to go to a faster, higher for our clients and they're going to have better outcomes.

So we're in the early stages, I think, of deploying this from a product perspective. But what I can tell you what we've seen internally the uplift we're getting in terms of our ability to drive better outcomes for our customers, drive efficiency across our specialists and our advisers, it's pretty powerful.

Daniel Jester

That's really great. And then maybe, Bob, to you, appreciate the color on the second quarter. Maybe anything more you can share about what we'd be thinking about sort of enterprise bookings and the last couple of quarters, Paycor was viewed as you've been improving from a bookings perspective. So I guess, how did that perform in the quarter? And I think about the second quarter and maybe in the third quarter, any color about how we should think about those enterprise bookings reramping?

Robert Schrader

Yes. I mean enterprise bookings were strong in the quarter, certainly up double digits for sure in particularly -- we saw strength in the broker bookings as well an average deal size. So I think all of those trends were very positive. And I think that gives us some level of confidence as it relates to -- as we move into the into the second half of the year. We had the question around the acceleration. Some of that is based on what we saw in Q1 booking strength in the enterprise space was overall.

And I'll just answer the question that I assume is coming overall when we look at the enterprise growth for the quarter, it was in line, our 100 plus across all of our businesses was in line with what we saw in Q4, and that was in the high single digits. So we're seeing a lot of positive trends in the enterprise space. And that is certainly contributing to the strength that we're seeing in the PEO business as well, a lot of that is coming up market. I think Andrew put a note out early this week about PEO playing up upmarket further above 100, and we're definitely seeing that. We saw that in Q1. So those trends were very positive.

Operator

Our next question comes from Bryan Keane with Citi.

Bryan Keane

Bob, can you just walk us the fourth quarter managed services growth, I think, was about 5.5%, and now we're a little bit under 4.5%. I think it was 4 and change. Just to walk through and how much of this is just literally we're going from HR solutions business, the ASO business is getting pulled. We're going one pocket to another over to PEO. And so really, there's not that much difference going on.

Robert Schrader

Yes. I mean that's exactly it, Bryan. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It's a little bit left pocket, right pocking again, we view it as positive. I think the organic growth in Management Solutions was probably around 5% in Q4. There was probably a little bit of better price realization in Q4 versus maybe what we thought in -- what came through in Q1. But most of the change is really this mix shift between management solutions and PEO really with the ASO, not only the ASO upgrades, which John -- so that comes directly out of management solutions and gets reported in PEO.

I think the other dynamic that we're seeing there is just the new business that's coming into the PEO because we have all of our enterprise -- or not only our enterprise routes, but all of our HCM reps out in the field selling the full solution. I mean at the end of the day, small businesses are not buying technology. I think John said that in his prepared remarks, they're buying peace of mind. And it's that combination of our AI capabilities with that human in the loop and really trying to find ways to help small businesses solve problems. That is really resonating, and it's driving that strength not only PEO, ASO is strong as well. But to answer your question directly, it is really more of the left pocket, right pocket.

Bryan Keane

Yes, because the total revenue, we're not really -- it doesn't look like your expectations are really different at the end of the day because it's just -- it's a mix shift between one segment to the other.

Robert Schrader

Yes. And listen, we took the PEO and insurance up and we -- I made some comments in the guidance around depending on how things continue being at the high end versus the low end of ranges. We're sitting here, we feel pretty good about the PEO, but we have 2 big enrollments in front of us. We have the one here in October, as John mentioned, the one in January. We don't know what we don't know. So we're trying to be a little bit conservative there as we move through the balance of the year. And as we get through Q2, we'll kind of update not only the total but what we see between the splits between the 2 categories.

Operator

And our next question comes from Jared Levine with TD Cowen.

Jared Levine

I want to start in terms of revenue synergies. Can you talk about the progress so far into this year -- or sorry, with 1Q so far? And any updated expectations in terms of, I think, for the full year you were previously assuming about 70 bps, 75 bps any updated expectations there?

John Gibson

Yes, Jared, this is John. Yes, we're going to stick with what we gave you the last time. I would say that they're going well. Bob talked about the referral side of the equation, continue to see good strength in our advisory solutions, ASO, PEO and retirement. We also mentioned we launched Perks into the Paycor client base or their employees up 2.5 million. We're only not even a month into that already.

What I can tell you about Perks overall, last time we talked, I think it was about over 400,000. We now have over 450,000 employees, double-digit growth in that product. And in the first 3 days, Paycor adoption is outpacing the first month when we launched it in Flex in terms of employee adoption, what I'm even more impressed with, which is not surprising, frankly, given the larger client size, is they're actually buying -- every employee in Flex is buying about 2 products in the Perks -- in the Paycor base, it's 3, 3.5. So we're actually seeing more uptake as well. So that's early on as well. And that's certainly exceeding our expectations there.

Jared Levine

Got it. And then I wanted to dig in, in terms of some of the commentary about sustaining the high single-digit WSE growth within the PEO this quarter. I guess you started calling that out last year in 3Q '26. Is this a dynamic where you maybe went from high single-digit WSE growth you call it, accelerate to very high single-digit growth because I guess it would potentially imply maybe the new franchise sales have decelerated, but I just didn't know if it was maybe more of a going from high single digits to very high single digits or the new to the franchise sales decelerate here in terms of still delivering that high single-digit WSE growth in 1Q?

John Gibson

Well, Jared, I'll let Bob fill in the details, but this is what's amazing to me. Our ASO to PEO conversion. So let's talk about selling inside our client base, going into paychecks, going into Paycor and selling PEO. That is 2x our expectations. What's amazing is how that kind of growth happens inside the base, the traditional conversion and also see similar to slightly greater increases in the outside the base new logo component. So whereas we sell more outside the base than inside the base. That's what I would have told you a year ago.

If you would have told me we were going to double the number of conversions, I would have said that's going to flip the other way and we're going to have more internal conversions leading to PEO growth. That is not what happened. Both of them accelerated in the first quarter, both new logo and inside the base conversions.

Robert Schrader

Yes. I mean, just -- I mean, to answer the question directly, it's very high single digits, I think, was your question without disclosing the exact number. And I think the point that John made is a valid one. Despite all of those internal transfers, the new business into the PEO still skewed more outside the base. And again, I think that's coming from the referral activity the value of having all of our reps out selling the full value proposition is skewed more outside the basin inside the base, which was a pleasant surprise. And I think we've seen a couple of quarters of that trend as well.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets.

William Qi

This is William Qi on for Ashish Sabadra. Maybe just wanted to ask on some of the comments around price realization. Could you give a little bit more color there, just maybe how current pricing trends are stacking relative to historicals?

John Gibson

Yes, what I'd say is as we continue to get price realization, retention continues to improve. Product penetration continues to hit our expectations. So we're still seeing the ability because I think our products and services and the quality of our service and our technology are resonating with our clients to be able to go out in the market and achieve the price realization targets that we've historically gotten. So that's where we're at.

William Qi

Got it. And maybe just a quick follow-up, I guess, maybe on margins outlook. I think the 44% kind of fiscal year '27 margins and 40% guidance for 2Q, it seems to be a bigger ramp, I think, for second half. I know 3Q is usually a little bit lumpier, but any, I guess, like thoughts around cadence there. Is this more just a factor as these new AI products ramp, you're seeing that kind of flow to margins and also productivity improvements as well?

Robert Schrader

Yes. I think some of it just the timing. I think the full year guide was approximately 44 basis points, which is probably in line with the expansion that we've normally seen historically in that kind of 50 basis point range, and we just expanded Q1 margins 130 basis points. So the Q1 expansion is greater than the full year expansion. You can't look at the absolute number because margins are significantly higher.

You can go back, if you look over the last -- in any year, Q3 margins are just structurally higher because of -- that's when we do a lot of our year-end processing revenue, and that's essentially 100% margin. So Q3 margins are structurally higher. So yes, really no concern. Overall, expense growth was up 1%. And so -- when you're growing your top line 6%, you're only growing your expenses 1%, you can see how it's easy to get double-digit earnings growth and the strong margin expansion that we delivered in the quarter.

John Gibson

Yes.I want to make a finer point on that to give the team a lot of credit, and I want you to think about it this way. When you think about the margin expansion that we saw coupled with the fact that we had PEO growing at a higher rate than what we expected. Our MPP program, our health program that we have in Florida, many of you know about it, right? That was at double digits growth as well. We all know that's pass-through. So where typically, you would say if the PEO was growing at that rate, you would expect it would be difficult to get that kind of margin expansion. That's really the power that we're seeing in terms of AI.

So on top of the margin expansion that we committed to at the start of the year before we knew the PEO was going to accelerate at the rate that it is, we've also increased significantly our investment in AI, and we've increased our investment in expanding our go-to-market efforts, both in terms of channel investments, embedded investments as well as additional salespeople. So all that additional growth investment, all the AI investment, acceleration in the PEO, which normally would compress our margins, and we're still committing to the type of margin expansion in the year. So that's just -- I think it's a testament of what we think the power of AI is and how great the team has done as the best operators in managing the bottom line of the business.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Marcon with Baird.

Mark Marcon

I'm going to ask a couple of somewhat repetitive questions just because of the way the stock is reacting. So I just wanted to give you an opportunity to further clarify things. With regards to just that ASO to PEO shift, could you quantify that? Like just how much of ASO revenue ended up shifting out during the quarter. Is that possible or to quantify like what the lift in terms of worksite employees and non-pass-through revenue to the PEO was during the quarter? And then I've got a follow-up with regards to the guidance.

Robert Schrader

Yes, Mark, I think the way that I would think about it is part of the challenge that we have, and I'm not going to change this because we're not managing the business quarter-to-quarter. And so we provide you guys full year guidance. And we try to give you the splits on a full year basis, and then we try to provide you some color on what the quarter is going to be, but not kind of the splits. And so even before the year started and where I saw where you guys were landing between the 2 categories.

I knew regardless how the quarter came out, I knew you guys are probably going to be too high-end management solutions and too low on PEO and insurance. There's nothing really I can do about that because, again, we're not managing the business quarter-to-quarter. I think when we came into the year, we said we expected the full year to be 5% to 6%, and we expected Q1 to be 5% to 6%. We just delivered a 6%. So the quarter exceeded our expectations. Obviously, there's puts and takes amongst all the different revenue streams. But overall, the quarter exceeded our expectations. And Management Solutions was a little bit lower in PEO and insurance was a little bit higher relative to our expectations.

And I think to Bryan Keane's question, it really is just kind of a left pocket, right pocket shift. And again, we view this as positive just given the strength of that model and the PEO and particularly the retention. Listen, it's the highest value solution, but it is very sticky for clients when they have all their insurances through us. It's very disruptive for them to leave, it's disruptive for their employees.

And so that's why I think you've heard me say this. I'd love to get all 800,000 of my clients in the PEO model because of the stickiness there. And that's part of our strategy. And as John said in one of the answers to the questions, the execution of our strategy was stronger than what we anticipated. So I'm hoping this trend continues to be honest, as we move forward because I think it's the right answer for the company. I think it's the right answer for our customers, and I think it's the right answer for our shareholders.

John Gibson

Yes. Mark, I think it's -- the important message to get out there is that the mix shift towards advisory solutions is positive to our business model and our competitive position. And if the market is demanding both a combination of technology, service and advisory support. I think there's very few that can compete with Paychex at our scale when it comes to leading with technology and advisory solutions. And that's where I see the market going. And AI is just going to simply enable us to do more of that, more advising because we can take more transactional work and repurpose those specialists to more higher-level capabilities.

So I think this is a good thing. Bob already said it. You look at our P&L. It's going to make the P&L better. And it is odd. I almost feel like I'm apologizing for successful execution of our advisory strategy. And we shouldn't be. We should be Pounding our chest and saying, "Well, I can't believe we exceeded our expectations at this degree."

And so hats off to the team and the execution of the go-to-market evolution that we're doing and hats off to the PEO team because not -- I mean, you got to think about it. They were set up for 2x what they were expecting and to be able to continue to have the record -- beating the record retention, they adjust that doing that, going through enrollment and negotiating with carriers and getting rates that I think are going to be highly competitive as we go into selling season -- like I said, that's something I'm very proud of. And again, I think we've got to continue to get the message out that the mix shift towards advisory solutions is positive for our business model and for our competitive position, both in the short term and the long term.

Mark Marcon

I appreciate that. I mean, the specific question was just if you could actually quantify the amount because you -- I mean, given the way the stock is reacting, it's clear that some people are maybe making the assumption that the PEO lift is partially due to the insurance pass-through revenue, not necessarily a direct shift in terms of revenue on a like-for-like margin for margin basis. So I was trying to ask that question to give you the opportunity to directly answer that.

Robert Schrader

Yes, Mark, just to comment on the -- certainly, our insurance volumes are up, right? So if you go back to last year, MPP enrollment was down in Q1 before we went in into our 2 annual enrollments. We had great execution through both of those enrollments. So our revenue is certainly up. MPP enrollment is up, I think, double digits.

But to Jared's earlier question, the worksite employee growth is really what drives PEO revenue, and that is high single digits, just shy of double digits, which we continue to, I would say, outperform the overall market there. So we're gaining share, as John said, our advisory message and differentiation is resonating in the marketplace, and that's what you're seeing in the results.

John Gibson

Yes. The other thing is, Mark, and I think you understand the -- and several of you understand the nuance of this. When you look at PEO insurance revenue at Paychex, it's not like all the other competitors. We provide insurance across the nation. That revenue, except for in Florida, you're not seeing an RPO revenue, right? That's not the case on how accounting works on a lot of the other competitive sets where they -- actually all the revenue is going through.

I think that's important because we're only talking about one program in Florida is the only part of that program. We're seeing broad-based across the nation growth in the PEO. And so as Bob said, I think the proxy there is worksite employees, and we're getting administrative fee for every one of those worksite employees.

So we're -- so I think that if that's the question, right? Look, PEO is growing because of insurance inflation. That's not the case. You cannot -- that's apples and oranges in terms of comparing paychecks to other competitors, where all of their insurance programs are embedded in their revenue projections. I don't know if that helps, but...

Operator

Our next question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Thank you for going through all of that. That's helpful. And maybe I'll build on it and ask a couple of questions. Just thinking about the outperformance of ASO, and this is the outcome that you want, this mix shift towards advisory, you overcame a higher cost of it. But help me understand the how that came about? Is it just a consequence of sales incentives or sales alignment pushing this more aggressively than you used to? Or is it somewhat demand-driven as well? Just trying to understand that.

And also, Bob, I heard you say you'd love to get all of your clients to the PEO model. Is there a runway to upgrade I didn't think that 100% of your clients would fit or be eligible, say, for a fully outsourced PEO model.

Robert Schrader

Yes. Well, maybe I'll start with that, and then John can answer the other question. I mean it's still relatively low penetrated, Tien-Tsin, within our client base. I mean, PEO is largely under 100. Play, if you will. And as you know, our client base is largely under 100. So maybe it's not can be a fit for all 800,000 clients, but I think it's going to be a fit for a good many of them. So I still think there's a ton of opportunity there within the base.

And John can add on to it. I mean, I think -- I don't know that there's anything really different than just good execution on a strategy that we've been focused on for a long time. Going from ASO to PEO has been part of our strategy for a long time. I think we've done a good job leveraging our AI models to really identify those clients that are a good fit. I would tell you what I think is a little bit different is the scale of our distribution has obviously increased with the Paycor acquisition. And so now it's not just my PEO reps. We're really focused on this one Paychex approach to really trying to sell the full value proposition. So now I got all these enterprise reps in the past, who are only out selling a technology solution that are selling these advisory solutions.

And yes, you got to get the incentives right. And we definitely have the incentives right. So they can -- if they're out in the field, they identify a prospect that's a good PEO prospect, and they understand because John and I talk about this with the leadership team constantly, the value that is to paycheck, they understand that they can refer that over to the appeal. And there's obviously an opportunity for them to get credit for that and get paid commissions on it. So I think it's all of the above. It's just execution of the strategy, having more reps out there selling it, and that's really driving the results.

John Gibson

Yes. I agree, Bob. Our One Paychex go-to-market strategy. We've done a lot of work building strong partnerships being able to enable each one of our sales reps and our customer success reps as well. So remember, we also -- we've talked about this. We've moved a lot more people into advisory roles, customer success rules and we continue to expand that as we're able to drive more transactional work down. So we have more people even in our service organization that are actively engaging clients and conversations about the products and services they win as well. So not only have we been educating and enabling all of the increase in our sales teams out in the marketplace to identify this. I think that's going.

I think there was an earlier point that I think is important to understand. There is also market issues that are driving this adoption. More and more people are getting increases and the increases reach the point where they decide to go in to shop. So now it's like -- I really like my brother and all the broker, but wait a minute, the price is getting too high, maybe I should shop. That's happening in the marketplace. So I think more people are coming to market, looking for comprehensive solutions. And I think the PEO has been identified, and there was a good note, like I said, out at the NAPEO conference in terms of all the PEOs are beginning to see that, that larger ones are starting to explore the PEO as an alternative to be able to access higher-quality health programs at a more reasonable cost.

Tien-Tsin Huang

Got it. That's good to hear. Then my quick follow-up, just as we go into enrollment period and your broader selling season, are you going to approach the carriers and plans and the pricing and everything else a little bit differently now that it's becoming a bigger focus. Is that a dollar we can expect Paychex to change not the Florida versus non-Florida risk pass-through model itself, but just thinking about the broader presentation of pricing and plan design for PEO because it seems like it's going to become more important as everybody shifts towards what you just said there, John?

John Gibson

Yes. I don't think we're going to change anything. I think that's been very important for a long time, and it's a key part of what -- why I think we're having the success as we've been doing this for some time in terms of continuing to adjust plan designs, continue to make sure we have the right broad selection. If you go back 3 or 4 years ago, we had a lot of conversations about this in some of the changes that we need to make because it kind of went the other way for us.

And so I think the team has done a very good job of both managing the book, managing the plans and making sure that we're working with our carrier partners on the best alternatives we can put in the marketplace. So I don't see us changing our strategy. We're going to keep doing what we're doing because it seems to be working.

Operator

Our next question comes from David Grossman with Stifel.

David Grossman

I'm wondering if we could just go back to management solutions for a minute. Maybe at least at a high level, walk us through the mechanics of the growth rate for the quarter and the year. I'm thinking price realization versus revenue retention and new clients because I know you've had a strategy of adding fewer smaller clients, et cetera, maybe that's having a little bit of an impact here. You mentioned, obviously, the transition to the PEO. But maybe just help us walk through that mechanic at a high level.

Robert Schrader

Yes. I mean, David, it's primarily driven by revenue per client within Management Solutions to the point you just made. And us being prudent on not making sure that we're adding clients that we think are going to be profitable and drive lifetime value over time. It's the 5% to 6% guide on Management Solutions, the assumption there would be it's roughly split between pricing and ancillary attachment.

Now we have this new dynamic where we're seeing more of the ASO. Those are existing clients that were in management solutions transitioning over to PEO. But that's really the assumption that went into the guide was roughly split between pricing and ancillary attachment.

David Grossman

So given what you're seeing then, Bob, you would expect, let's just say, prices at the midpoint of your range, so call it 3 points of pricing and then the balance would come primarily just from...

Robert Schrader

Yes, roughly. Yes, I think that's a fair way to think about it. Yes.

David Grossman

Okay. And then just back to the PEO. I mean, we've got through periods of hyperinflation, right on cost in the past. And just curious what you've seen in the PEO in the past during these periods? And perhaps is there some kind of cadence to how this plays out, the first level response is we got to shop around and see if we can get something in and that kind of stabilizes. And I'm just curious how it flows through at the employee level. I know there have been periods when employees have had to trade down or they just opt out of the plans. And just kind of curious kind of what you've seen historically when we've gone through periods like this.

John Gibson

Yes. I think, David, that's the one thing that is probably Bob mentioned that we're conservative. I mean we're just going into the enrollment. And remember, the enrollment has a 2-step process. One is to take the new rate to the client and get the clients agreement that this is the rate that we're going to offer their employees. And these are the plans we're going to offer their employees, and we've been trying to do a broad set. So that's step 1. We're just through that okay. We're not in the actual enrollment until October, where the employees then have to make a selection. And that's where it's a little more tricky because you got a 2-stage decision-making.

There's a lot of things going on with the Affordable Care Act, which I'm assuming you're aware of. And in the past, that was an escape valve for people to get off of employer-based plans at some point in time. that valve is kind of getting shut off a little bit, quite honestly, in some states, it's not even viable. In other states, it's the increases there are even greater than what in the employer market is.

So we are in this unique dynamic that I think employees are going to continue to look for plans within their employer plans if they can get them. I think the escape valve is a little not as open as it has been in the past. And what we're trying to predict is which plans will they select because that does have an impact.

Again, for us, that only has an impact in our -- in the portion of our book that's in Florida only. Everywhere else across the nation, it really doesn't matter which plan they select because it's not going to impact our revenue, if you understand. They're going to have insurance with us. They're going to have a great experience with us, and it doesn't matter which plan that they pick, that's not going to impact the up or down of our revenue. In Florida, it does. I don't know if that makes sense.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jacob Smith with Guggenheim.

Jacob Cody Smith

Just on the macro. With oil prices elevated for a sustained period and your 70% blue grade collar customer base. Have you seen any discernible impact this quarter for whether it be hiring decision cycles or sensitivity around price increases? Any real-time color there would be helpful.

John Gibson

No, not at all. I would say the employment and hiring in our -- both in our index and generally what we see, it's really not significantly changed through the fiscal year. Actually, I think we're still in this kind of environment where it's kind of low fire, a little higher. You mentioned Blue and great color, what I tend to hear from our clients right now as they're having trouble finding people.

There's a lot of capital investment going on. There's a need for a lot of electricians and a lot of construction work going on some of this AI boom. And so most of the people that we're talking to, which is why we launched the WISE Hire applications is trying to find qualified people for these jobs.

So we've not seen anything in the macro environment still not seeing any signs of recession. In fact, in the quarter, or out of business and financial losses were actually improved. And if you remember right, they were improving in the back half of last year. So I actually feel a little bit better about where the floor is. Now we said all that. I mean we've got a lot of things globally that are on edge. And just depending if there was an oil shock or some sort of other hyperinflationary shock.

I think -- who knows what would happen. But I think you just look at even the data that Fed is looking at. I think the reason why they felt comfortable with the quarter point was the foundations of the economy are very strong, and the employment picture is very strong. So the feeling that the economy and the employment mandate that they had could handle an additional 0.25 point and really is an opportunity to try to focus on driving inflation down to the 2% target. So I don't see anything in the current data that I'm seeing that would say we're in a recessionary or in some sort of problematic situation from an employment perspective.

Jacob Cody Smith

I appreciate the color. And then just on the broker channel, with the 2 national partnerships you signed last quarter, another one this quarter, are referrals accelerating? And how is that activity compared to maybe a year ago? And is this an upward trend you expect for the rest of the year?

John Gibson

Referrals were up 43%.

Operator

Our next question comes from James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Infante

It's Michael Infante on for James. You made several comments about your intentional ASO to P mix shift given the higher retention and lifetime value in nature within that segment. But how are you thinking about the risk of clients down selling into lower-cost offerings within the PEO specifically if we do get a little bit of incremental macro shop which is something we've obviously seen in prior cycles? And are you embedding any of that downsell activity into the existing outlook?

Robert Schrader

Yes. I mean we haven't seen that yet. I mean, I guess if it happens, we'll factor it in. I think John made the comment around record retention, and that's not a 1 quarter thing, that's been going on for a number of years in the deal business. So both the strong worksite employee growth, the demand and each quarter, we keep saying record retention, and we always sign up for better retention than the year before, but the PEO has been on a trend here in the last couple of years with improved retention. And we haven't assumed any further improvements as we move forward. We've just kind of baked in the trends that we've seen thus far. And so that's what's assumed in our guide.

Michael Infante

Helpful. And then maybe just a quick follow-up on Paycor revenue growth, Bob. I think I heard you say revenue growth in the high single-digit range, consistent with Q4. But if I sort of recall back to your initial acquisition expectations. I think the hope was for Paycor to grow revenue closer to that double-digit range with the delta attributable largely to some softer revenue per client and smaller deal size trends. So I'm just curious given your commentary about bookings still running in that double-digit range. If you've seen any changes in terms of the underlying revenue per client or deal size trends for Paycor specifically? And if and when we should expect that bookings to rev rec to converge?

Robert Schrader

Yes. I mean our enterprise bookings have been strong. I think we've made progress every quarter since we closed the deal. And I think the way we've been thinking about our enterprise segment is that we would expect that segment of our business to maybe keep in mind, grow in line with the other assets that are in that space, and that's in that high single-digit range. And so you made the comment about where we were when we bought the acquisition or bought the asset, it obviously was growing faster as were the other assets in that space and employment growth was contributing to some of the growth that was going on in the mid-market, and that just hasn't happened.

As John mentioned, we have seen a little bit stronger employment growth upmarket, a little bit down under 50, and it's been flat overall. But you're not getting that employment growth tailwind coming out of COVID that we saw a few years back, and it's growing in line with where we would expect it to grow. And again, not too dissimilar from the other assets in that space.

Operator

Our next question comes from Kartik Mehta with Northcoast Research.

Kartik Mehta

John, on the management solutions side, we've obviously talked about that the fundamentals seem sound, price realization, attrition, check, and I'm wondering if there's been any change from a competition standpoint or if that is still kind of what you saw over the last 6, 12 months?

John Gibson

Yes. Kartik, we've not seen any real shifts at all in the competition, not in terms of discounting is very consistent with what we've seen. The offers that I see, who we run into is very similar really have not seen any change in the market conditions for us, both in terms of demand is still solid across all of our products and services, we've spoken to the fact accelerated demand for advisory solutions. That's been a real strong suit for us. But I've not seen any major changes in the competitive situation at this point in time.

Kartik Mehta

And then just a follow-up, John. Obviously, you've talked a lot about AI. You're investing a lot at Paychex kind of if you look to Dave where you are from an investment and return standpoint, do you think for AI, you're still in an investment standpoint and returns are to come? Or do you think you're at a point where returns or potentially exceeding your investment?

John Gibson

Well, I think -- so our investment in AI in this fiscal year over the last fiscal year is 5x. So we're certainly in the investment phase right now. I like the early returns that we're seeing. Again, I go back -- I'll just point you to the margins. And the fact that we're investing in AI at that pace, we're adding salespeople. We're improving our customer service stats. We're improving our retention. We're seeing our Net Promoter Scores go up across the board.

We are leveraging and embracing tool. We've empowered in the first quarter, 10,000 of our employees with AI tools, giving them the training and education, setting up a structured governance process. We're encouraging them to find ways to use it to make them more productive and shift for time to more what I call proactive and advisory type of activities with our clients and prospects. And so I like what I'm seeing thus far in terms of what we're getting out of it. And again, I think it's going to -- we're going to continue to invest in it. We're going to continue to look for AI-enabled add-on solutions like the WISE Hire that I just talked about because I do think these Agentic AI enhancements that we're going to be able to offer are going to allow us to provide better outcomes for our clients and start driving efficiency in clients' workplaces.

That's where I think the real benefit that we can -- where we can bear is we can go to a small business and say, "Well, let us bring our AI-enabled technology in our advisory solutions. And remember, a lot of our clients don't have an HR department or many of their HR departments are very, very strapped. And we can actually drive productivity in your business. We can help you hire people faster. We can make sure that you're fully compliant in real time. I think that's when we're going to see the real benefit come from is when we're driving outcomes for our clients.

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Wurtzel with Wolfe Research.

Scott Wurtzel

Just a couple of quick ones. First on the PEO with respect to guidance. I just want to understand what you guys are expecting in terms of this pace of PSI upsells are you expecting it to continue at this kind of 2x normal rate back to the normal rate, somewhere in between? Just any color on that would be helpful.

John Gibson

I think, look, it's best for us right now. As I said, in the first quarter, it significantly exceeded our expectations to think that would continue would maybe be aggressive. And so we're certainly -- that's what we want to happen, and we're going to continue to execute our strategies, but we executed our strategy in the first quarter, it did better. I think what you would expect that we're looking at right now is will that come back.

I think the bigger point on the PEO guide is we are very early in enrollments are a key part that we have to look at in October in January. And I think as we get through the next quarter, just like we always have in the second quarter, we have better clarity on what that's going to shape up and look like.

Scott Wurtzel

Got it. That's helpful. And then just a follow-up. You talked a lot about the enterprise side and the activity you're seeing there. But just wondering if you can give some color on sort of like, call it, the sub-100 sub-50 client base, just any color on bookings trended during the quarter, retention would be helpful.

John Gibson

Yes. So like I said, normal course and speed, you look at the micro side of the market, the SurePayroll brand growing, doing very, very well. You look at that across the board retention as well across the board. So everything I would just say is like stable and steady course. So again, we're not seeing the acceleration that you're seeing in the PEO and other areas, but I would say it's stable and consistent with what we've historically seen.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jason Kupferberg with Wells Fargo.

Jason Kupferberg

I appreciate all the color on the mix shift from ASO to PEO. I understand why that's positive. But just looking at the total revenue growth guide for the year, I know we're unchanged at 5% to 6%. And based on the Q2 guide, it looks like we'll be at the low end of the full year range through the first half of the fiscal year. So you'd have to accelerate, by, call it, a full point in the second half to get to the midpoint of the full year outlook. I do think the comps get somewhat harder in both the segments. So I just wanted to see if you could comment on the visibility there and the drivers to get you that incremental acceleration in the second half?

Robert Schrader

Yes. Maybe I'll talk about it in total, Jason, to be easier. I mean, I think first of all, we exited last year at 6% organic growth rate in Q4, and that was a 2x improvement from where we came into the year. So we exited the quarter we came out with a 5% to 6% guide. Some of that contemplated the tougher compare that we mentioned in Q2. And so we just delivered a quarter that's at the high end of the full year guidance range. So we just delivered 6% and then you factor in the tougher compare in Q2. In the back half, you essentially have to deliver revenue growth in line with what you've done in the last 2 quarters. And so we feel pretty confident about that.

Obviously, as we sit here, I don't know that we exactly have the splits right between the categories. Obviously, we're a little bit off on management solutions versus PEO in Q1. I think we feel good enough about where PEO is that we had to take it up and maybe there's some additional upside there, but we are cautious, as John just mentioned as we head into our annual renewals, we got to kind of wait and see and not get too far out over our skis there. And so we'll come back update on the split. But I think when we look at it in total, what's required in the back half is very similar to what we've done the last 2 quarters to kind of hit the midpoint of the guide.

Jason Kupferberg

Okay. Understood. And maybe just to drill in on Q2 itself for a second, just in the context of that, 4% guide, just how would you encourage us to model the segment for Q2? And then can you just remind us what the revenue synergies were in last year's Q2. I know you mentioned the grow over there and I just didn't recall what those revenue synergies were in Q2 '26?

Robert Schrader

Yes. Jason, you always ask me -- it's always a good question. You always ask me this question, and I never answer it because I don't want to get it set a precedent in trying to give you exact guidance by quarter between the categories. And so we're trying to help you guys with getting your models and as best as you can for the quarter. We knew they were going to be off this Q1 because we didn't give you the split. So I don't really want to set a precedent in commented on the split.

The revenue synergies, so there's 2 things that happened in Q2 of last year. One, I think you can very clearly see if you go back to last year where we did some repositioning of the long-term portfolio, and we had some realized gains. I think you'll clearly see that in the Q and the press release and some of that information. The revenue synergy item, when we look at the 2 companies, we both had partnerships that -- where we had rev share arrangements in place and very similar to what we've done with our vendors, we've been able to renegotiate contracts to, at minimum, get the best terms and conditions between the 2 companies. In a lot of cases, leverage our scale to get better terms and conditions for the combined enterprise.

And we've done that on the vendor side, and we've done that certainly where we have partnerships in rev share arrangements. And we did that last Q2. And as part of that, there was an ongoing benefit from it, but there were some onetime benefits associated with that, that were recognized in Q2. And I think I mentioned in the prepared remarks, when you adjust for those 2 things, the Q2 growth would be in line with what we -- approximately 6% that we just delivered in Q1.

Operator

Our final question today comes from Brett Huff with Stephens.

Brett Huff

I just want to make sure I understand and put a finer point on the guide for MS, seems that the layer take there is some price, some cross-sell and then some of the ASO and PEO, what specifically changed among those 3 to tell us that we're going to be at the lower end of the guide? Is it just the faster migration? Or is it price realization that seems to be waning a little bit?

Robert Schrader

It's definitely not price realization. It's really the uplift that we've seen in ASO to PEO transfers.

Brett Huff

Okay. And then second quick question. as you guys think about selling AI into your base, how are those conversations going? I know the smaller business is just looking for all the help they can get. Are they looking for upfront proof points? Or are they just largely accepting some of these AI solutions just site unseen, just looking for whatever help they can have or do they need some proof points before they're actually putting money on the table and buying?

John Gibson

Well, so we have bundled the AI into our various bundles and we're at the Pro bundle, which we're just starting to launch in the Paycor and our others. So you can get a standard bundle or you can get a pro bundle, which has AI embedded into it. I think in addition, as we talked about on the last call, with our WISE platform, we are enabling certain AI antigenic capabilities across the 3 built-for-purpose platform, sure payroll Paychex Flex and Paycor. And we're including that as what I would say is really an enhancement and that helped us kind of drive the price value that we just talked about.

So I think we're early in what I would say selling an AI-based product. We just mentioned the WISE Hire. We launched 650, which is our HR compliance tool. Those are 2 tools that actually can be bought stand-alone and integrated with other HCM platforms as well, which is something new for payback. So we're early innings on that. But those are what I would say more pure-play kind of AI, agentic AI, stand-alone products that you can buy by stand-alone, and we'll be taking those to market as we go forward this year.

Operator

This does conclude today's question-and-answer session. I will now turn the meeting back to John Gibson for any additional or closing remarks.

John Gibson

Thank you, Angela. Well, thank you all for joining us today. We are off to a solid start in fiscal year '27. Remember, the mix shift towards advisory solutions is positive to our business model. and our competitive position long term. So I think we're making meaningful progress across our 3 growth drivers, data and AI leadership, our go-to-market evolution and differentiating ourselves through advisory solutions.

Just as importantly, I remain very confident in the strength of our core business and the durability of our operating model. We have a clear strategy, maybe actually including it too quickly at times, disciplined execution and continued investment in the areas that I think matter most. And we believe that Paychex is well positioned to drive long-term growth and shareholder value, and I appreciate your interest in Paychex. Hope everyone has a great day.

Operator

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.