Financial management and human capital management software firm Workday Inc. topped Wall Street estimates for another quarter thanks to strong subscription revenue growth.

The company booked total revenue of $938.1 million in the third quarter, up 26% over the same quarter of 2018, with subscription revenue coming in at $798.5 million, up 28%.

Workdays’ operating loss marginally improved to $110.3 million, from $182.8 million a year ago. Adjusted for costs such as stock compensation, operating income for the quarter came in at $142.6 million, soaring over $49.7 million a year ago.

Net loss per share was 51 cents compared with 70 cents per share a year ago, while the adjusted profit was 53 cents per share, compared with 31 cents last year. Analysts had predicted earnings of 31 cents per share on sales of $920.1 million.

Operating cash flow for the company was $258 million, a big improvement from $114.3 million in the same period last year.

Looking ahead, Workday forecast fourth-quarter revenue to be $828 million to $830 million, slightly ahead of analysts’ average predictions of $828 million. For its fiscal year 2020, the company predicted revenue of $3.085 billion to $3.087 billion.

“Companies of all sizes and industries continue to select Workday, and we’re thrilled that as of the end of Q3, we have more than 3,000 customers and 42 million users,” Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief executive officer of Workday, said in a statement.

As MarketWatch noted, it was the 12th straight quarter in which Workday had beaten earnings expectations, but shares had declined in nine of those cases, including seven of the last eight.

This quarter was no exception. Chief Financial Officer Robynne Sisco said on an investor call after the earnings announcement that Workday’s recent acquisition of e-sourcing solutions firm Scout RFP Inc. for $540 million in November along with new products currently in the pipeline would not immediately boost the company’s earnings.

“Given the timing of these launches and the time it takes a new product to impact subscription revenue growth at our scale, these emerging products won’t start to have any notable impact on our revenue growth until fiscal 2022 and beyond,” Sisco said.

Workday shares fell less than 2% in after-hours trading.

Image: Workday