Shares of Coupa Software Inc. rose in after-hours trading today after the payments software firm beat expectations in its quarterly earnings report.

For the quarter ending Oct. 31, Coupa reported a profit before costs such as stock compensation of revenue of $11.6 million, or 18 cents a share, on a revenue rise of 31%, to $133 million, from a year ago. Analysts had been predicting an adjusted profit of three cents a share on revenue of $124 million.

Coupa’s better-than-expected results were boosted by subscription revenue that rose 31%, to $118.1 million.

For the quarter ahead, Coupa predicted an adjusted profit of 11 to 13 centss on revenue of $145 million to $146 million. For its full fiscal year, the prediction is now an adjusted profit of 47 to 49 cents a share on $523 million to $524 million in revenue. Analysts had been predicting a penny-a-share profit on revenue of $130 million for the forthcoming quarter and 45 cents a share on revenue of $501 million for the year.

In Coupa’s earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Rob Bernshteyn (pictured) said that the company improved trends in the third quarter “despite the persistent pandemic situation.” It’s an odd thing to say given that cloud-based services have thrived thanks to COVID-19 and its related lockdowns that have driven remote working and related cloud service adoption.

Bernshteyn added that the company is thriving by assisting companies that are working on providing humanitarian assistance during COVID-19, specifically citing its work with World Vision. Bernshteyn also said the company’s support of diversity and inclusion is making an impact.

“Today, we have more than 30 uniquely designed configuration settings in our platform to support diversity for our customers’ spend management program,” Bernshteyn said. “Customers can easily find and engage with minority-owned businesses on our platform and leverage the power of community intelligence to make selections that form last thing business relationships.”

Investors were pleased with the earnings report, sending Coupa’s shares up nearly 4% in after-hours trading. The share price is the company’s highest on record.

Photo: Coupa