So we’re believing that the trend will continue. As I described earlier, it will show up in our business in software and services, as well as the hardware will take on different forms, from mobile to kiosk to the full service that you’ve seen accepting cash in some cases. So again, we’re continuing to have a lot of conversations around how to create better experience, guest experiences in both restaurants and retailers, and that will take the form of unassisted and technology-driven solutions.
Kartik Mehta: And then just as a follow up on the hardware business, I know you talked about a little bit about what’s going to happen in the first half and second half. And in the past, you’ve kind of talked about how 2024 is a little bit of an anomaly, because what’s happened in previous years and in 2025, you’d expect the decline to be a lot more moderated. And I’m wondering, based on kind of your outlook and what you’re seeing in the pipeline, if those comments would still apply.
David Wilkinson: Yeah, we see a strong pipeline. Brian gave you the expected cadence of the numbers earlier on the answer to the other question. We’re pleased with the pipeline. The pipeline is healthy and growing, and it supports what we’ve described in terms of our reaffirmation of the full year guidance.
Kartik Mehta: Okay, so I was just wondering, Dave, so would your commentary in the past about 2025 being a more moderate decline still be valid?
David Wilkinson: Yeah, I believe so. Everything we’re seeing right now gives us indications. As Brian said that the projects are recovering the back half of the year. At this point, I would still believe that, yes.
Operator: Our next question comes from Erik Woodring with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Erik Woodring: Super. Thank you so much. Good morning, guys. Historically, you haven’t always quantified customers signed. And so I was just wondering if you could put some of the metrics you disclosed this morning in a bit more context. Again, the nearly 300 customers signed across retail and restaurants. Can you just give us some context of maybe how that might compare to historical quarterly run rates? Was this kind of above normal, below normal, why would that be, what’s driving that? Just a little more color on how to kind of put those numbers in context would be super helpful for us. Thank you so much.
David Wilkinson: Yes. The number of customers we added this quarter, I would say, is consistent with what we expected and consistent with past performance. We have, as we’ve been describing, put an increased focus on investing more on the sales side and adding new customers. So it’s a metric that we want to continue to expose you and the rest of the market to. Digital banking, the expansion is strong. Normal seasonality in that digital banking business, we added four new customers, expanded relationships with 200 customers. So in addition to adding new customers, we’re still seeing the strength and the expansion of the base, but we’ll continue to focus there and performance was in line with expectations.
Erik Woodring: Okay, that’s helpful. And then I know your goal was, or at least you just talked about getting to about 3.4 times net leverage by the end of the year. I think the longer term goal was to get to roughly three times net leverage. Can you just remind us, is that the longer term target, how long will it take to get there? And second to that, just trends in terms of free cash flow conversion. I know you’re talking about this year, 25% to 28%. How does that look through the year? How do we think about maybe the linearity of that? And is that the long term run rate we should be thinking about? Does that creep higher? Just putting all of this in context to help us understand the moving pieces on the cash side would be very helpful, both for this year and then beyond this year, for any color that you’d have. And that’s it for me. Thank you. Yes.
David Wilkinson: So starting with leverage, as I said in my prepared remarks, we still expect to get to about 3.4 turns of leverage by the end of the year and then from there, we continue — we’ll continue to focus on improving leverage to get under three or under and that’s what we need to do and plan to do with our free cash flow generation. The cadence for free cash flow this year, we used cash in Q1. As expected, that’s normal seasonality. There’s certain payroll things that happen in Q1 typically, and that drives cash usage. And then, we’re still maintaining our range of free cash flow and conversion percentages for the year and so we’d expect to see that play out balance of the year. As we get into the future years, we do think we can improve free cash flow from where we are today. We’ve described that before and we still feel that way.
Operator: Our next question comes from Matthew Roswell with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Matthew Roswell: Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. I was wondering if you could expand a bit on the platform conversions and what you’re seeing in terms of new clients coming on to the platform and also how are existing clients coming over, whether they’re waiting for renewals or sort of stepping up ahead of time. Thank you.
David Wilkinson: So all of our new customers, when we describe customer ads, all of those new customers are coming on to the platform. So that’s one thing I just want to ground everybody on. We did see an increase in platform sites, up to 61,000, about 18% of our base. So we’re seeing conversion as expected in that base. We’re seeing also customers do that ahead of refresh cycles. So when you think about the demand that’s out there for new capabilities, digital capabilities or guest experience, loyalty, new payment forms, some of the partnerships that I mentioned and the products and partnerships section of the prepared remarks, all of those capabilities are being enabled through the platform. So it starts with a platform connection and then we enable all new capabilities through that platform.
So not building it back into that, that legacy core base. We don’t require an upgrade of the legacy point of sale on Prem. We can connect our legacy’s products to our platform to deliver those new capabilities. So right now, we’re doing it based on customer need. As they’re finding new capabilities that are required, we’re connecting them to the platform and delivering those needs for them and a subscription for that new capability.
Operator: Our next question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Isaac Sellhausen: Hey, good morning. This is Isaac Sellhausen on for Ian. Thanks for taking all the questions. Maybe just a follow up on the last point, on the restaurants business, there’s been a number of renewals and expansions that you’ve called out with customers. Are the expansions pacing the way you’d like and expected? Maybe you could touch on how conversations have gone with customers, maybe how long the sales process generally takes with expanding the platform, specifically within restaurant chains. Thanks.
