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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome everyone, and thank you for joining Xref's Investor Update Conference call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the call over to your speaker, Mr. Lee-Martin Seymour, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us, we've got some good numbers on the call today. So hopefully, I can get through the update pretty quickly. We can move to Q&A. And hopefully, if you've given your name as part of the call, you can ask a question. And we can run through that. So I hope everybody is well. Thank you for the people that are joining -- that normally join us. Hopefully your [indiscernible] ready for the next few days. But despite the weather, we have got some remarkable news to share this morning. You'll notice that yesterday, we put out our quarterly business update, hopefully the new look was met in a good way. You'll see that we have changed our format. We have added a little bit of a glimmer of our new branding that's coming within our new platform this year. You'll notice we're going to start to use a little bit more of forest green. So hopefully, that's the color that you enjoy. We've broken up our updates into the first page summary, our operational update, any news that we'd like to share. And then we've chosen to add in new focus piece. So every quarter you'll find from us that we've shared a focused article about part of our business. And then everything else in the appendix. So quite a nice piece of information that we've shared. It always corresponds with the 4C. If you've been following the story, you might guess that in the future, there might be an opportunity for our 4Cs to fall away, having been profitable now for 4 quarters. Despite that, we'll still continue as a company to come out with our quarterly update because we genuinely enjoy it. So I think you probably gathered that from reading out our update -- over the last 6 years have been listed, but particularly yesterday. Now let's talk about Q3 for a second. The majority of our revenue comes from the ANZ region. And so every year, the festive season and the Australia Day period tends to impact us. If you mix in with that COVID, floods in Australia, political events overseas, we have definitely had our work cut out for us. However, that being said, Q3 has been a tremendous result on all fronts. So our sales were at $5 million, up 26% year-on-year. Revenue, $4.2 million, up 40% year-on-year. Collections of $5 million, up 42% and expenses are up 22% to $4.2 million based on a very low quarter last year. But let's just have a check on those year-to-date figures. So our sales currently are 67% up year-on-year. And our revenue is 66 -- sorry, 60% up year-on-year. And we -- together with those figures, we remain profitable. So we are experiencing a fantastic year. I think everybody can be excited about how we're going to finish it. Each time during the year, we surpassed our internal board budget, we reached our goals and we strike again. It is truly a pivotal moment in our history, and it's being led by our own outlook marketing, our point of difference on the global stage, and the sheer demand that we're seeing for our -- from our sector for our type of service. So coming out of Christmas, the recruitment sector returned faster than we've ever seen before. If you saw the last quarterly, we actually put a graph in there to show how fast the sector was returning after Christmas. And so that gives us an indication of how well the sector is going to perform for the remainder of this financial year. Our revenue, i.e., our Xref's used or references taken grew by 40% year-on-year. What was quite nice was 34% of our revenue came from clients that consumed our service within their own applicant tracking system. And in itself, it grew 68%. So our channel revenue grew 68% year-on-year and remains a fateful part of our growth in the business. Now having sold $10 million worth of services within the first half and $5 million as a sales figure in Q3, it was no surprise that our collections were up by 42%, up at $5 million. And in fact, March was a record month for collections for Xref. So a tremendous result. As a result, our cash balance has moved up to $10.9 million and our balanced cash at bank is 74% larger than it was this time last year. So a cracking result. Digital marketing business, it was again great to see our lead flow grow by 98% in the quarter to a total of 1,800 leads for Q3. And now the quality of those leads just keeps on getting better. The speed in which we can convert those leads into sales and the rate in which we do that keeps getting better [indiscernible]. So as you know, our retention at Xref is high, the clients that use us love using the Xref platform, and we tend to retain our clients very, very well. So it was good to see the client cohorts -- every quarter, we tend to show you the client cohort. This quarter, it was nice. The 2017, '18, '19, '20 and '21 contributed so much into the quarter. In fact, the cohort of clients that joined us in 2018 spent 60% more in this quarter than they did a year ago. And the cohort clients that joined us in 2019 spent 30% more. When we get to the cohort of the 2020 clients, they spent 8% more. So you can certainly spot a trend. And it is a very exciting prospect in our business that we could still grow substantially without taking one more client onto our platform. So our cohort analysis is very important for us because it not only demonstrates our ability to retain the client, but it also demonstrates our ability to continuously grow that client's use of our platform. And it really does echo into our strategy around our new platform development this year and being able to provide back to our 15,000 active users today, the ability to do more with the platform that they know and love. Our brand-new clients for 2022 -- FY '22, contributed 20% of sales in Q3. So that's suggesting that their previous purchases made in the last 9 months have not lasted as long as they had originally thought because they're using more. So adoption is growing faster and top-ups are happening more frequently and becoming larger over time. So really nice to see 20% of revenue being contributed by clients that we'd already won in this year. So on just some news and some updates. If you are a long-term holder or follower of Xref, you'll know that in 2019, pre-pandemic, we launched Xref Lite. Xref Lite was a -- the same platform as an enterprise client will use, but you are able to -- and anybody on the call today is able to create an account on Xref Lite, self-serve your way into the account, you'll get your first reference for free and you'll get to know the power of platform. Some of those clients that joined Xref Lite become enterprise clients because they're using that product to understand our value and then getting hold of us to perform a biggest style. That product has created 1,700 lead studies. In Q3, we received $20,000 worth of credit card payments, but that doesn't, on the ground scale sound a lot. However, when you brought it down to the fact that in Xref Lite you're spending $300.00 at time, you can see how that product has gone at 60 more clients in the quarter. However, previous Xref Lite customers spent another $300,000 in the quarter. And over the last 12 months, Xref Lite customers have spent $550,000. So you can absolutely see the growth of that product and the value that, that has in our business. And that is absolutely why our new platform is 100% self-served and SaaS-based because we can absolutely see the value of that in the market. In terms of our Template Builder, we launched Template Builder in 2019. It's a free tool for people to use to see the value of that technology but without having to buy anything. We used our own data, in fact, 100,000 questions that had been answered over 17 million times within our platform, we analyze those questions, we built libraries of best-performing reference questions on the planet, we translated them into 15 languages and we built a tool available to anybody. So if you Google Xref Template Builder today, you can give it a go. You absolutely have to give your e-mail address if you want to edit that template. So we garnered 450 leads from this product in Q3 from 16 different countries and 38% of those leads were actually coming from the U.S. So the U.S. tends to be a market that prioritize self-serve doesn't necessarily want to speak to a salesperson, wants to create their own adventure. So Template Builder again is something that has been built within the new platform holistically and another huge lesson around the value of self-serve. So onwards to the building of our own product, we are rebuilding our new platform, which, again, 100% self-serve SaaS-based subscription, together with the new platform we are presenting all of our owned checks, i.e., our ID checks, our future graduate verification check and the vendor checks from our trusted partners into what we call our marketplace. So we're busy building marketplace, busy building a new platform. In terms of government verification scheme, we announced it within Q3. We are busy building that at the moment. And getting that right -- by the end of financial, we will have an active API for the government verification scheme. And right now, we are positioning our wholesale vendors, how we bend that in a retail perspective out from Xref and who we bend to in terms of our wholesale partners. On top of all of that, some great news and headline news that we were actually voted #1 reference provide -- an automated reference provider globally by G2. G2, if you don't know the business, I would urge you to go and have a look. In the Northern Hemisphere, if you buy enterprise technology, you absolutely do not buy it without checking that service out on G2. They have a quadrant. We lead that quadrant. We are #1. We've got some fantastic testimonials over at G2. So I'll get to that when I speak about North America, but some fantastic news from G2 in the quarter. So our in-focus part of our business update, which we will continue to do, [indiscernible] topic the next quarter but let's for a moment, talk about North America. In terms of the region, it needs to be understood that somewhere like Canada has only just begun to drop restrictions. And so that is a region that has only just come out of the groups of COVID. In the U.S., they're experiencing huge skill shortages. And the visa barriers to entry are still so high. So a very difficult region. In terms of Xref in that region, as I just quoted, we are rated #1 on G2. And if you go to Capterra, GetApp or even Google review, you're going to see a similar story. So we have huge credibility in the region. We have fantastic integrations with some of the checking partners. We have integrations with the biggest ATS providers such as ICIMS, SmartRecruiters, Bullhorn and Oracle within the region. We are multi-language. We carry Spanish and Portuguese and Canadian French, we are multi-region, you can absolutely keep your data in Canada or you could keep your data in the U.S., if you so wish. We are ISO 27001, and we provide 24/7 support. So we are so well placed within North America. It is therefore no wonder that as the market has run their demand of our service. We have seen North America growing in Q3 197% within the quarter. Within the U.S. line, that market has grown 270%. Now what's really interesting and delightful for us as a business, being marketing-led, it's wonderful to see that 98% of those U.S. sales originated from a lead, a website lead, a channel lead, lead from G2, a lead from Template Builder or Xref Lite, but our marketing outreach is finding 98% of those sales within North America, and it really does supports the argument that technology can [indiscernible] of Australia and digitally acquired clients in North America. So if any technology companies are telling you that they need to build offices and put people on the ground, I can tell you for sure, that's not the way to go. So in terms of cash expenses and collections and profitability in the region, not including our HQ costs, of course, but we collected $700,000, and our expenditure was $300,000 in the region. So in fact, 43% of the free cash or the cash assortment that the group created emanated out of the North American region, which is a fantastic result. And I'm sure we'll able to share more news with you as that region develops. But certainly, in terms of product, it's a focal point within our business right now. So what can we see as an outlook moving forward, anybody that has been following the story understands that Q4, the quarter we just started, is our busiest quarter? Our focus is product, profit and growth. And in fact, yesterday on a team -- on a team catch-up, it was understood that today, Xref, if you're working for extra and your day must include activities that support 1 of those 3: Product, profit or growth. So in terms of product, you will see in Q4 further integrations. We're currently building with our partners first advantage globally. We're building the integration of extracting for first advantage, which is a very exciting project. We are currently building our graduate verification scheme. You will see further ATS channel integrations being built within the quarter and as well as our own platform updates as we release -- aggressively released our new features and products. In terms of profit, more of the same. We absolutely will be bringing the year into a profitable position and maintaining that position. And in terms of our growth, we will continue to have opportunity. The opportunities are very high and the way that we are acquiring clients, converting clients and the value of those clients [indiscernible] are all growing. So we can certainly look forward to further, further growth. You will also see a new investor presentation, we haven't put one out since last May. But you will see this May, a brand-new investor presentation. It will speak about our product makeup, it will speak about regions and cohorts, and it will get us all ready for what is going to play out in FY '23. But certainly a very pivotable time in our history. Opportunities are very high. I think our headcount has moved from 60 to 70 people. Despite our headcount moving forward very much decoupled on our growth. So we will see our OpEx move slightly forward. And COGS move forward with our sales figure, obviously, cost of sales are in there, but certainly decoupled from our overall sales figures. So that wraps up our update to you this morning. 23 minutes, not bad. I normally do it around the same time. So I'd like to open up the floor to questions.
[Operator Instructions]
Your first question is from the line of Claude Walker from A Rich Life.
You had a fairly extended period of fairly low OpEx growth, and then we see new hires. I would take that as a signal but the low OpEx growth is over now. When you're going to start speeding up that expenditure employees? And also as a follow-up question, where were the extra 10 employees allocated like what kind of -- part of the business?
So I would I, would absolutely suggest that OpEx is not about to grow. I think we have made -- we were very early in our move from survive to thrive. In fact, I was at an ASX dinner a couple of weeks ago and most of the companies around the table were still in survival mode. As you move from survive to thrive, you have to replenish the headcount that you were surviving without but that you absolutely need to drive. Our largest headcount number in late FY '19 was only 98. I do not think we'll be reaching any of those levels. In fact, our 10 headcount does actually include a new member to our Board, it includes some sales in areas that we're investing in, like North America, and it includes some development headcount because we're in one of the largest development periods of our history. So despite the fact that our headcount has gone up over the last 12 months to 10, it is pretty insignificant in terms of the overall growth of the business. So I wouldn't be planning any major OpEx changes. And in fact, we really see -- I believe that OpEx would remain relatively flat and that our COGS or cost of sales would incrementally grow as our sales grow. However, with further discounts in terms of the checking space, you can probably see that our cost of sales will diminish with scale. So does that answer your question?
Your next question is from the line of Stella Y, a Private Investor.
Hi, good morning, how are you?
I'm disappointed that you weren't the first question, Stella, because you know me.
I made the point not to be the first one. And that's good because I've got a follow-on from Claude, which is on the headcount into various parts of the business. So I noticed your capitalized development expenses is actually down, while you actually answered that you are in the biggest development and new product launch phase. So is most of the development expenses expensed and going forward, we shouldn't expect much higher capitalized expenses?
So what you're seeing is the only capitalized expense that we are involved in is for the new platform. So what you're seeing is a project Sprint. So if you can remember, we launched the exit product in November. And we're not due to launch, the next phase of that product until July, August. So what you see before the release of a product is a huge amount of testing and coding on getting that product launched. It's like launching a rocket. Most of the work happens in the last 5 minutes. But ultimately, we have gone back into coding and what you'll probably see is more expense CapEx coming out in Q1 next year as we get ready to launch other products, but certainly, they diminished when you go back into coding. So any time around a large launch is when you'll see most of the CapEx. But CapEx is only occurring for that one platform, nothing else, no integrations, no other development around the business only that platform because we'd like to put brackets around what is cost the business to produce our brand new platform?
That clarifies that. And second one is not a question, just a small request. Now that you have another presentation coming out, could you put in the cohort sales percentage in there in some form, because it's a great line of information on how much of the 2019 cohort is growing its expenditure and how much '18 is because you did that for previous 2 quarterly reports and that information is actually not in this one. So it would be good to keep that consistent?
Yes. The cohort percentages weren't in there, but the graph was, so that will absolutely something that we're very proud of. And in fact, Stella, you're not being honest because you were the one that drew that graph 3 years ago, and we put it into the presentation from then on. So it's your thought that it's in there. So thanks for that. But it was -- it will absolutely feature in the new release in May yes.
Great. And the last one is the question, and it's more for clarification. Now in the half year report, -- you've got a new reporting line which is revenue, but including the RapidID gross sales in the revenue. Now in this report, the revenue is referring to Xref loan revenue and RapidID net revenue again. So it's a little bit hard to process. Just wondering, going forward, yes, am I writing understanding it this way? Or did I miss [indiscernible]?
So I think what we must understand is when Xref acquired the RapidID business, what we bought was a product, was a code base to allow Xref to add ID services within the platform. We absolutely did not want to buy a subsidiary to grow externally. So what you're seeing over -- since 2019, through the pandemic, we've grown that business very well. But what you're going to see is that, that RapidID name will be productized. So that ID -- the ID capability that we have will become part of our marketplace. The Xref marketplace will be checks that we own and checks that we vend from external vendors. So the way that we'll report that is we'll report the revenue coming into marketplace divided by checks that we don't own and checks that we do own. The checks that we own are ID checks and the future graduate verification checks. And the checks that we don't own, get vended to us by other partners. And although we take a clip on them, they're low margin, but high turnover. So we need the shareholders to see that we have a marketplace and that RapidID isn't a reportable subsidiary, it's a reportable product within the marketplace. So you're going to see less and less and less of the word RapidID and you're going to see more marketplace, but when you see the revenue line owned check, that is RapidID or the ID check is within that? Does that make sense? So if you reread the report now, you'll see that within marketplace, there's the ID checks. That the business name is Xref.
I see. So in the report when you talked about marketplace net revenue, that's mainly RapidID net revenue and other vendor?
It is, yes. Right now, it is the majority of that net revenue because that's revenue after our cost of producing those checks. So we pay the GVS to provide an ID check. So the majority of that net revenue is at the moment, the revenue coming from ID checks. In the future, the way that will grow is via more ID checks, additional GVS checks, and then other marketplace revenue from other vendors or other checks that we're getting from outside.
So you all have -- sorry, out of the $5 million gross sales, you don't have a figure for RapidID, do you for gross sales? What do you have?
Out of $5 million there is just under $700,000 of RapidID sales. If you take away the COGS you're left with about $300,000 revenue, net revenue.
Your next question is from the line of [ Mark Winson ] from the Hopkins Group.
Just another great results, you're continuing to deliver on what you've promised. Previously, it sort of mixing that North America with more sort of health care and essential services businesses today was fairly a bit more bullish, I guess, on the opportunity in the North American market. Do you just want to talk a little bit about whether it is still just in that sort of health care and essential service type of industry or sort of expanding out further and perhaps whether your -- the potential is bigger or including $5 million or sort of what?
Sure. So here's a public health warning. We've all seen Australian and New Zealand technology companies go to the U.S. and it is the graveyard of overseas tech. You have to be careful. So I don't think you need to go and it paves just gold, you have to really pick your battles. You're not -- in terms of recruitment, you're not talking about 1 country, you're talking about 52 different recruitment laws and ways to work. So really, for us, we like to go in under safe carriage. So we'd like to be picked up from the channels, Bullhorn, SmartRecruiters, Oracle because if you love your Bullhorn platform and you see that Xref is available, then the credibility will go on. So we'd like to acquire clients through the channel. The region is really ready to self-serve. If you noticed in Australia, the U.K., Norway, we can call our salespeople, account executives. In the U.S., you have to -- before somebody answers your phone call, you have to be called a VP of this or some kind of global warrior to be able to get your phone call answered by somebody in the U.S. because they like to self-serve. They like to look on Google, find us, test some of our technology, source our ratings, trial the platform, and it's not until they've done all of that, that they engage with a salesperson to configure their platform the way that they would like it. So you absolutely have to be marketing-led and 100% self-serve, and we are moving towards that right or not, and we're seeing the benefit of that now. Now in terms of the sector, the trust sector in the U.S. is key because we've just had so much success within age care, health care, education, not-for-profit government. In terms of geography, we really like that sort of Texas, New York State and up to Chicago, that sort of a triangle of success. So really, as a focus for us, if we looked at that geographical Middle America running in -- on the [indiscernible] of our trusted partners going in marketing first and making sure that we offer a self-serve adventure for our new clients, I think we can be very excited about the growth prospects in North America. But be aware coming back to that public health warning, it's about what you don't do and what you're not prepared to do and filling offices around America with people and spending millions of dollars on search optimization is not where we're going to go. There is a better way. We're starting to see that way work. And I think all shareholders involved an efficient growth of the North American region is a very viable and exciting prospect.
And I just had a question about the platform with existing clients about interviews and progress. And we just sort of put a bit more detail about feedback to you on how that's working and how that's working for them?
Sorry, can you say that again? You dropped out there?
I'm dropping, yeah, dropping the line.
I think we may have lost him.
Hello, Mr. Winson, you are still connected?
We've got you, Mark.
Copy that. Sorry. I was just keen for kind of feedback on kind of how the price of seeing the platform for the -- existing employees and the exit interviews. And how it's working for them and then what sort of value may see in that?
Yes. I think it's a good time on that question to suggest that when we launch -- only new clients or we're going to launch it to existing clients. And if we do, what clients are we going to launch it to? Because when we build a piece of technology, whether it be Template Builder or Xref Lite or the new exit survey platform, it tends to be a platform that doesn't exist. That's what great and exciting about Xref. We don't copy anybody else's tech. We build things that the industry is asking for that don't exist on the planet. So when we build Xref exit survey tool, there's nothing like it on the planet. So we have to choose some of the large clients that trust us to take that to market and use it. We then garner some feedback, we tweak a few bits and then we go out to the whole community and provide that platform. Right now, it's performing really, really quite nicely. The delightful thing is that it has been used, and we are garnering data from people that left their roles years ago that still have something to say and still have something to put on the table and are also flagging that they would like to come back to the business. So there is a huge return on investment. I think once we couple our references and our Pulse Checks platform together, our clients will absolutely enjoy hiring a candidate Pulse checking them as an employee, exit checking them on the way out and having and building what they've never had, which is corporate memory across their skill sets that are coming in and through their business every day. So I suppose, right now, much like Xref Lite and Template Builder, we're learning some lessons in that platform. We've got key global clients that are using it and are giving us feedback, and by the time we launch the full platform early '23, it will be a very exciting time to go out to new customers and the wider audience. And we have 15,000 active users using us at any one time. So we have a big audience to switch on when we're ready, but we don't rush things.
Your next question is from the line of Luke Winchester from Merewether Capital.
I [indiscernible] Stella was the driving force behind the cohort analysis. So I'll also extend my thanks. So it's a very valuable piece of information and look forward to that in the new preso. Couple of questions from me, the first one. A bit of context will be appreciated. And if I got a one-size-fits-all answer, but just the interplay between sales and revenue. And I guess the main question is, what's the average length between somebody purchasing a credit and that credit being used? And I know it's obvious because you probably get one purchase of credit and used over time, but some context would just help me better understand that interplay?
Sure. Well, the answer is if you signed up for the platform today and bought 1,000 credit. You're not going to get those loaded on until you pay for them. So we collect the cash and then we recognize the revenue as they're used. If you have a look at H1, we sold $10 million worth of credit and now we're seeing a recognized revenue figure of $4.2 million certainly this quarter. So what you're seeing is that there is a very slight gap between the 2. Now we've always had a measure in our business called minor gap. And it's not because I'm from London. It's because we measure the gap between our sales line and our revenue line. If our sales line was shooting off into the distance and our usage line was falling away. It's an indicator that our clients are buying something that they're inevitably not using. If you saw our usage line grow and surpassed our sales line, it's telling us that our sales team are big enough and we're not looking after the future of new business despite the fact that our clients are enjoying their experience. So the trick is that we like a gap, but we like it to be tight and at no point widening or crossing over. Seasonality sometimes means that those lines spread apart a little bit. And then somewhere like Q4, you tend to find that's the tightest part of the year where sales are high and revenue is high because usage is high. However, let's move that on 12 months and see that our new platform is moving into a subscription traditional SaaS platform, where we recognize revenue despite somebody's hiring trend. This is a really nice move of our business because during COVID, yes, we grew in the essential client sector, but we reduced revenue within our nonessential sector. People like -- companies like Qantas and Crown Casinos and some retail companies reduced our revenues. So tabling a strategic moon shot, how can we decouple our revenue recognition away from a customer's hiring trend? Well, we can do that by moving subscription. But hang on a minute, what we need to do is offer more services and a wider platform across the hire-to-retire journey so that we can offer that platform access to the life of your relationship with that person or that talent. And so producing a subscription tier means that our revenue recognition will become far more seasonal, and we can also recognize that revenue an awful lot faster and in a more consistent way. So it's an exciting prospect that we will soon enough be reporting an ARR figure, a growth ARR, not just from new clients joining us as a subscription client, but us transferring thousands of current clients across from a prepaid to a subscription method. Now the good thing with that is that it will not only provide a step change in how fast the cadence of our revenue recognition, but it will also provide us the opportunity to go back to our current audience that love everything that we do and provide more product and a bigger platform and be able to grow that revenue from that 2018 cohort again by 15%, 25% by reselling a further platform to them. So I think moving -- right now, our revenue is tied to the trend of recruitment. But as we move to subscription, we can decouple that, but we can on top of that produce some step changes in revenue growth, which is pretty much what you're going to see through FY '23.
Yes. Cool. Okay. So a lot to take in there. I think the pivot to the SaaS model. Yes, it's good. I think the pivot to the SaaS model, I think as long as it's explained clearly because a lot of business also make that transition, it can get a bit messy in the reported numbers. But I think as long as it's explained clearly in the presentation and in your reports, it will be well understood by people. Second one for me. Just talk about the fourth quarter. You made a comment before about 2, 3 quarters, sales are up 60-odd percent, which is correct, obviously. But there's a lumpiness, I suppose, quarter-to-quarter with those numbers. I mean, first quarter was 120-something, second to 70% this quarter was 26%. Further, I guess, muddying the projection out through the fourth quarter is you disclosed lead flow for the first time to about 98%. I'm also having visibility you have going over the next couple of months. But how are we thinking about the fourth quarter growth, given it is your largest -- is it more in line with the third quarter growth, that year-to-date growth, a lead flow growth, there's a lot of different numbers sort of take in. Hello, you got me?
Yes. I've got you. I got cut off for some reason. Can we blame [indiscernible].
Did you hear my question there?
No. could you say it again, please.
Okay. I'll go again. I'm not sure everybody else but you just listen to me again. Just talk about the fourth quarter growth. You commented that year-to-date is up about 60%, which is true. But there's obviously the lumpiness quarter-to-quarter. First quarter was 120%, second was 70%, third was 26%. And then you disclosed the lead flow in this report for the first time to about 98%. So trying to feel that projection of where the fourth quarter will end, I know maybe visibility is not perfect, but do you think it comes in more in line with that third quarter result, the year-to-date result, the lead flow results.
Just a bit of context, I suppose to how we're thinking about fourth quarter growth.
Yes, sure. Look, there's a trend. The trend has happened over the last 6 years. And the trend is that Q4 tends to be somewhere between the Q3 and H1 results and closer to what the H1 result was. Now look, we make a lot of our own backs because we performed a $10 million sales record in H1 this year. So Q4 last year was $6.1 million. We certainly want to get back. I think you're going to see a great figure on top of that. We -- every year, before Q4, we know it's our biggest quarter -- we -- because of that, we're excited but also very nervous. We can see right now in the pipeline that I think not unlike any other quarter, it's going to be a good one. I think you can use some trend analysis to see that Q4 could stack up quite nicely against H1. But you [Technical Difficulty].
Okay. Mr. Martin Seymour's line has just disconnect, please wait let him rejoin.
It's James here, the CFO, so I just want to quickly jump in if anyone can hear me. Yes. So yes, just following what Lee was saying, we are trying to have fairly, fairly strong Q4. And I'm looking at figures right in front of me at the moment. And last year, we did Q4 just over $5 million in sales given what Lee said Q4 tends to be either what we did H1 or somewhere between H1 figures, which I think we did just under $8. It tends to always for that if we did $8 million if we're looking there at what 30, 30, 40-odd percent growth, which is, as you say, closer to our Q3 growth. But of course, it's a higher base. So we'd be looking there. But in saying that, the sort of tell what the targets are. The targets are higher than what they were last year for the same period. Obviously, there's always a growth metric built in. So we're expecting it to be quite strong. We're seeing a lot of clients top up earlier, to your point about how clients are using, how quick do they use. It does tend to be within the 12 months. And certainly, as the great resignation continues, that's great for us because people are moving jobs. People are having to rehire jobs -- places that are -- positions that have been lost. So we're picking it up on both sides of the -- where the people go into as well as the people that have left and they've got to refill. So it's certainly seeing a lot of clients bring forward their purchases. So rather than top up at 12 months and topping up 10 months, our team now goes out and looks very clearly at who's due to run out in July and August. And work there, work their butts off to bring them into Q4. So it is going to be good numbers. We've already started on [indiscernible] with some good results. So it's definitely in the right direction.
Do you guys offer box discounts to clients buying certain credits or pulling forward?
Absolutely. I think without a doubt at scale and depending on what level of platform they take from us. I think what you've seen from when we listed at $35 average for an Xref credit, we're now selling between $50 and $75 a credit. So whilst other checks in the market like criminal checks of absolutely just plummeted within the space, you can see the value of reference checks has actually increased. So our price -- in a couple of presentations ago, that we showed that our price means 60% since list and that just shows that there's far more value on it. Now, just to go back to your other question, of course, you spoke about the Q1 growth rate, bearing in mind that Q1 growth rate for this financial year is compared to the 2020 Q1 growth rate, right? And right there, we were in the middle of lockdowns, our business has just come out of a 4-day working weeks for 12 weeks. The globe was in absolute hysteria. So obviously, our growth rate has to be sort of what are we comparing it to, but I think at this level, this sort of 25% to 40% growth rate is a very healthy space for us to be. But I think you sort of got -- you've got to take pandemic into account when you're looking at history.
Yes, of course. And I think you're cycling a large fourth quarter, which is that's sort of the other part of the question when talking about what the growth could be.
We do have a follow-up question from the line of Tom Claude Walker, A Rich Life.
I just had a follow-up question on the product vision for Xref becoming more of a platform that does more in the hire-to-retire journey. You were saying that, that -- I think you actually meant that, that will make revenue less seasonal. But I'm also just wondering if that could conflict at all with the channel partners, you're saying how a lot of people like to use lab Xref as part of some other kind of bigger platform. If you turn into more of a platform rather than just a little function that you do focus on, could that start being viewed as competition for those bigger platforms? Or how does that fit together? Is that in particular, is there any risk that you kind of damage those relationships?
Okay. This is a great question. That you for asking it. So let's just think for a moment about what we're really good at. Xref is fantastic at garnering data that did not -- garnering data today that did not exist anywhere in the yesterday. If I did the police check on you, that data has existed in the government data sets for years. So I'm only going and getting. However, with Xref, we're a survey business. We go out and garner feedback and public opinion on individuals so quickly because of the way that we build our technology. So why would we not rebuild our survey capability in reference checking and allow our clients to use that internal post checks and exit surveys. Now that the industry has grasped the value of candidate surveys within references, and I'll put that into perspective, people used to call reference -- call references, reference checks because all we used to do is check whether that candidate had references. What we do as a business is we've turned reference checks into reference surveys, opinion that we can use to grow insight around whether we should hire this person or not. So what Xref is, is a survey platform. Everything else in the market is checks and we bring those checks in via the marketplace? So we're a survey platform being checking by marketplace. What we have learned over the last 5 years is integrating our service into African Tracking Systems has been a fantastic strategic move with 34% of our usage coming from there and still remains a very high growth rate of 68%. However, let's just think for a moment about the size of ATSs compared to HRSs, human resources systems and payroll systems. If you look at our integrations with ATSs, they only handle the recruitment part of that business, which when you compare it to the HR system that they use within their business every day and their payroll system, they are the systems of the [indiscernible]. So because we have -- we are very confident on how we integrate, our applicant tracking system integrations then are tested. And if we get the opportunity to integrate pulse checks into HR systems and integrate exit checks into exit surveys into payroll systems, then that's the goal. Because when you're talking about the integration of the Xref service into ADP in North America, that is a fundamental shift in our business. And there's 2 payroll systems, Kronos and ADP that pay most of America. And if we conducted the exit surveys out the back of the payroll termination, we could then pass back the information to those companies. So realistically, what we're talking about is we are the world's best reference survey tool. We are extending that into pulse and exits. And part of that journey will include us exploring if we can integrate with platforms on the planet within HR and payroll, that make sense?
Yes, I guess. So I guess would it be fair to think about your vision or is like you're going to be the surveying platform once you take survey and checking platform that you're going to try and build out your competitive advantage by having the most integrations with some biggest other people. So I guess that means that you can stand above a newcomer who might not have those integrations yet. So get a bit of [indiscernible] like that.
I [indiscernible] shareholders sell it for themselves Yes, perfect. -- you grasped it. very exciting space.
All right. I should mention, I'm not a shareholder at the exact moment. I do follow the story with great interest.
Very good.
Our last question is from the line of [indiscernible] Rogers from Seventy2 Capital.
Just looking at the sales graph, you have -- it looks like the North American growth in terms of dollar amount is exceeding the APAC region, even despite its low base. Do you see this continuing? Or is this just a particularly weak growth quarter for the APAC region?
Would you say that again? In terms of North America sales number?
Yes, just looking at the graph, the dollar amount has grown by a greater amount than APAC region. Do you see that continuing?
Look, I think any new -- we still class as a new region. We were in Canada. We've got a good base in Canada. We still class the U.S. as a new region. I think any new region is going to -- percentage growth rate is going to grow. The growth rate will be faster, the overall cash sales will be lower. So I'm struggling to see what figures you need because ultimately, the ANZ sales are in the millions and North American sales were $600,000 for the quarter.
Yes, yes. I'm just looking at in terms of growth, I can't -- I don't know any exact figures. I'm just going up the graph, but it looks like $300,000 or something, whether North America has increased by the $600,000?
Yes, it's a small graph on there. e-mail me directly, and we can talk about the interpret figures offline.
There are no further questions, Mr. Martin Seymour. Please continue.
Okay. Well, I took 23 minutes, and you guys took the rest of the hour. I really do appreciate it. I think we get so much value out of the questions. There was a time where we would do this and get no questions. So I relish the time spent with you guys, and there were some really good, pointed questions. I'm in the middle of building our new presentation. So that was very valuable for me. I do appreciate it. Sorry, the call dropped out, but thanks for spending the time with us. And if you have got any other follow-up questions or if you miss part call, just circle back to me. My details are on that release. And have a great day and try and stay dry. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our teleconference for today. You may all disconnect. Thank you.