Edinburgh hospital billing firm in fine health despite Covid hit to sales

Craneware, the Edinburgh-headquartered software firm working predominantly in the US healthcare market, said it was “strongly placed” to deal with the future impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic as it flagged steady full-year sales.

Keith Neilson is the chief executive of Edinburgh-based Craneware. Picture: Neil Hanna

In a trading update, the firm, which reports in dollars, said it expects to report total revenue for the year to 30 June of about $71.4 million (£56.9m), which would match the previous year’s outcome, and adjusted underlying earnings of $24.5m, sightly up on $24m the year before.

It noted that trading in the first nine months of the year, prior to the outbreak, had been strong, with total sales tracking more than 30 per cent above the previous year.

The travel restrictions and lockdowns imposed as a result of coronavirus impacted sales, professional services, project delivery, the completion of renewals and the associated up-sales in the final quarter.

As a result, total sales for the year were running only marginally ahead of the prior 12 months, at about $65m, Craneware added. Customer churn remained below 10 per cent.

The current expectation is to pay a dividend for the year to 30 June to shareholders, to be announced in September.

The firm told investors: “We continue to have sales discussions with hospitals across the US and are cautiously optimistic we are seeing the first signs of sales cycles slowly normalising; however, we remain cognisant of the ongoing macro uncertainties.

“We believe both the company and our customer base are strongly placed to deal with the future impacts of this pandemic and for our products to be part of the solution in terms of helping hospital preparedness.”

Chief executive Keith Neilson added: “As we close our financial year, we continue to look to the future with high levels of optimism in the resilience of the company, our team and that of our customer base.”

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