Jack Henry & Associates (NASDAQ:JKHY) and Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Financial Contrast

Jack Henry & Associates (NASDAQ:JKHY) and Accenture (NYSE:ACN) are both large-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and earnings.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Jack Henry & Associates and Accenture, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Jack Henry & Associates	0	8	3	1	2.42
Accenture	1	11	15	1	2.57

Jack Henry & Associates presently has a consensus price target of $179.56, suggesting a potential upside of 5.26%. Accenture has a consensus price target of $294.25, suggesting a potential upside of 20.62%. Given Accenture’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Accenture is more favorable than Jack Henry & Associates.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

98.8% of Jack Henry & Associates shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 75.1% of Accenture shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Jack Henry & Associates shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.0% of Accenture shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Jack Henry & Associates pays an annual dividend of $2.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Accenture pays an annual dividend of $6.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Jack Henry & Associates pays out 35.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Accenture pays out 53.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Jack Henry & Associates has raised its dividend for 35 consecutive years and Accenture has raised its dividend for 20 consecutive years.

Risk and Volatility

Jack Henry & Associates has a beta of 0.76, meaning that its stock price is 24% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Accenture has a beta of 1.28, meaning that its stock price is 28% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Jack Henry & Associates and Accenture’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Jack Henry & Associates	19.19%	22.60%	15.43%
Accenture	11.02%	26.45%	13.21%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Jack Henry & Associates and Accenture”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Jack Henry & Associates	$2.42 billion	5.10	$455.75 million	$6.58	25.92
Accenture	$69.67 billion	2.31	$7.68 billion	$12.15	20.08

Accenture has higher revenue and earnings than Jack Henry & Associates. Accenture is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Jack Henry & Associates, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Accenture beats Jack Henry & Associates on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Jack Henry & Associates

Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. is a financial technology company, which engages in the provision of technology solutions and payment processing services. It operates through the following segments: Core, Payments, Complementary, and Corporate and Other. The Core segment provides core information processing platforms to banks and credit unions which consist of integrated applications required to process deposit, loan, and general ledger transactions, and maintain centralized customer and member information. The Payments segment includes secure payment processing tools and services including ATM, debit, and credit card processing services, online and mobile bill pay solutions, ACH origination and remote deposit capture processing, and risk management products and services. The Complementary segment focuses on additional software, hosted processing platforms, and services including call center support, network security management, consulting, and monitoring. The Corporate and Other segment offers hardware and other products. The company was founded by Jerry D. Hall and John W. Henry in 1976 and is headquartered in Monett, MO.

About Accenture

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services. It also provides change management, HR transformation and delivery, organization strategy and design, talent strategy and development, and leadership and culture services; digital commerce; infrastructure services, including cloud infrastructure managed, cloud and data center, network, digital workplace, database platforms, service management, and cloud and infrastructure security services; data-enabled operating models; technology consulting and AI services; and technology consulting services. In addition, the company offers engineering and R&D digitization, smart connected products, product as-a-service enablement, capital projects, intelligent asset management, digital industrial workforce, and autonomous robotic systems; business process outsourcing; and services related to technology innovation. Further, it provides cloud, ecosystem, marketing, security, supply chain management, zero-based transformation, customer experience, finance consulting, mergers and acquisitions, and sustainability services. The company has a collaboration with Salesforce, Inc. to develop Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud. The company was founded in 1951 and is based in Dublin, Ireland.