Recent accounting-related legislation is having a significant impact at a time when the pool of qualified prospects is declining due to the 150-hour rule instituted by most states. As a result, many hiring managers have more work than they can handle with current staffing levels and cannot find enough capable new hires.

As the pool of highly qualified candidates shrinks, employers are striving to make themselves more attractive to candidates. Strategies include expanding benefits, addressing the work/life balance issue and increasing salaries to attract and retain top talent.

Last year we took the position that legislation was not appropriate at this time.

We are pleased with our fourth quarter results which, we believe, again demonstrate the Firm's operating leverage and our ability to improve pricing as demonstrated by another sequential improvement in our flex gross margin and earnings per share. We believe that we can continue to migrate the Firm's flex revenue footprint to higher margin business, and are accelerating our hiring of permanent placement associates as the staffing cycle dynamics remain positive. We believe that our ability to generate cash flows from operations of $22.3 million in the fourth quarter, which are the highest quarterly cash flows from operations in the Firm's history, and our strong balance sheet will enable the Firm to capitalize on opportunities to accelerate our growth.

With experienced IT workers retiring and too few highly skilled workers to replace them, training and retention efforts will be critical. Businesses need to move immediately to search for and screen qualified applicants, and technology professionals with the right skill sets will be well positioned to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

With recent growth, we were soon going to need an upgrade for our Sage MIP Fund Accounting product. The new product configuration gives us the freedom to grow without upgrading products and without fees. In addition, the new workflow navigator built into the latest version of Sage MIP Fund Accounting will make processing payroll even easier, and the new payroll reports will help our management and department heads stay on top of costs.