Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Aug 12, 2026
Par Technology Corp (PAR)
A forensic read on Par Technology Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
0.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-10.0
P / E (ttm)
-10.2%
ROE
$721M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
30.2%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Par Technology Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.6, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-4.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -4.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -8% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+14.2%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +49% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+14.2%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~14.2% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~33%.
7% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 7% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.76 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 14.6% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
FCF ($44M)
FY2022
Shareholder returns.Returned $3M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2022, but free cash flow was ($44M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$455.5M
Revenue Growth YoY+30.2%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+20.2%
Net Margin-18.5%
Free Cash Flow-$30.5M
Return on Equity-10.2%
Debt / Equity0.48x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Par Technology Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?