Infosys (NYSE:INFY) stock jumped 6.6% through 2 p.m. ET Thursday -- not because of anything Infosys did, but because of what rival IT consultant Accenture (NYSE:ACN) just reported.

Heading into Accenture's Q4 earnings report this morning, analysts expected Accenture to report a $3.19 per share profit on just over $18 billion in quarterly sales. In fact, Accenture earned $3.29 per share on $18.7 billion in sales -- beating on both top and bottom lines.

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What Accenture's earnings beat (might) mean for Infosys

Accenture reported 6% sales growth in Q4, 370 basis points worth of operating margin improvement, and a huge increase in net income -- up 46%. (Free cash flow grew only 6% year over year, merely pacing revenue growth.)

Accenture also gave guidance for the coming fiscal year 2027, forecasting sales growth to slow somewhat to a range of 3% to 6%, but for profit margins to continue expanding, resulting in earnings growth of 6% to 9%.

Investors appear to be looking at Accenture's good Q4 news and decent guidance for the coming year, and extrapolating from this that Infosys may also report strong numbers (and guidance) when its own earnings come out on Oct. 23.

What's next for Infosys?

So what must Infosys report to match Accenture's earnings beat?

Analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance see the company growing sales 10.7% to $492.5 billion, with earnings growth of only 5% to $0.21 per share. That's a high bar for sales growth, relative to what Accenture just reported, but a really low bar on earnings growth.

At just 13.3 times trailing earnings, Infosys stock looks cheaper than Accenture at 14.7 times earnings. It'll need to grow earnings a lot faster than just 5%, however, to make it a buy in my book.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Accenture Plc. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2028 $260 calls on Accenture Plc and short January 2028 $280 calls on Accenture Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS) stock, which makes design and simulation software for pre-production work on semiconductors, jumped 12.5% through 10:20 a.m. Thursday, after telling investors at its Investor Day that it expects to grow revenue as much as 15%, to $11.2 billion, in 2027.

Analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence forecast only $9.7 billion in 2026 revenue and $11 billion in 2027.

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What else Synopsys said about 2027

Synopsys targets a 20.7% operating profit margin in 2027. Non-GAAP margins, which have been much stronger for the company lately, will remain so; management claims its non-GAAP margin will average 44% next year.

These widely diverging accounting treatments will continue to produce widely diverging totals for Synopsys's profits. Under GAAP, the company expects to earn only $8.16 to $8.61 per share next year, but under non-GAAP, it says profits will range from $19.04 to $19.12 per share.

Which number should investors focus on?

That above is the $64,000 question. Do you value Synopsys based on its all-too-fudgeable non-GAAP earnings, or stick with tried and true generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)? Pick the former, and Synopsys stock will look reasonably priced at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 25.4. Give Synopsys credit only for its GAAP earnings, however, and Synopsys stock is going to look awfully expensive at nearly 58 times forward earnings!

This would be a difficult decision except for one thing: A third valuation metric, price-to-free cash flow, happens to align almost exactly with P/E using non-GAAP earnings.

Valued on its free cash flow, which management estimates will be $3.1 billion in 2027, Synopsys costs just a little over 25 times FCF. With analysts forecasting that Synopsys will average 22% earnings growth over the next five years, that seems like a fair price to me.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Synopsys. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.