With Dattos, Mercedes-Benz Brazil reduced the time spent on manual reconciliation and reporting activities by 99.7%, automating critical processes and freeing the team to focus on strategic analysis.
About
Mercedes-Benz Brazil has a significant role in Brazil’s history. Over the years, the company has made a significant contribution to the country’s development, generating jobs, driving innovation, and continuously investing in quality and technology.
Its products capture people’s imagination and are widely recognized as symbols of modernity, sophistication, and safety.
With operations in São Bernardo do Campo, Juiz de Fora, and Campinas, Mercedes-Benz keeps the dream of mobility alive and transforms the daily reality of thousands of people. It is Brazil’s largest exporter of trucks and buses, with locally produced vehicles reaching nearly 50 countries.
With a focus on operational excellence and client results, Mercedes-Benz maintains its leadership in bus sales in the country. The various awards it has received throughout its history further reinforce recognition for its quality, commitment, and performance.
Objective
Before 2018, the routine of reconciliations and analyses in the indirect taxes area was performed manually, in Excel spreadsheets, which was very time-consuming and prone to errors due to the high volume of data. The goal in turning to Dattos was to automate processes, eliminate rework, and gain time for high-value analyses.
Challenges
Managing accounting processes with large volumes of data and tight deadlines
Eliminating manual steps that caused rework and risk of errors
Ensuring consistency and accuracy of information for decision-making
Implementing a technological solution with agile and reliable support
Testimonial
Solution
The partnership between Mercedes-Benz Brazil and Dattos arose in response to significant challenges in the indirect taxes area, such as excessive manual tasks, high data volumes, risk of errors, slow tools (especially Excel), rework with BPO, and difficulty meeting deadlines. The initial engagement involved a plan limited to 20 layouts, but the results exceeded expectations and, in May 2019, Mercedes-Benz began operating under Dattos unlimited plan.
One of the most significant advancements was the revamp of the reconciliation process structure: previously, each type of tax treatment, such as ICMS-ST, required multiple folders in the Dattos environment—one for each company or process—which caused rework and increased the risk of inconsistencies. With the reorganization based on the company’s business units, or “plants,” files are now imported only once per unit and reused across multiple processes, eliminating redundancies and optimizing the use of information.
The automation provided by Dattos drastically reduced the execution time of accounting routines, especially in reconciliations and report generation. Tasks that used to take up to four days are now completed in five minutes. Additionally, cloud integration has eliminated manual steps, allowing the team to focus on strategic analysis with reliable and up-to-date data.
Results
99.7% reduction in the time spent on manual reconciliation tasks
Full automation of the reconciliation and report generation process
Greater reliability and consistency in data
More time freed up for strategic analysis and decision-making
