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Case Study: Retail / Wholesale

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A cloud-based DMS ensures efficient administration at the Schmitz + Zinke car dealership. Business documents are stored in a tamper-free and audit-proof manner. By integrating them into other applications, they can be quickly accessed from there at any time.

Like many car dealerships, Schmitz + Zinke – a Mazda dealer based in Erfstadt, Germany – struggled with an inefficient administration. Today, the company relies on a modern document management system (DMS), which is integrated into both Mazda's custom dealer solution and their DATEV accounting software.

Mazda provides its dealers with an in-house dealer management system called Mazda Administration Communication System (MACS). This ERP system already supports several business processes at the Schmitz + Zinke dealership. For example, documents such as offers, invoices or anything that impacts data protection are automatically generated when vehicles are bought and sold. In the past, these documents were printed, stamped, signed and then archived in folders along with other documents like invoices and delivery bills that were received by email. Each year, they filled up around 150 document folders – which means that for the 250 or so vehicles sold each year and to fulfill a ten-year retention requirement they needed about 75 square meters for their archive. This manual method of working was also not meeting all compliance guidelines nor easy to manage. So they decided to contact a local DocuWare Partner to find a way to integrate a DMS within the system environment found at Schmitz + Zinke. They ultimately opted for DocuWare Cloud because the solution was immediately ready to use and could be fully utilized.

Country:
Germany
Industry:
Retail / Wholesale
Department:
Sales |Administration |Accounting
Deployment:
Cloud
Integration:
DATEV |Dealer Management System

Digitization is paying off in practically all areas of the company – right down to the end customer. Not only do we save a lot of space, our employees also enjoy their work more since they can now focus their extra time on more customer-related tasks. At the end of the day, the benefits quickly helped us get back what we invested to introduce the DMS.

Andreas Watermann
Managing Director, Autohaus Schmitz + Zinke, Erftstadt (Germany)

Perfect preparation simplifies implementation

After recording and analyzing all business processes, it was decided to set up electronic file cabinets for "Business Processes," "Personnel" and "Management." These were provided with different access authorizations and today form their central document pool. All HR/personnel files that had accumulated in ten master folders by the time DocuWare was introduced were scanned and the original paper documents were eliminated. The same procedure was used for the sales files, which were previously stored in hanging binders with 20-30 sheets per sales transaction: from the offer to the agreement for the test drive, receipts for the trade-in of an old car, to financing documentation and final orders. With a digital search, all transactions and associated documents can now be found in a flash. New documents resulting from sales transactions are stored directly in the central document pool. This is easily done using a virtual printer integrated in the DocuWare Cloud, which can be used from any application. Around 30 different types of documents are recognized and automatically stored – as unalterable originals, as defined by law. If an original on paper is needed, it is forwarded to a stationary printer. Invoices or other documents received by email are simply moved to a directory, where DocuWare retrieves them and automatically indexes them.

All documents available in digital form

Today, the central document pool forms the heart of all business processes at this car dealership. Every change and version of a document is recorded – all original digital documents remain untouched as required by law. Employees can access documents directly in both Mazda‘s software and DATEV using a DocuWare button. Even when on the road or from a home office, authorized users can view trays, file cabinets and task lists at any time. The management is immediately informed about important mail, no matter where it is located. And with the DocuWare app PaperScan, documents can even be photographed and archived in a high quality while working on the road.

The DocuWare solution has proven its worth, especially during the Corona crisis. Here’s just one example: we’ve been able to seamlessly provide access to documents for our external accountant. Thanks to the cloud, he can simply call up the original documents for each transaction.
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