Background 

The DaimlerChrysler group manufactures and markets automobiles, and offers financing and other associated services. The car maker’s staff currently numbers some 372,500 employees. Its revenues for fiscal 2001 totaled 15.29 billion euros.
The group’s strategy rests on four fundamental pillars: global presence, brand recognition, a wide range of products, and leading edge technology. For its corporate management system, DaimlerChrysler has chosen mySAP.com as the solution to be applied to the entire group worldwide.
At present, the group is comprised of 14 companies whose financial data have been consolidated since 1978. The consolidation process has been carried out according to the standards imposed by three different scenarios: 

• Scenario I: developed for the corporate group assembled under the requirements of Spanish tax legislation; 
• Scenario II: developed to consolidate the perimeter of companies selected by DaimlerChrysler, AG reporting areas according to US GAAP standards; 
• Scenario III: developed to consolidate financial information by business areas (companies and divisions operating at a hierarchical level above the Spanish group; this scenario offers the possibility of including enterprises outside the Spanish legal perimeter).     

Project objective 

The primary objective was to achieve a single consolidation system that would be sufficiently flexible, dynamic and integrated to facilitate to the highest possible degree the monthly generation of consolidated financial statements for three different perimeters and in compliance with different accounting principles or standards of evaluation. A group of indicators was selected to evaluate the degree of achievement of this project objective: 

• The temporary reduction of the consolidation process; 
• The quality of the consolidated financial data obtained: number and extent of possible errors in the conduct of the consolidation process.     

Before the project began, the processes were accomplished with a local, non-integrated tool, the insertion of adjustments and consolidation entries was done manually, and flexibility was completely absent. In the new solution, DMR Consulting integrated each company’s individual accounting system into the group consolidation. We automated all the stages of the consolidation process, to include the eliminating entries, creating a system whose users enjoy a high degree of flexibility when dealing with the usual consolidation perimeter changes. 

Execution 

To achieve an optimized definition of the consolidation process, we took into account the current requirements, the foreseeable evolution of demand, and the possible application of consolidated reports as an auxiliary tool for management control. The most outstanding aspects of this configuration were: 

• Automated on-line and off-line collection of financial statements and details for consolidation from SAP and non-SAP systems; 
• Definition of three alternative consolidation perimeters under three different accounting principles, using four differentiated consolidation dimensions; 
• Utilization of one accounting plan for the entire group; 
• Flexible configuration of the consolidation process by using the data monitor and consolidating with a total of 12 different activities or measurements; 
• An exportable consolidated information system with the following types of reports: 
• • Balance sheet and consolidated profit and loss account 
  • Consolidation journal 
  • Movement tables for different headings of the consolidated balance sheet     

Once mySAP Financials had been implemented as the solution for the group consolidation process, we consider that the benefits derived from this project immediately began to materialize in appreciable form: reduction of the consolidation cycle and improvement of the quality of the consolidated information. This has given rise to some additional opportunities that will enable us to maximize return on investment. 

Benefits 

The introduction by DMR Consulting of mySAP Financials as a solution to support DaimlerChrysler España Holding’s consolidation process has generated numerous benefits, among which the following stand out: the definition of a new consolidation process, the modification of the reporting calendar, and the modification of the subsidiary companies’ reporting system. The experience gathered in Spain in this area of information management can be extrapolated to the other countries where DaimlerChrysler may need to consolidate its financial information.