FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — Mercedes-Benz Financial Services shared an update Thursday about its eStrategy initiative — a process to boost the number of franchise dealers that are eligible to integrate a full electronic contract data validation system into their dealer management system.

So far, officials indicated the rollout is now complete for Mercedes-Benz dealers using ADP (Automatic Data Processing) and Advent. They went on to mention integration for dealers using Reynolds & Reynolds as their service provider reached 85 percent completion by the end of last month.

The company also said the DealerTrack DMS eValidate rollout is scheduled to be complete in the first quarter of 2011.

To recap, the company's eStrategy consists of two major elements:

—eValidate: Contracts are automatically validated to ensure they are error-free before being submitted to Mercedes-Benz Financial Services.

—eContracting: Allows dealers to electronically submit contracts to Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, significantly reducing printed material. Development is set to begin this year.

"We are excited to see the completion of eValidate with our dealers because ensuring the accuracy of every deal from every dealer sets the stage for eContracting," stated Dietmar Exler, vice president and head of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services.

Mercedes-Benz Financial launched the rollout of eValidate last year. The company believes it became the first captive in the premium segment to offer the fully automated contract validation system that integrates with the dealer management system.

Executives explained eValidate is designed to perform more than 100 validations on worksheets, agreements and contracts in a matter of seconds. They also noted eValidate can recognize factors such as residual values, special marketing programs and state and local tax codes, and can reconcile that data for complete accuracy on a new contract.

The company emphasized these processes are supposed to take place before the contract is submitted to Mercedes-Benz Financial Services and while the customer is still at the dealership.

The company pointed out that it has been assisted in the eValidate integration by Open Dealer Exchange, which provides the pipeline for ADP and Reynolds & Reynolds to send deal information to the captive. The company mentioned Open Dealer Exchange is a joint venture between ADP and Reynolds & Reynolds.

Executives went on to explain dealer eligibility for eValidate means that Mercedes-Benz Financial and the dealer service provider have worked together on a state-by-state basis on forms and information transfer to ensure that eValidate recognizes laws and tax codes of the state in which a dealer resides.

A pair of dealer executives shared their experiences with the new processes.

"Using eValidate eliminates contract mistakes for us and inconvenience for our customers," stated Nadia Hamda, finance director of Downtown LA Motors in Los Angeles.

"We are in a very competitive market and having a tool like eValidate checking contracts in just seconds, telling us if they are valid or not, and giving the reasons, makes a positive impact on our customer service," Hamda continued.

Added Patricia Ballin, finance director for Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach, Calif., "eValidate is a valuable tool in our contract funding process. Our funding turnaround time has never been faster, and our contract discrepancies are extremely low. I would highly recommend eValidate to all Mercedes-Benz dealerships."