DATEV shows sustained economic growth

In the financial year 2021 DATEV continued its sustainable growth of the past years. The cooperative’s sales increased by 5.5 percent to nearly 1.220 billion euros (2020: 1.156 billion euros). In absolute figures this is an increase of 63.2 million euros. All products and offers contributed to this growth. *)

This second year of the Covid-19 pandemic and its imponderables demanded a great deal of many DATEV members and their clients – tax consultants, auditors, and lawyers as well as their clients, being mostly small medium-sized enterprises. “Especially this challenging situation showed that digitalization in consultancies and companies is a decisive factor for business success,” said DATEV CEO Dr. Robert Mayr. “Not only because it allows fast reaction to changing circumstances, but because it provides smooth business processes. With our solutions and services we do everything to permanently support our members and their clients on this way”.

DATEV’s cloud-based services and solutions were in great demand. They were responsible for almost half (49 percent) of the sales growth. For example, the number of Unternehmen online users, an application for digital cooperation between tax consultancy and company, 343,000 at balance date – an increase of more than 73,000 compared to the previous year.

2.3 billion documents digitally saved in the DATEV cloud

DATEV’s cloud-based services and solutions comprise DATEV Arbeitnehmer online for a digital retrieval of payslips as well as computer center services in the areas of accounting, taxes, and wages as well as services such as audit-proof archiving. By the end of 2021 nearly 2.3 billion documents of more than 808,000 enterprises were saved digitally in the DATEV cloud – compared to 1.6 billion of 615,000 enterprises by the end of 2020.

Regarding all product sections accounting once again showed the highest absolute growth with an increase of 26.8 million euros (6.9 percent). Overall, sales came up to 413.0 million euros, being 42 percent of the total growth.

The personnel management section generated a turnover of 269.5 million euros, an increase of 5.7 million euros or 2.2 percent. In 2020 the amount of payslips generated with DATEV software, had been declining due to the setback in economic activity. The economic recovery – especially in the SME section, which many DATEV customers belong to – increased last year’s figure and exceeded the monthly threshold value of 14 million paylips. During the whole year 2021, 160.3 million wages were processed with DATEV software, 3.3 million more than in 2020.

Creating long-term values for our members and customers

“All these figures show our cooperative’s healthy and sustainable growth,” says CFO Diana Windmeißer. “We don’t want a jump in sales at all costs but to create long-term values for our members and customers”.

This success is based on DATEV’s staff: By the end of 2021 DATEV had 8,351 employees, a net growth of 226. During the same period the number of customers – consultancies, enterprises supported by a consultancy as well as non-members – increased by nearly 66,000 to 471,300 customers.

The operating result came to 77.5 million euros, thus being 5.9 million euros above last year’s. The cooperative’s feature to let all members participate in its business development means: All members are refunded 48.9 million euros (2020: 47.1 million euros) from the cooperative. The refund rate of 5.0 percent of the refundable annual turnover remains on last year’s level. It will be refunded following the approval of the annual accounts by the representatives’ meeting on 24 June 2022.

*) These are preliminary business figures because the annual accounts are under reserve of the cooperative auditor’s review and will be presented to the representatives’ meeting for approval.