TORRANCE, Calif. — Toyota Financial Services (TFS) recently celebrated its one-millionth econtract. The captive first introduced its electronic contract system in January 2013, enabling Toyota dealers to transmit contract packages electronically.

“We saw an opportunity,” said TFS President and CEO Mike Groff. “The benefits of implementing an econtracting program were very clear from the start. With deal validation occurring immediately, the auto financing experience is simplified and significantly enhanced for both the customer and the dealer. Customers have no need to return to the dealership for follow-up items, and funding is handled immediately, improving dealership cash flow.”

The TFS econtracting process is designed to reduce contract errors and significantly improves funding times. The approach also ensures that all auto financing products and required documents are available, and allows dealers to lead customers through the financing process. The process is seamless and accelerates the loan review process while maintaining compliance with current legislation and guidelines.

As a result of these design elements, eContracting was rapidly adopted by more than 1,300 authorized Toyota, Lexus, and Scion dealers across the nation.

“It happened much faster than we anticipated,” said Mike Wells, TFS Group vice president of sales, product and marketing. “Our original goal of 30% utilization by the end of the program’s first year quickly increased to a 50% goal, as our field embraced the process. And by the end of that first year, we’d reached an astonishing 56% econtracting utilization throughout our dealerships.”

As of September 2014, 65% of TFS contracts are electronic, with nearly 90% of its dealers actively using the industry-leading process.

“Moving forward, we now anticipate completing over one million econtracts each year,” added Wells. “econtracting has really taken off, and the feedback from dealers and customers is very positive. We look forward to continued growth, improved dealership efficiencies, and increased customer satisfaction.”