MCP for DATEV
Query DATEV data in the chat without taking it out of DATEV
Accounting and tax firms and accounting departments sit on decades of structured data that nobody can get at in day-to-day work without clicking through three screens. An MCP server makes these records queryable via your AI platform without a single receipt leaving DATEV.
The way in: DATEVconnect
The connection runs via DATEVconnect, the local interface of the DATEV installation. The MCP server talks to DATEVconnect in the internal network. Only the MCP server is reachable from outside. This is not a detail but an explicit recommendation from DATEV: direct internet access to DATEVconnect is not intended.
For document management, the DATEVconnect document management module is added. The search capabilities this module provides differ from what the DATEV user interface can do. Full-text search across document contents is not available in every case. We clarify this before the proposal, because this is exactly where projects fail.
Permissions: the point at which most pilots become unusable
DATEVconnect works with the permissions of the Windows user under which it runs, and this user must be linked to a DATEV user. A pilot with a single technical user therefore sees everything or nothing, and does not reproduce your client separation.
In production, this means: one service account per person or per permission group, and a mapping in the MCP server that maps the requesting user to the correct account. Whoever asks a question gets exactly the documents they would also be allowed to see in DATEV. This is more work than shared access, and it is the reason we list it separately in the proposal.
What firms actually use it for
- Searching documents across years
- “Find all incoming invoices from this supplier since 2023 over EUR 5,000” instead of a manual search across several financial years.
- Preparing client meetings
- Have anomalies and developments in the records summarised before the meeting takes place.
- Onboarding new staff
- Questions about the client base in plain language, without anyone having to learn DATEV navigation first.
- Deadlines and completeness
- Find missing documents and open points across the records instead of tracking them in an Excel list.
Data protection
As soon as a platform provider can access client data, a data processing agreement (DPA) is required. What matters is the possibility of access, not actual storage, according to the German Data Protection Conference (DSK) in short paper no. 13. The frequently heard view that a DPA is not needed because nothing is stored is not tenable.
In addition, there is the professional law side: for auditors and tax advisers, the duty of confidentiality under Section 203 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) must be taken into account. We provide the architecture information your data protection officer needs for the assessment, and state openly what we cannot assess.
Limits we state up front
- No write access to DATEV. No postings, no changes to master data.
- No circumvention of the DATEV permission model. What a user is not allowed to see in DATEV, they do not see in the chat either.
- No commitment to full-text search across document contents before it has been verified for your DATEV installation.
- No copy of the client records into a search database.
Frequently asked questions
Does our DATEV data leave the firm?
The records stay in DATEV. The MCP server reads, per request, exactly the data needed to answer it and passes it to the language model. Nothing is exported in advance, mirrored or used for training.
Will every employee then see all clients?
No, provided the permission model has been implemented for production. DATEVconnect works with the permissions of the linked DATEV user. With one service account per person or permission group, each request sees exactly the portion that this user would also be allowed to see in DATEV.
Which DATEV components are required?
DATEVconnect in the appropriate edition, plus the document management module for document access. Which items your installation specifically needs and which of them are already licensed, we check in the feasibility phase with your IT or your hosting provider.
Does this also work with DATEV in the cloud?
That depends on your operating model. With hosted installations, the hosting provider needs to be involved early, because the MCP server needs network access to DATEVconnect. We hold this conversation together with the hosting provider in the feasibility phase.
Do we need a DPA with the AI provider?
As a rule, yes. What matters is that the provider can access personal data. Short paper no. 13 of the German Data Protection Conference (DSK) focuses on this possibility of access. A DPA is not dispensable simply because no permanent storage takes place.
Let’s check whether it holds up for your systems.
The feasibility study takes one to two weeks and ends with a document you can keep working with even without us. If an interface cannot meet your requirement, it says so.
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