Restoring trust in SAP VIM: How Cras turned a struggling setup
If saying “VIM” in a room full of accountants triggers a collective sigh, something is off. At Cras, that was exactly the case. The system had a reputation and it was not a good one.
Recognition was low, approval flows stalled, and the process created more work instead of less. For a company growing through acquisitions and centralising its way of working, the impact was felt everywhere.
Across AP, procurement and approvers, the sentiment was the same: VIM wasn’t helping (yet).
A manual double check for 40,000 invoices
When Cras switched to SAP in 2021, VIM came with it. The goal was straightforward: bring structure to a growing invoice flow, automate as much as possible, and support an organisation that was rapidly expanding through acquisitions.
But the setup didn’t behave the way it was intended to. With more than 40,000 invoices a year, the system should have reduced pressure on AP. Instead, it added to it.
Automatic recognition stayed below 10%, approval flows didn’t match the reality of how Cras worked, and invoices blocked early in the chain. Users lost trust quickly and built a manual “double check” on top of the process just to feel safe.
The result was a process that required more human intervention, not less.
“For a long time, VIM wasn’t the tool that supported us, itwas the tool we had to work around.” – Ben Sadones, CFO
That feeling wasn’t limited to one team. People in AP and procurement were frustrated; approvers couldn’t rely on the flow; and teams started working outside the system simply to keep things moving. At one point, Cras even needed two full-time external consultants just to absorb the extra workload.
Rebuilding trust in VIM with small, practical steps
Behind many of the issues sat a simple truth: the original implementation hadn’t been done by a partner with deep VIM experience. The setup existed, but it didn’t function in a way Cras could rely on. That’s how they eventually arrived at Sollitics.
The approach was intentionally simple.
Cras didn’t have the capacity for long workshops or major redesigns, so the work was split into small, practical blocks that fit into their day-to-day reality. Before changing anything, the focus was on understanding where confidence had broken down and which parts of the process created the most friction.
“What stood out was the way they listened. There were no assumptions, they took the time to understand how we really work.” – Ben Sadonis, CFO
For approvers at Cras, every invoice had started to feel like a small investigation.
The approval logic didn’t reflect how the organisation actually worked, so documents got stuck early and people spent more time chasing context than approving invoices. Once that flow was rebuilt, with unnecessary steps removed and 3-way matching enabled where it made sense, the interruptions began to disappear.
The same steady, step-by-step approach continued in the areas teams had quietly stopped depending on.
Proof-of-flow checks hadn’t behaved predictably since go-live, so AP had added their own controls just to avoid mistakes. After correcting the underlying behaviour, those workarounds naturally faded out of the process. The “double check” that had become part of daily life no longer felt necessary.
And because trust was slowly returning, it became easier to look at the next bottleneck: recognition.
With less than 10% of data picked up correctly, AP had been retyping almost every invoice. By analysing recurring exceptions and adjusting the configuration where it mattered, recognition became something the team could trust again instead of something they worked around.
“What we appreciated most was the calm, clear way things were explained. It made the changes feel manageable, even on busy days.” – An Blancke, Accountant
A stable VIM foundation for a growing organisation
Once the core elements were working as they should, the day-to-day reality at Cras shifted quickly. What used to be a sequence of interruptions became a clear, predictable path that matched how Cras actually works. Approvers received clearer information, procurement no longer had to compensate for issues upstream, and the tension between teams faded.
People stopped working around VIM and started relying on it again. Something that hadn’t been the case since the original go-live.
One of the clearest signs of progress was the capacity Cras got back.
“The biggest difference? We no longer need two full-time consultants just to keep up. The process finally runs the way it should.”
The improvements also made it easier to bring new entities into the flow.
With the approval logic stable and the onboarding document in place, teams across the organisation can adopt the process without falling back into old workarounds.
Curious whether your SAP VIM setup holds you back more than it helps? We’re happy to take a first, honest look together.
