Your OpenText Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) environment may have been working well for years. But over time, even a well-implemented solution can become less effective.
Business requirements change. Invoice volumes grow. SAP and VIM versions evolve. New configurations and customizations are introduced. Teams change, and knowledge can be lost when users or administrators do not receive sufficient training.
The result can be a VIM environment that still works, but may no longer be working as efficiently as it could. A VIM Health Check can help you understand where your environment stands today and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce manual work, and make better use of your existing investment.
Before starting a Health Check, here are 10 questions worth asking:
1. When was your VIM environment last comprehensively reviewed?
If your VIM environment has been in place for several years, it may have evolved significantly since the original implementation.
Consider whether there have been major changes to your business processes, SAP environment, invoice volumes, organizational structure, or VIM configuration since the last review.
2. Are users still relying on manual workarounds?
Manual workarounds can be a sign that the system is not fully supporting the current business process.
Look for situations where users regularly move information between systems, maintain spreadsheets, manually correct recurring issues, or use processes outside VIM to get invoices through the workflow.
These workarounds may indicate an opportunity for process improvement, configuration changes, automation, or training.
3. Where are invoices getting stuck?
Look at your invoice processing from intake through final posting.
Are there recurring delays in validation, approval, exception handling, or posting? Are certain invoice types, vendors, business units, or processes consistently creating problems?
Recurring bottlenecks can help identify where further investigation may be valuable.
4. Which exceptions occur repeatedly?
Not every exception requires the same type of solution.
Some may be caused by data quality or business processes. Others may be related to configuration, workflow, integrations, user knowledge, or missing automation.
Understanding the most common and time-consuming exceptions can help determine where improvement efforts could have the greatest operational impact.
5. How much of your VIM solution is customized?
Customizations are sometimes necessary to meet specific business requirements. However, business requirements and standard VIM functionality change over time.
For significant customizations, consider asking:
- Why was it originally introduced?
- Is the original requirement still valid?
- Is there now standard functionality that could address the requirement?
- Could the customization be simplified?
- Could it create additional effort during future upgrades?
The goal is not to eliminate customization simply because it is customization. The goal is to understand whether it is still providing value.
6. Are you making full use of available VIM functionality?
VIM evolves over time, and organizations may not always take advantage of functionality that becomes available through upgrades or changes in their environment.
A VIM Health Check can help identify areas where existing functionality, newer capabilities, or standard features may be able to address current requirements more effectively.
7. Does your team have the right VIM knowledge and training?
Not every VIM issue is a system issue.
Users may not know that a particular function exists or how it is intended to be used. Administrators may inherit configurations without understanding why they were implemented. Support teams may rely on workarounds because they lack the necessary product knowledge.
A Health Check should consider whether training or knowledge transfer could address some of the issues being experienced.
8. Are your SAP and VIM environments aligned with your future plans?
Your VIM environment should be considered alongside your SAP and OpenText roadmap.
If you are planning an SAP transformation, VIM upgrade, migration, or other major change, understanding your current configuration and customizations can help identify potential considerations before the project begins.
A Health Check can also provide an opportunity to identify areas that may be worth addressing before a larger transformation.
9. Will the Health Check look at both technology and business processes?
A technical review alone may not tell the complete story.
The provider should understand how VIM is actually being used by your AP teams, business users, approvers, administrators, and technical teams.
Make sure the assessment considers both the system and the business processes it supports.
10. What will you receive at the end?
Before selecting a Health Check provider, clarify what the final deliverable will include.
At a minimum, you should expect:
- A clear view of the current environment
- Documented findings and areas of concern
- Practical recommendations
- Identification of potential optimization opportunities
- Priorities for addressing recommendations
- Preliminary effort and cost estimates where appropriate
- Suggested next steps
The recommendations should also help distinguish between different types of solutions, such as process changes, configuration adjustments, standard functionality, training, or additional development.
Choosing a VIM Health Check Provider
The provider you choose can make a significant difference in the value you get from the assessment. Consider asking:
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Do they specialize in OpenText VIM?
Look for hands-on experience with VIM implementations, upgrades, configurations, troubleshooting, and optimization. -
Do they understand SAP?
VIM operates within the SAP environment. The provider should understand both the VIM solution and the SAP processes and technologies it interacts with. -
Can they evaluate customizations objectively?
A good provider should discuss the purpose and value of existing customizations with your team and identify where standard functionality may be an alternative. -
Will they involve your business and technical teams?
The people using and supporting VIM every day often have valuable insight into where the real problems are. Therefore, it’s important that the provider spends time talking to both teams. -
Can they help after the assessment?
Find out whether the provider can help implement recommendations, provide additional expertise, or support your internal team after the Health Check is complete.
The Goal of a VIM Health Check
A Health Check should be more than a list of technical issues. The goal is to give you a clear understanding of how your VIM environment is performing today, where opportunities or problems exist, their level of priority, and what options are available to address them. The result should help you make informed decisions about where to invest your time and resources, whether that means improving configuration, simplifying customizations, addressing process issues, providing additional training, introducing automation, or planning for future changes.
If you are considering an OpenText VIM Health Check, consider working with Ecodocx. Ecodocx helps SAP customers assess, optimize, and evolve their OpenText VIM environments. Our team combines deep OpenText VIM expertise with SAP experience to help customers understand their current environment, identify practical opportunities for improvement, and determine appropriate next steps. Contact us today!