Meridian provides Croda with increased VAT compliance and lower cost associated with voluntary disclosures and penalties

Croda customer story

Croda needed a VAT determination partner who could work with them to help create a business case for change and who also could deliver a solution that was low impact, high results and easy to maintain.

Croda International Plc (“Croda”) is a global manufacturer of natural based speciality chemicals with a turnover of £1.1 billion. Croda are the name behind the high performance ingredients and technologies in some of the biggest, most successful brands in the world: creating, making and selling speciality chemicals that are relied on by industries and consumers everywhere.

Due to the inherent complexity in its trading model, Croda found it increasingly difficult to cope with its international VAT determination and reporting requirements in an efficient manner, given the limitations in their SAP system.

Before : Challenges and Opportunities

  • Many complex EU VAT requirements were not automatically handled by the system due to limitations within standard SAP functionality.
  • Over the years, Croda had mitigated this by implementing its own series of developments and manual workarounds in order to maintain compliance levels, however this resulted in an even more complex system-logic that became too difficult and costly to maintain.
  • Croda was left with a system that was difficult and costly to maintain and did not provide the right level of visibility and control over VAT determination and reporting processes. 

Why Meridian?

  • Croda needed to ensure that its SAP system could be trusted to automate all the complex VAT scenarios and associated processes.
  • Croda needed a partner who could work with them to help create a business case for change and who
    also could deliver a solution that was low impact, high results and easy to maintain.

After : Value driven results and improvements in tax efficiencies

  • The VAT reporting process is easier and smoother with less manual intervention required.
  • The finance team have greater control over VAT risk and can rely on the system to block non-compliant
    transactions before they take place. 
  • Increased VAT compliance and lower cost associated with voluntary disclosures and penalties.
  • No more change requests in order to configure updates to VAT configuration.

 

"We are extremely happy with the results and are now firmly in the driving seat with respect to our VAT compliance processes. This was only possible with the implementation of the VAT Add-on."

Ron van t Hof, European Financial Controller at Croda