Likelihood to Recommend I do like the check register, it is easy to access. It is also easy to access information for bank reconciliations but some entries are difficult and I have had ongoing issues with duplicated entries. Those situations coming at times when I am not really sure how I have duplicated an entry and they are somewhat intimidating. It is also somewhat difficult to delete or void erroneous entries or those that need to be otherwise corrected. I do understand that it is accounting software, but feel again that it could be a little bit more user friendly, at least from a fairly "new" user's standpoint!
Read full review Vena is very well suited to handle budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. The platform is very flexible, and I have been able to create some great reports that has allowed our team to deepen our analysis of our organization's performance. I also use Vena for other data storage and reporting, such as creating a site code directory for our field staff, developing an invoicing schedule for our AR department, and creating a workbook to facilitate calculating and reporting on our site staff mileage stipends.
Read full review Pros General Ledger processing, including journal entries and reports Ability to download all reports directly to Excel and PDF formats Use of Grant codes to enable grant reporting by month/quarter/year Ability to have multiple departments and consolidate into groups for reporting Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable cannot be out of balance Multiple ways to use the product including Cloud and Classic options, Visual menu or Standard (Top of screen) menus to select processes, many options we are not using in our simple organization Read full review Easy to manage and maintain Provides a better end user experience Workflows and automatic emails make the budgeting process much easier to manage/complete API integrations with important tools such as Power BI, Sage Intacct, and Salesforce Easier for Finance to "own" the tool and troubleshoot data issues without having to rely heavily on internal/external Data teams Read full review Cons With the payroll process, if there is an error in sending the stubs through email, there is no option to resend without a restore. That really needs to change. Being able to void encumbrance at the same time as a PO would be an incredible time saver. When processing W2 the system deletes info. Read full review I have trouble logging into the Zoom meetings and have missed several meetings because of not being able to log in. That is likely due to limits from our IT department and probably not a Vena issue. Sometimes I need more of an explanation or can't find the article I need in the Vena knowledge base. Also, some of the explanations leave me more confused about what I need to do to achieve my objective. When we implemented Vena, the implementation team created a template for our unallocated lab expenses, but I wasn't able to effectively use it. Read full review Likelihood to Renew My company is pretty dug into our current day-to-day systems that serve our operations (ServTracker, Kantime,
MicroMD ). Without MIP Fund Accounting, we would have no choice but to figure out a way to consolidate those three accounting/operations programs into (ideally) one program, which is basically impossible if we want to salvage any historical data. MIP Fund Accounting is a great hub to bring all those pieces together in a palatable form.
Read full review Vena has been a huge win for us as an organization, as it vastly improved our budgeting process by removing manual consolidation that was incredibly time consuming, and it allows us to see a multi-year view of our organizational budget across all of our funding sources. We've seen Vena's platform grow over the years and we've not yet fully adopted some of them so it feels like there's still potential to get even more value out of the platform.
Read full review Usability I have used this system for about 12 years now and I still learning how to use it. It always surprises me how there is another report to learn to achieve my data reporting goals. It is great to have a system that you have used long enough to feel comfortable with but also a system that allows you to learn new ways to report and enter data into the system
Read full review This is split between usability from an end-user perspective and administrative. Administrative - The tool is lacking in a cohesive way to administer the tool, both from more of a back-end perspective (ETL/Integrations, scripting, etc.) as well as from a business administrative (Processes, Models, etc.). On the more back-end IT related aspects, the tool is a mishmash of modules that were clearly developed in stovepipe fashion. Basic feature/functionality aspects such as version control, auto vs manual save, etc. differ between the code preparation components. It is also lacking in any sort of coherent version control. Not all pages display the context information, so extreme caution must be used. There is also no coherent migration strategy. The process and model navigation has been somewhat challenging for our business administrators, often requiring assistance from Vena when creating or altering templates. 2 of 10 End User - This is better. The Excel add-in generally functions well. Creating basic templates is straightforward, and there is a large degree of flexibility when creating reporting templates. Being part of Excel puts many users into a comfort zone. The toggle switch between template and data mode is not well conceived, and the add-in pop-ups occasionally have issues on multi-monitor displays. 6 of 10
Read full review Reliability and Availability I have rarely encountered any issues accessing MIP Fund Accounting over the years. On the rare occasions when availability was interrupted, the reasons were always found in-house when using the on-premises version. Since we have migrated to the MIP cloud, we have had no issues with availability. Any maintenance or updates are always communicated to us and are usually done outside of business hours.
Read full review Contact with Vena Solutions technical support is quick and experts in the field always respond. It is not necessary to go through a large form to explain the problems and then answer more questions to receive a direct answer, we simply send a message indicating the specific problem and they are immediately there to actively help us
Read full review Performance This software is really good as you can run reports for various funds by Revenue Code or Grant code to capture all the data you need for specific revenue streams. Like I said before, this software is amazing for the tracking of grants if you set up your chart of accounts up correctly.
Read full review Vena Solutions pages load quickly and only a few times does it get a bit slow, only when there are many integrations and the reports are long. But in general it is always fast and honestly I am very satisfied with the speed in the generation of statistical reports and the pages
Read full review Support Rating I have not reached out to MIP for technical support; however, their website offers great help resources so I can solve an issue on my own. Another team member reached out to MIP for support and was helped quickly. The transition process took longer than expected due to a lag in communication.
Read full review From initiate setup to going live, Vena's customer representatives and technicians have proven to be responsive and enthusiastic in getting our company up and running. They have been patient with our questions and frustrations and worked to troubleshoot issues that have come up.
Read full review In-Person Training There are no specifics on what happens if you make one choice or another to know which is the best selection. This is true for JVs and AP. In training we were not given specifics of what happens when one possibility is selected over another.
Read full review The original training was onsite and over two weeks. Since our original onboarding the company has come out with a training website to aid in user self directed needs.
Read full review Online Training Denise O'Malley provided training for the HR module when we added it to our system. Denise also gave us a demo of the EWS module which we were able to see that it would not meet our needs. She was very kind about and understanding regarding the functions we needed with a time clock system.
Read full review The online training was effective, it would be nice to see a more personalized solution. I understand the training is tailored for all industries, but it would be nice to see industry-specific use cases.
Read full review Implementation Rating Don't waste your time with MIP. There are plenty of other softwares out there that will do the job better. Do your homework. Get references from actual users. Make sure that what you choose will truly integrate. Make sure that there is local support. Get training. You will be glad that you passed this one by. Trust me.
Read full review The Vena consultant had great knowledge of both the Vena solution and Excel and Excel functions. He was able to help suggest ways to build our templates that met our requirements using Excel functions we had not previously considered using. And we have been able to use the Excel information he provided in other ways outside of Vena. He was very patient and flexible as we learned the Vena tool and created templates
Read full review Alternatives Considered The HRA used RealPage (I'm not sure if it is actually the one listed above), and it did not work well. I'm not sure if it wasn't set up well, designed for larger property management companies, or just not good software, but it did not suit our needs at all. We chose a different property management software and MIP for our accounting. We used Quickbooks for Heartland Lakes, but as our business is expanding and we needed a better true fund accounting software, we chose
AccuFund to start with, but it was difficult to get set up how we needed. We did not trust the information we were getting out of it, and it wasn't easily customizable to what we needed. We canceled that software and chose MIP.
Read full review Vena has better reporting and budgeting functions than NetSuite Budgeting & Reporting when we compared the two. The Kansas City Chiefs currently use Vena and they had nothing but good things to say about it so that gave us confidence to go with Vena.
Read full review Scalability The flexibility to create certain features are helpful and are designed to be easier on MIP Accounting Cloud. It has been easier than the MIP Accounting classic version. I may have not fully utilized the software to deploy across multiple departments other than generating revenue reports or expenses. As well as developing budget worksheets for our departments. Which are great as it is, but have not gone farther than that.
Read full review We use Vena across 10 countries and 200 users who are located in a wide range of settings and internet reliability. Even with that wide implementation, the most common issue we run into is a new hire not installing the Vena add-in, which is a super quick fix. Depending on our user's location, the internet can sometimes be spotty, but that is outside of Vena's control and even in those settings, Vena might take a little longer to open a template, but it still does open and the user can complete their work. Over 5 years of using Vena, we've collectively only had 3 issues where we needed Vena support to help look at a specific issue a user was having.
Read full review Return on Investment MIP has allowed us to break down our costs even further to be able to improve our use of funding. I'm looking forward to streamlining our accounting processes even further as I learn more about the possibilities with MIP. As we fundraise for specific projects, we are able to track income and expenses by project to give our donors true numbers on how the money was used. Read full review Saved considerable time for monthly close by streamlining reporting and entries Saved considerable time and effort for reconciliations by standardizing input and output and ability to send reviews to different users and track completion Saved a lot of headache when tracking down variances Read full review ScreenShots MIP Fund Accounting Screenshots