Ascertra Mpower Project Controls vs. Vena

Vena suited to our environment because we do have so many different budget owners that are in so many different places in our organization and for them to all be able to go onto the software and bring it down in two native Excel where they are all used to work in Excel and putting in the line items and pieces that go with their budget is super helpful a scenario where it might not be as helpful is when we are bringing people on and trying to teach them how to report and map because we struggle with that so much ourselves that it is a difficult situation to try to get people to understand things that we’re you know may be struggling to understand ourselves.

Incentivized

• What i like best about Vena is that it is very seamless Excel integration.
• Vena fosters collabs across teams, helping multiple members to work together on financial planning in real-time enhancing overall efficiency.
• We now also can automate manual processes like budgeting, consolidation of data and reporting saves my valuable time and also reducing the risk of errors.

Incentivized

• Create an bottom-line functionality.
• Have another license between power user and contributor that allows building reports that aren't ad hoc, but don't have all the admin rights of a power user.
• Have a session on best in class Workforce Planning prior to implementation.

Incentivized

Vena has become an integral part of finance and our daily process. Without it we would take longer to prepare results and decisions will be delayed. Vena has given the whole organization more visibility of results and budgets so that all departments participate more actively in managing their budgets rather than it being the sole responsibility of finance.

Incentivized

It's very usable in the sense that it is what you make it. You can keep your Excel spreadsheets as they are then then add Vena's cloud saving capability on top of it or you can take their out of the box templates and apply them to your business. It's truly a super customizable and is what you make of it

Incentivized

Vena is seemingly always available. They plan maintenance windows well in advance and always off hours (typically over a weekend) and communicate clearly throughout maintenance about what will be affected. Over 5 years of using the product, I can only remember one time when the platform was unavailable (I believe due to an underlying server hosting issue from their provider), and they resolved the issue and had everything up and running again within 8 hours.

Incentivized

The performance is dependent on how much data and calculations are involved and how complex the security settings are. A simple template or report loads in seconds. A complex template or report can take a while. If there are many users with complex security settings, that will be a factor in the load time.

Incentivized

I will give Vena credit for at least trying and being initially responsive. However, it is clear that their attitude toward development is cavalier. We have engaged them both via helpdesk and on consulting engagements. The solutions provided are often given without proper testing, resulting in significant time spent on back-and-forth to get issues resolved, or fixing the code yourself. There does not seem to be much in the way of process or project management on their side for customer engagements.

Incentivized

This is the best way to learn and buy-in. The in person effect gives students both a hands on approach but an instruction to be there to customize assistance and understanding. In person also builds greater buy in with your future team on creators. However if your audience is better at on line learning this is another good option.

Incentivized

The training was structured as a group training to learn the basics of creating a data model and mapping a template. While we had nearly 10 participants, I was the only actual implementer so we probably didn't actually need the training and could have just learned the initial skills from the implementation consultant. Two years later, when we hired a new team member, they completed several modules in Vena Academy (a self paced learning course) which allowed them to get up to speed on the basics with just a bit of supplemental guidance from me as our existing admin.

Incentivized

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

Vena is much better for customization and data representation. It gives us much more flexibility in how we show our information to stakeholders. We need our information to be digestible for non-financial employees, and with that flexibility to show things how we want, we are more efficient at getting the point across.

Incentivized

Vena solutios is a software that provides robust tools that help different departments in their statistics and we can visualize a lot of promising and visually attractive data. Vena Solutions' level of scalability is high and sustainable over time thanks to the fabulous technical support that is ready to help us at all times

Incentivized

• Automated monthly financial statements saves us 3 hours a month.
• Moving reporting away from IT has begun to save hours of IT involvement, which will only grow as we shift more reports to Vena. This frees up IT to work on more important IT initiatives.
• Using budget templates saved hours of copy and paste time when gathering inputs from each department.

Incentivized