Catalyst from EBM Software in Minneapolis is a cloud-based business performance application suite, designed to provide an environment and workflow for understanding business profitability.
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Vena
Score 8.6 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Vena Solutions provides a financial process automation solution to automate Corporate Performance Management, accounting and budgeting, Regulatory & Compliance, and other finance-related processes. It is scaled for medium to large-sized organizations.
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Pricing
Catalyst, by EBM Software
Vena
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Professional
N/A
Complete
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Catalyst, by EBM Software
Vena
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
Optional
Additional Details
Flexible and tiered pricing structures available - monthly, 1-3-5- contracts, and more
Professional Plan is the most flexible way to get started quickly and add as you grow. The plan includes: Growth Platform, Customer Success Manager, Standard Support and Customer Portal.
Complete Plan includes everything in Professional, plus: Microsoft Power BI Embedded, Premium Support, Sandbox Environment, Expert Managed Services and more.
*Vena offers special pricing for not for profit organizations. To learn more, speak to an expert.
[Catalyst, by EBM Software] is well suited to track invoices from vendors to get them paid on time to avoid late fees. [Catalyst, by EBM Software] is less appropriate when paying vendor because that is not a function they currently have. If the system was an all in one system that could track and pay your invoices it would be an amazing software.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
The support for Catalyst is great and they are usually within the 48 hour response time. There could be a little quicker upload time for invoices that are submitted. They usually show up until the next day on the system and sometimes gives us a stress on time. Overall, the support is quite good
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.
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.
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.
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
[Catalyst, by EBM Software] is a very easy system to use and is very user friendly. It gives you different ways of researching an invoice and not just one. Catalyst also helps to allow us to research an invoice within seconds and eliminates a lengthy and confusing process. It is a great software for first time users to learn quickly and efficiently.
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.
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.
Catalyst is better than pencil and paper data analysis. But the app can be very frustrating when it's not working the way it did last week.
The GUI is very simple. Sometimes too simple, like there is no way to go back in and edit SOAP note options.
New feature roll-outs are mandatory. I understand that no one would opt in to being the guinea pig, but it would be nice if you weren't the first user to try it.
The integration with billing software has streamlined the billing notes and saved us money over having two separate systems.
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
