IFS Applications vs. Vena

Order to cash processes and scenario are implemented natively in IFS. An HR module exists for career management also (objectives, comportments, training, mobility) but may be improved in terms of workflow validation (e.g. training to validate by a manager) or reporting.

Incentivized

Vena has worked really great for us to set up automated financial statements that automatically update each month with no effort. The budgeting process has worked out really well and has strong capabilities for what most organizations need. Their dashboard has a lot of great capabilities, though sometimes requires additional Vena support to set up properly. We like using their account reconciliation tool as a relatively unexpensive add-on, but may not be the best in class among reconciliation tools

Incentivized

• It supports the web version in most later versions.
• It provides various mobile versions of the applications as mobile apps to cater various areas.
• IFS Applications allows easy configurations of the application without going for costly customization.
• It covers almost every areas of an industrial company so any other third party applications are minimum.
• It allows safer and easier built-in options for integrations capabilities.

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

• Handling massive volumes of data can be improved.

Incentivized

• It could improve the ease of implementation; it could take a long for an inexperienced IT team.
• From the ERP system perspective, it can be linked easily, but it has room for improvement when you make core changes and require a Vena specialist again.
• Some administrators can get confused while working on Excel implementation; it has complicated technical requirements.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The system is very difficult to use, overly complex, and difficult to learn. It also has limitations that are hard to overcome.

Vena allows any solution to be built the way you need it to work, and there are many different ways of going about what you need it to do. It may require time to build, test, and rebuild and retest, before the best solution to what you are trying to accomplish is reached. It is best for those who are Excel proficient because Vena utilizes and enhances the usage of existing Excel functions. For those who are not Excel proficient, the journey may be more challenging, however, with help of EMS, you can get your planning and reporting to a dynamic state.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

We have been unable to get answers to our questions, solutions to our problems, and they don't seem interested in working in the construction industry.

They are very quick to respond when you submit a ticket and typically fix issues quickly as well. I only didn't give this a 10 because there is still an open issue with our Salesforce connection that we've been waiting on now for a few months.

Incentivized

Our initial in person training was a little rough b/c I felt like our trainer wanted to focus on maximizing Vena rather than understanding what we were needing for our organization. He was very responsive and added insights, but could have worked to understand our needs a little better.

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

IFS Applications is based on Agile Technology which allows organizations to reconfigure user interface as per user requirements and make it user-friendly. Other applications are lagging on many fronts like User Interface, Online help document availability, Implementation methodology, and post-implementation expenses.

Vena Solutions stands out due to its familiar Excel-based interface, making it easy for our team to adopt without extensive training. Compared to alternatives like Anaplan and Oracle Hyperion, Vena's strong customer support and efficient automation have significantly reduced our budgeting cycle time. We chose Vena for its seamless integration with our existing systems and substantial time-saving benefits, ultimately enhancing our decision-making process.

Incentivized

We onboarded the entire company in a very short time frame to complete the full company budget cycle the first year out of the gate. Now we are looking to add more data and the ETL tool makes it easy to backload data into the cube as if was always there. Vena has been very scalable for our needs.

Incentivized

• Reporting is now centralized and managed. Previously, reports were outside the information systems and there was a risk of incoherence.
• Accounting controls are now in place on the overall processes, including production, which helped the company to reduce closing periods or to produce more easily official mandatory accounting files yearly.
• Interfaces between the CRM forecast tool and IFS helped to keep the tools in sync, and to decrease the processing times prior to production launch.

Incentivized

• Eliminated the necessity to manually combine multiple Excel budget worksheets into one file in order to compile an org-wide budget
• Allows end-users to be self-sufficient by having the ability to drill into transaction-level detail and conduct ad-hoc analyses
• Created more bandwidth in the FP&A team to spend more time on more meaningful analysis

Incentivized