Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.
$168
per year per user
Vena
Score8.1 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.
N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Power BI
Vena
Editions & Modules
Power BI Pro
$14
per month (billed annually) per user
Power BI Premium
$24
per month (billed annually) per user
Professional
N/A
Complete
N/A
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BI
Vena
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
Power BI Desktop is the data exploration and report authoring experience for Power BI, and is available as a free download.
The Professional Plan is the most flexible way to get started quickly and can be added onto as a company grows. The plan includes: Vena Platform, Customer Success Manager, Standard Support and Customer Portal.
Complete Plan includes everything in Professional, plus: Vena Insights, Premium Support, Sandbox Environment, and Expert Managed Services.
For a limited time, new customers who use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Online) as their primary ERP can get a free year of Vena and 40% off implementation costs.
Vena also offers special pricing for not for profit organizations. To learn more, speak to an expert.
Power BI is a great tool to create reports and share data. However, it does not have the budgeting, forecasting and predictive modeling tools we need for our Financial Planning and Analysis part of our business. So we also implemented Vena for our financial reporting, …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI stacks up robustly on a visuals standpoint. It has great slicer tools and visuals that are stunning. Content is fresh, easy to transmit and the design of a new dashboard is easy. Power BI is useful in identifying outliers in your data (even data integrity issues). …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Vena Solutions
Verified User
Chose Vena
The experience between Vena and Microsoft Power BI is quite different. Vena masters in operating through designed templates that need to be downloaded and viewed. As far as Microsoft Power BI is more dashboard oriented in its presentation. Both have their advantages in their …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
Compared to Unit4 FP&A i have found Vena more user friendly in the development.
From a user perspective it is also great that Vena works as a plug in to excel. this keeps the user in an environment where they are familiar with and helps in the learning process
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
Implementation of any tool like this required a lot of effort and detailed preparation. However, Vena is less complicated than some of the other tools out there. Vena is well suited for the size of our organization and to be managed by a couple finance people with little …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Data Analyst in Research & Development at Sterling Software Pvt Ltd (Computer Software, 201-500 employees)
Chose Vena
Both the softwares have effectively been integrated together to make my job as an analyst easier. This helps in generating accurate data interpretations and led to better results in sales of our products and improved client services and feedback.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Business development manager in Marketing at Aza Fashions (Apparel & Fashion, 51-200 employees)
Chose Vena
I guess they both compliment each other by integration and by both checks I can get the accuracy in result. And growth in sales by finding the key parameters where we need to work.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Business Development Executive and Lead Generation in Sales at Opusing LLC (Staffing & Recruiting, 11-50 employees)
Chose Vena
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 …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
python developer at ArrangeWithMe (Computer & Network Security, 11-50 employees)
Chose Vena
Vena stands out from competitors due to its seamless Excel integration, which allows us to leverage a tool we are already familiar with while adding automation, collaboration, and advanced financial planning. Unlike some platforms that require fully new systems, Vena's …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Finance Manager in Finance and Accounting at Odom Corporation (Food & Beverages, 1001-5000 employees)
Chose Vena
Vena being a Excel add in makes it very attractive. Also, there are certain features that Vena had was very fascinating compared to their competitors. It was easy for users to grasp it as it looked and worked just as Excel.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Finance Manager in Finance and Accounting at Upstream USA (Non-profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees)
Chose Vena
We selected Vena because it offered the following features: API connection with many of our tools (Power BI, Sage Intacct, Salesforce), worked well with both MAC and PC, ability to set up workflows with automated emails, ability to set up permissions by multiple dimensions, …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
When debating if we would add Vena Insights to our system, we looked into Tableau and Power BI. Vena was more expensive per user, but because we already pay for Vena for FP&A, it would have ended up costing us more money, time, and effort to maintain a BI system that lives …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
I have never used similar softwares but Vena leveraging Excel is unique. Excel is a widely known tool
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
Have also used adaptive insights and overall Vena is more flexible, while adaptive is faster and more efficient
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director of Business Information Systems in Information Technology at Partners In Health (Non-profit Organization Management, 10,001+ employees)
Chose Vena
We evaluated several products over a few years and were comparing everything to our existing Excel templates and manual processes. We didn't pull the trigger on any of the others because it didn't feel like it was worth the investment, both funding and organizational change, to …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
As our company grows we need more efficient ways to manage profits, employees, working in a pandemic/hybrid situation across multiple states and more. We have continued to experience rapid growth and found Vena and the Vena partners are the best at simplifying the information …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
BlackLine and Vena are similar in ways that they can help analyze the GL for any variances or discrepancies. At face value, you might think they are separate flows and do not cross. But with the ability to do account recs within Vena, there is indeed overlap. We are in the …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Senior Director, Financial Services in Finance and Accounting at Saint Mary's University (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Vena
Vena blew away Crystal because it was Excel based and had such a flatter learning curve. As a client who has used Vena for 6 years now, I can tell a prospective client that your adoption period should be half if not great than half of what Saint Mary's was, which was less than …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director of Corporate Development in Corporate at Active Exhaust Corp. (Automotive, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Vena
The only tools that are similar are more in the BI realm and Vena provides a much more robust way of interacting with data that the visualization that a BI solution provides. Again, the self-service model of the tool allows for the tool to grow with the individuals of the …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
I did not select Vena, and would not after popping the hood. It looks slick at a glance and has a good concept going, but once you begin to investigate further, there are a lot of foundational issues. Have your IT department perform a deep dive before making a decision.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Controller in Finance and Accounting at Campbell Global (Financial Services, 201-500 employees)
Chose Vena
Clearly a better fit for our company from a culture perspective. Adaptive sales team was super pushy and not a good fit for us. Also, the system would have LET us work in Excel, but that was not its main interface.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Vena
Vena was chosen for its flexibility, capabilities, and current growth. The product is constantly being updated. User management was better. The Excel user interface was a major factor in user adoption. Hyperion seemed to be a new interface to an old product (Oracle).
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Has significantly improved collation of data and visualisation especially with business across Europe. Has given me the ability to see the Site availability at the click of a button to see which Site is in the "money" and seize opportunities based on Market data
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Using Vena's tools for budgeting, forecasting, and budget variance reports, I have saved hundreds of hours of work, and that increases every year. Vena is perfect when there is a single report template that needs to go to every manager with their own department's data - rather than manually copying and pasting each of them, I create a template in Vena and assign security settings to show each manager only their data. No individual emailing needed either; I just let everyone know their report is in Vena. Days of work are now reduced to hours. When doing forecasting, all the budget and actual data is easily available and can be referenced by other reports. Vena eliminates needing to keep multiple Excel sheets in sync and manually updating each one when a change is made. All I need to do is click Refresh, and it's done.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Options for data source connections are immense. Not just which sources, but your options for *how* the data is brought in.
Constant updates (this is both good and bad at times).
User friendliness. I can get the data connections set up and draft some quick visuals, then release to the target audience and let them expand on it how they want to.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The Admin function of Vena, being able to set up the users in the user categories and the different groups and assigning the groups and the task bindings, is particularly easy and very helpful because as we have so many different departments and disciplines in our organization, we do need to establish pretty specific user access so this process works really well for us.
Running reports in Vena is fairly easy, and we do enjoy being able to just push a button and get some budget versus actuals.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Automating reporting has reduced manual data processing by 50-70%, freeing up analysts for higher-value tasks. A finance team that previously spent 20+ hours per week on Excel-based reports now does it in minutes with Microsoft Power BI's automated Real-time dashboards have shortened decision cycles by 30-40%, enabling leadership to react quickly to sales trends, operational bottlenecks, and customer behavior.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I love this product. We integrate all of our financial needs between finance and the operations team so that we have real time data being looked at all of the time. Our operations can reach out and be able to discuss possible issues or variances at any time of the month and leads us to be able to have smoother month end closes.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It is a fantastic tool, you can do almost everything related with data and reports, it is a perfect substitutive of Power Point and Excel with a high evolution and flexibility, and also it is very friendly and easy to share. I think all companies should have Power BI (or other BI tool) in their software package and if they are in the MS Suite, for sure Power BI should be the one due to all the benefits of the MS ecosystem.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
If I had to rate the overall support for Vena based on my experiences, I would give it a 9 out of 10. The support team is very responsive, providing best assistance during both the implementation phase and ongoing use of the Vena. They have been proactive in offering training resources and addressing me very well, which significantly enhances the user experience and overall satisfaction with the Vena.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
Microsoft Power BI is free. If I didn't want to create a custom platform (i.e. my organization insisted on an existing platform that I *had* to use), I'd use Microsoft Power BI. For any start-up or SMB, I'd just use Claude & Grok to build it quickly, also for free. Would not pay for Tableau or Sigma anymore. Not worth it at all.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Prior to using Vena, I have worked with Excel-based budgeting and reporting processes, as well as other property management and financial reporting systems such as Yardi and Entrata. These tools provided access to financial data, but Vena has been more focused on streamlining budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis by centralizing information and improving collaboration.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
