Prophix vs Vena Solutions

Likelihood to Recommend

Prophix is a fantastic system and I really enjoy using it. However, some accounting systems don't work too well with Prophix logic and it can be extremely difficult at times to get the two systems to work together. I would just make sure Prophix integrated well with my accounting system before using. :)

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Ashleigh Arand

Senior Financial Analyst

MTMTransportation/Trucking/Railroad, 1001-5000 employees

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Vena is well suited for companies that have a population of users that are fairly adept with Microsoft Excel. Ideally, the company would also have an analyst who understands business intelligence, ETL, etc. Without somebody orchestrating the production, I doubt things would run very smoothly. Assuming there is somebody capable of running the software, the tool is awesome. Whenever we discuss investigating new tools, I always say the same thing, "If we switch to another platform, our users may have an easier time. That said, it feels like we can literally do ANYTHING with Vena."

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Verified User

Analyst in Finance and Accounting

Medical Practice Company, 51-200 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Prophix

9.5

Vena Solutions

8.8

Long-term financial planning

9.7

9.0

Financial budgeting

9.6

9.5

Forecasting

9.2

8.5

Scenario modeling

9.2

8.8

Management reporting

9.5

8.1

Prophix

7.6

Vena Solutions

9.1

Financial data consolidation

8.2

9.6

Journal entries and reports

7.4

9.1

Multi-currency management

7.9

9.6

Intercompany Eliminations

7.5

6.7

Minority Ownership

6.9

9.1

Local and consolidated reporting

8.4

9.7

Detailed Audit Trails

6.8

9.7

Prophix

8.4

Vena Solutions

9.0

Financial Statement Reporting

9.3

9.6

Management Reporting

9.2

8.8

Excel-based Reporting

8.4

9.6

Automated board and financial reporting

8.2

8.1

XBRL support for regulatory filing

6.7

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Prophix

8.1

Vena Solutions

7.4

Personalized dashboards

9.2

7.2

Color-coded scorecards

7.5

6.2

KPIs

7.9

6.5

Cost and profitability analysis

8.1

9.6

Key Performance Indicator setting

8.0

6.5

Benchmarking with external data

8.0

8.5

Prophix

9.0

Vena Solutions

9.6

Flat file integration

9.2

9.4

Excel data integration

8.3

9.7

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

9.5

9.6

Prophix

—

Vena Solutions

10.0

Customizable dashboards

—

10.0

Report Formatting Templates

—

10.0

Prophix

—

Vena Solutions

10.0

Drill-down analysis

—

10.0

Formatting capabilities

—

10.0

Report sharing and collaboration

—

10.0

Prophix

—

Vena Solutions

10.0

Publish to PDF

—

10.0

Report Versioning

—

10.0

Report Delivery Scheduling

—

10.0

Prophix

—

Vena Solutions

10.0

Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)

—

10.0

Prophix

—

Vena Solutions

10.0

Multi-User Support (named login)

—

10.0

Role-Based Security Model

—

10.0

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

—

10.0

Pros

Management of data within Prophix is easy. It's simple to load/view/delete/manipulate the data.
Building reports and data-entry templates is intuitive and quick.
The user interface is easily understood by all levels of users.

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Stephen Kirschenmann

Financial Analyst

Huneeus VintnersFood & Beverages, 51-200 employees

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Easy integration with Excel. The tool looks familiar as it looks similar to Excel.
Great customer support from Vena support team.
It has all the advantages of Excel without the limitations of Excel like the audit trail, version control etc.
Audit trail feature helps in identifying the source of updates on the data.
Efficient aggregation and consolidation tool. The volume of data we handle could not be handled by Excel efficiently. Vena solved the problem.

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Verified User

Consultant in Finance and Accounting

Real Estate Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Cons

When it comes to crunching big data (many millions of combinations), Prophix's performance isn't as strong as the BI tools that I have used before (IBM Cognos and QlikView). I find that we will utilize those tools for crunching big data.
There are some Excel functions that would be handy to have as part of the report writer that aren't currently included in the software (some have been already addressed).
It is unfortunate that a couple of features are only accessible by our administrative users (financial consolidation and model manager) - it would be nice if our advanced user class could access those functions.

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Steve Anderson

Controller

Spacesaver CorporationFurniture, 201-500 employees

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Sometimes developers do not get a clear idea of what is needed before attempting to design a solution.
Because the system design allows for such flexibility it can be difficult for support to fully understand what my issue is. No two budgets are designed exactly alike so it is understandable that troubleshooting can be a challenge. Having said that...I have never encountered a more supportive and helpful support staff.
In my opinion the process of rolling forward budget versions and scenarios is not intuitive and seems cumbersome.

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Jay Scheumack

Chief Financial Officer

LifeWorksIndividual & Family Services, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Prophix 10.0

Based on 16 answers

The system works well for us, and meets all of our needs. All of our future plans can and will be achieved within Prophix, so there is no need to pursue another product. Prophix has continuously proven to improve their product over the years, which provides an even higher level of confidence in this tool, and future developments

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Tim McCarthy

Finance Manager

Feeding AmericaNon-Profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

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Vena Solutions 9.1

Based on 1 answer

We have been extremely satisfied with the Vena Solutions product and have been able to become more efficient in our budgeting, forecasting and salary planning processes, as well as adding functionality and accuracy that was not possible in the past. Administrators no longer have to keep track manually of each department's budgeted net, but can use a report created in Vena to report this information, as well as see which departments have not yet submitted information. Customer service has always been very responsive as well

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Lori Lambert

Business Systems Manager

Biola UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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Usability

Prophix 8.1

Based on 19 answers

It has been used by our employees with very little training, adaptation was instant

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Joel DeGroat

Director of Finance and Administration

ServiceMaster of CanadaConsumer Services, 10,001+ employees

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Vena Solutions 9.1

Based on 1 answer

One is only limited by their knowledge of Excel functions and basic understanding of database management. One does not need to know VBA, VB, C++ or even SQL.

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Megan Bladen-Blinkoff

Oil & Energy, 1001-5000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Prophix 8.8

Based on 11 answers

We rarely encounter application errors or outages

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Rob Strothkamp

Corporate Controller

Ronnoco Holdings, Inc.Food & Beverages, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Performance

Prophix 7.3

Based on 11 answers

To date, we have not had any issues with Prophix performance

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Rob Strothkamp

Corporate Controller

Ronnoco Holdings, Inc.Food & Beverages, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Support

Prophix 8.5

Based on 85 answers

The support function has been good, but it would be nice to have a dedicated consultant we could call on if we needed immediate help. Often times the ticket process they have implemented is too time-consuming for our budget/forecast process here.

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Jillian Walsh

Budget Manager

Society for NeuroscienceNon-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

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Vena Solutions 8.2

Based on 1 answer

Customer support has been very prompt for both bug fixes and data loading. Enhancement requests have taken a bit longer to implement, but are within what we would consider a normal time frame compared to other software we use. I rarely have to wait long for an issue to be resolved

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Lori Lambert

Business Systems Manager

Biola UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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In-Person Training

Prophix 8.2

Based on 2 answers

Very knowledgeable techs

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Joel DeGroat

Director of Finance and Administration

ServiceMaster of CanadaConsumer Services, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Online Training

Prophix 8.3

Based on 3 answers

Very knowledgeable techs

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Joel DeGroat

Director of Finance and Administration

ServiceMaster of CanadaConsumer Services, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Implementation

Prophix 8.2

Based on 10 answers

Know your requirements. Make sure you are on the same page as your consultant with cost and expected return. Know how much training will be involved and plan for it both in time and $. The implementation will be the responsibility of management, don't expect the consultant to do everything!

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William Van Hulzen

Manager of Consolidations and Reporting

Schumacher Electric CorporationConsumer Goods, 1001-5000 employees

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Vena Solutions 9.1

Based on 1 answer

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

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Lori Lambert

Business Systems Manager

Biola UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Prophix was more intuitive and flexible than the other products we evaluated during the system selection phase. While we did not look at Adaptive Planning at that time, I recently worked in a consulting role for CPM system implementations, and Prophix was more impressive than Adaptive Planning. The ability to maintain and further develop Prophix with no technology background was a huge selling point to us as a Finance department. Our original implementation with Prophix was fairly basic, but we've been able to expand our use of the system by building additional models and reports without external support. I can't say the same would be true if we went with a different product.

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Tim McCarthy

Finance Manager

Feeding AmericaNon-Profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

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The reason we initially looked at Vena Solutions was for help with budgeting. We like Vena Solutions because it is Excel based and we knew that even if we selected a software to do our budgeting we would revert back to Excel at some point. So why not keep it all in Excel in the first place

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Verified User

Employee in Finance and Accounting

Real Estate Company, 201-500 employees

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