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Vena Solutions provides a financial process automation solution to automate Corporate Performance Management, Regulatory & Compliance, and other finance-related processes.Vena SolutionsFlexibility, Performance, and User Adoption2018-09-28T06:36:00.582ZVena is being used as our annual budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, management reporting and financial analysis tool. Vena is used heavily on a daily basis by the finance team as we perform analysis and drive insights to our business and is the tool the entire business uses to plan on an annual basis and forecast periodically. Vena was implemented to provide a consolidated planning tool where we could eliminate disparate spreadsheets and control the process much easier. In addition, Vena gave us the flexibility in reporting financial results in our business that our ERP system was not well equipped to do. We expanded the use of Vena to consolidations recently given the positive experience we've had with the tool.,Flexibility - Vena is incredibly flexible for a changing business environment. The user interface allows the data model to be adjusted to meet the changing needs of thee business. In addition, the ability to create reports and templates and manipulate data is incredibly easy. It has helped us get to insights through analytics much quicker than we have been able to before.
Performance - Vena's speed reliability is great. We have several data sources and allocations/calculations we preform in the tool that require a lot of data and power and the tool's ability has not disappointed. One of the projects we implemented required data files with data files that were very large and Vena's performance is top notch.
User Acceptance / Adoption - The user interface of native Excel allows for widespread adoption of the tool across a large user base. Because the tool uses a software that nearly everyone in the business world is comfortable with, adopting the tool is easy. By placing a database on top of Excel is nearly invisible to the users of the product, it provides the value of real-time data availability in a comfortable interface.,Vena has met my needs all along the way. I've had several requests for development in the tool that I've submitted through the interface that the product team has taken into account and put on their development path. They have taken customer feedback very seriously and improve every day based on the feedback they receive.,10,I attribute some of the quicker business decisions we've been able to make to the ability of getting data and insights quicker using Vena. Our ability to analyze data has enhanced with the tool.
We've been able to streamline our business planning cycle significantly with the use of Vena. All of our annual planning runs through the tool and we've automated portions of our planning to help with the efficiency of the process. The workflow capability has also helped us hold our users accountable and understand where a process is at any given point in time.,Anaplan, Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management, Adaptive Insights and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)Matthew BlickleyA Simply Amazing Consolidation Tool2018-05-29T17:44:46.700ZWe acquired a couple of companies in different geographies. Each of these companies' finance departments uses different IT systems, however, the common thing among all finance teams is the use of Excel. We chose Vena Solutions for the very reason, familiar Excel look and feel and its compatibility with Excel. Vena easily integrates with Microsoft Excel. All our finance teams across the world like Vena and import their financial statements from different ERP systems into Vena. The corporate will consolidate all these financial statements, do variance analysis using Vena.
We developed some fancy dashboards using Vena too. Finance controllers are assigned tasks in Vena and they are tracked for timely consolidation of financial reports. The audit trail feature in Vena is robust, if any data is changed, Vena will show the name of the person who updated it.,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.,Like any tool, it takes some time to use the advanced features in the tool. It took me some time to master the report building from scratch.
People who know Excel love this product. People who are not familiar with Excel find it difficult.
The user experience can be improved. The tool can be made more intuitive.,9,We are able to meet our deadlines without increasing the headcount. It made our financials controllers and financial analysts more effective.
We did not spend much time on training our users. As the tool is very similar to excel the finance users started using it from day one.
This tool is the best value for money when compared to other products in the market.,,Oracle Accounting Hub Cloud, Oracle Product Hub Cloud, Oracle Project Portfolio Management CloudVerified UserHarness the Power and Flexibility of Excel with a Vena Solutions Database and Workflows!2016-03-17T14:34:02.985ZWe use Vena Solutions for budgeting, forecasting and salary increase planning. Vena Solutions allows us manage our spreadsheet distribution and data collection from all departments across our university. We collect department data for each of these processes and save the data into the Vena Solutions database. Data is automatically consolidated and aggregated per our requirements for use in advanced management reports as well as ad hoc reports.,Vena's strength is allowing the use of all features and functionality in Excel while also providing workflow and approval processes that can be managed on a department by department basis.
Having the database with saved data behind the Excel interface allow for consolidation of data and reporting at multiple organizational levels, along with providing the flexibility needed to build reports exactly as needed for each financial process.
Intuitive and powerful workflow functionality allows us to pre-determine our distribution cycle for spreadsheets including managing the review process, which also captures full auditing. As administrators, we can view the status of each department's work and the point at which each is in the workflow using the easily navigated management tools.
Version and change control of spreadsheets allows us to track changes made to spreadsheets from one year to the next as new requirements surface.
End users who have been accustomed to using Excel for budgeting and other processes required very little training, and we were able to enhance our previous blank Excel templates with pre-filled data for actuals, prior year budgets and personnel budgets. This allows department managers to focus on creating an accurate budget rather than spending time doing data entry and off-system analysis (which they often don't do). Users commented that implementing Vena was the best implementation we've had.
Customer support is great and very responsive! The training consultants are also very knowledgeable in Excel functions and provide ways to enhance templates and reporting by providing a combination of Vena and Excel solutions.
Vena Solutions provides users with extended Excel functionality and flexibility, especially for spreadsheet-driven processes. Vena can store a wide variety of data, allowing us to use Vena for financial processes, reporting, operations planning and human resource planning.,When first learning to use Vena, it may seem that reports can't be created as easily as in other solutions - there's no drag and drop from a selection of fields. However, once the Vena tool is learned, reporting becomes much easier.
The flexibility of Vena may also be a downside for some administrators. A vision for what a template or report should look like and do is needed as building a template or report starts with a blank Excel workbook.
Vena isn't the flashiest budgeting tool available, but we believe the flexible functionality outweighs the looks of other software.,10,Vena Solutions has allowed us to automate and consolidate our budgeting and forecasting processes, thereby reducing manual data entry time, spreadsheet consolidation time and human error, resulting in improved turnaround time and more accurate budgets and reporting data. Budget administrators no longer have to check each worksheet for accuracy of accounts used and can easily see where more budget balancing work is required.
Providing current financial information to users within the budgeting template has helped users create more accurate budgets.
Our previous approval process required passing around of paper Excel documents for signature. This can all be done within Vena now, so paper movement is no longer required. Managers can also request department users to resubmit budgets as necessary through the approval process.
We estimate the ROI for Vena became positive between year 2 and 3. The savings is mainly due to lower labor costs as we had not invested in any budgeting solution prior to using Vena.,Adaptive Suite, Xlerant, Alight Planning and IBM Cognos,IBM Cognos,275,3,Annual Budgeting - We have a two step process that uses assumptions to create tuition, fees, enrollment and other revenue budgets, as well as apply inflation increases to expense lines. The second phase uses the first phase to allocate portions of the first phase to departments and serves as a target budget for each department.
Annual forecasting - We require departments to estimate fiscal year end revenue and expense amounts based on actuals and budgets through a portion of the fiscal year.
Salary Increase Planning - Managers allocate salary increases (based on an allocated amount) to personnel within the departments using percentage changes, flat changes or hourly dollar amounts.,We did not expect to be able to use data collected from one process for a different process, but with the flexibility of the Excel templates and Vena solution, we have been able to do so. Previously, we had to reconstruct data from one process for use in another. For example, we use the salary increase planning data collected in the Fall in our annual budgeting process for the following year budget.
Being able to create very customized reports that don't aggregate data on the same level - we can include data at the revenue or expense account level and also at the department level in the same report to meet our internal reporting requirements.,We would like to use Vena for our annual audited financial statements so that we won't have to manually update stand alone spreadsheets, statements and footnotes when our actuals are updated during the financial statement preparation time period.
We would like to use Vena to collect interdepartmental billing data on a monthly basis, which would be able to validate data in ways that isn't possible with standalone spreadsheets.,10,Implemented in-house,Yes,Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled,When interviewing users of other solutions during reference calls, we found that none of the users were able to make any updates to their solutions - they all had to go back to the software company for any changes. This also did not allow them to use the solution for other processes without the software company being involved in the solution. Vena was able to train our main Vena administrator during the implementation (administrator built the templates with guidance from the Vena consultant) and has since been able to roll out new templates, reports and new processes with minimal help from Vena.
The main Vena administrator was able to train other administrators in template and report building via 1 hour training sessions over about an 8 week time period. Other training has been done on an ad hoc basis as necessary.
Sometimes it was hard to communicate over webex what our requirements were so the consultant would know how to guide us in template building, but this was not a significant problem especially considering the very large and complicated standalone workbook we had been using.,10,9,Yes,Our data, data model and reports were inadvertently deleted by our IT department. Vena provided excellent support in trying to help us recover the data and were available as needed to help with the restoration. Early in our use of Vena, we encountered a bug that disconnected some of the data details from the main data elements, and the Vena consultant worked over the weekend to restore the links in the data and fixed the bug as well. We were very appreciative and do not receive that kind of service from most software providers. We haven't encountered any major problems with the Vena solution in the last couple of years, but I would expect excellent customer service if we do in the future.Lori LambertVena Solutions in Animation Accounting2017-01-16T21:44:37.614ZWe utilize Vena for both budgeting/tracking production expenses and managing our monthly financials. Consolidation of several dozen companies is a daunting task (one that we previously attempted only on an annual basis) but Vena enables us to carry out on a timely basis each month. This in turn gets more reliable data to senior management within a short enough time frame that it remains relevant to the current situation of the company.
We also use it to track employee costs in our technical and corporate departments, and currently have a long list of additional endeavors we want to use it to expand into for projections and project capacity management.,Monthly financials - Vena accurately ingests numeric totals which you can arrange through templates to quickly process financials in a consistent and timely manner. Through use of scenarios, we can use the same template and data to close out a period or calculate our tax return for the year.
Budgeting - The ability to calculate reams of data and move it between templates is hugely beneficial. We can version up, adjust a few line items in a template and then flow those changes back to production within minutes. This helps avoid different versions on separate machines or an employee leaving a file open and locking it for everyone else.
Cost reporting - By segmenting division costs in a periodic basis, we can give our managers a living snapshot of a production, allowing them to see the biweekly costs of each employee and budgeted line item.,Loading speed - the cloud may be the future, but our #1 user complaint is the time it takes to refresh and get to work.
Learning curve - a specialist is certainly recommended to setup and administer Vena, and my colleagues run all requests for changes through me rather than have the confidence and ease to dive it and fix things personally.
Tethered by plugin - many users find it cumbersome to use both a web login and configure an excel add-in just to access a report.,10,Faster financial reporting - Previously, consolidated reporting took place only annually or quarterly, with a significant time requirement. Now we perform a monthly consolidation within a few weeks of each month end.
Cost efficient cost reports - We do a biweekly cost report on each production which previously took someone a full day to perform and is now largely done automatically, freeing up time for our staff to do other work.,SAP Business One, Sage 50 AccountingGeorge TaylorVena Solutions Review2017-01-03T16:12:11.073ZOur organization uses Vena solutions for the following:
1) Monthly account reconciliations across all our subsidiaries and assets
2) Consolidation, statement of cash flows and other adhoc reporting requirements.
3) Reporting on standalone financial statements for all our entities,Dashboard provides a good summary of report status as well as prompting reviewers when individual reports are ready
User-friendly as it integrates Excel in providing database solutions.
Workflow tool is extremely helpful, identifying key points in a particular report process,Data loading and refreshing - Ultimately Vena was implemented to create capacity for team members performing monthly reconciliations. While the preparation time has gone down with the implementation of Vena, it has been below expectations.
Template building - Designing and building a template is time consuming and furthermore advanced reporting requirements will require consultant help.
Data issues - there have been months where we have encountered data issues whereby Vena would not pull data from our data warehouse correctly.,7Devendra Kalwani, CPA, CA
Unspecified
Vena Solutions
21 Ratings
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