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Vena

Vena

Overview

What is Vena?

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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Recent Reviews

Easy to use....

10 out of 10
March 13, 2024
Incentivized
Vena is currently being used by the Finance department with a potential to extending usage further out to other teams in the organization. …
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Vena Review

9 out of 10
March 09, 2024
Incentivized
We adopted Vena for the preparation of our 2024 budget. Previously we were using Excel spreadsheets, but needed a more streamlined …
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Great FP&A tool

10 out of 10
January 05, 2024
Incentivized
Vena is a fantastic tool for any organization and the Vena implementation team is really helpful. I think its a money well invested for …
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Vena Review

6 out of 10
December 29, 2023
Incentivized
Vena is being used on a day to day business to support any ad-hoc requests from the finance/accounting side and constantly updating …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 48 features
  • Excel-based Reporting (194)
    9.3
    93%
  • Financial budgeting (202)
    9.2
    92%
  • Management reporting (199)
    8.8
    88%
  • Forecasting (193)
    8.6
    86%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons

Video Reviews

1 video

Vena Review: Proves To Be Financial Management Solution For Handling Multiple, Complex Accounts
03:21
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Pricing

View all pricing

Professional

N/A

Cloud

Complete

N/A

Cloud

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
    Optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.venasolutions.com/resources…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

8.7
Avg 8.0

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

8.1
Avg 8.3

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

9
Avg 8.2

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

8.1
Avg 7.6

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

9.2
Avg 8.7

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

9.1
Avg 8.0

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting

These activities are designed to assist with both data-driven operational, short-term planning and strategic long term planning

8.7
Avg 8.3

Consolidation and Close

Consolidation of data from multiple entities with currency management, reporting and audit trails.

8.4
Avg 8.0

Financial Reporting and Compliance

Financial statements and regulatory filings

8.5
Avg 8.2

Analytics and Reporting

Dashboards and scorecards for KPI monitoring and benchmarking

8.7
Avg 8.0

Integration

Ability to integrate with external applications.

9
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is Vena?

Vena is a Native Excel Complete Planning Platform used for budgeting and forecasting, for business leaders and finance and operations professionals.


Vena boasts users among more than 1,350 companies such as Nike, Coca-Cola Consolidated and the Kansas City Chiefs. In addition, Vena works with over 100 Partners.

Vena Features

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting Features

  • Supported: Long-term financial planning
  • Supported: Financial budgeting
  • Supported: Forecasting
  • Supported: Scenario modeling
  • Supported: Management reporting

Consolidation and Close Features

  • Supported: Financial data consolidation
  • Supported: Journal entries and reports
  • Supported: Multi-currency management
  • Supported: Intercompany Eliminations
  • Supported: Minority Ownership
  • Supported: Local and consolidated reporting
  • Supported: Detailed Audit Trails

Financial Reporting and Compliance Features

  • Supported: Financial Statement Reporting
  • Supported: Management Reporting
  • Supported: Excel-based Reporting
  • Supported: Automated board and financial reporting
  • Supported: XBRL support for regulatory filing

Analytics and Reporting Features

  • Supported: Personalized dashboards
  • Supported: Color-coded scorecards
  • Supported: KPIs
  • Supported: Cost and profitability analysis
  • Supported: Key Performance Indicator setting
  • Supported: Benchmarking with external data

Integration Features

  • Supported: Flat file integration
  • Supported: Excel data integration
  • Supported: Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

BI Standard Reporting Features

  • Supported: Pixel Perfect reports
  • Supported: Customizable dashboards
  • Supported: Report Formatting Templates

Ad-hoc Reporting Features

  • Supported: Drill-down analysis
  • Supported: Formatting capabilities
  • Supported: Predictive modeling
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
  • Supported: Report sharing and collaboration

Report Output and Scheduling Features

  • Supported: Publish to Web
  • Supported: Publish to PDF
  • Supported: Report Versioning
  • Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling

Data Discovery and Visualization Features

  • Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
  • Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
  • Supported: Predictive Analytics
  • Supported: Support for Machine Learning models
  • Supported: Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages

Access Control and Security Features

  • Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
  • Supported: Role-Based Security Model
  • Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
  • Supported: Report-Level Access Control
  • Supported: Table-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
  • Supported: Field-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
  • Supported: Single Sign-On (SSO)

Mobile Capabilities Features

  • Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
  • Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Vena Screenshots

Screenshot of Operation Expenses - Predictive AnalysisScreenshot of Allocations DashboardScreenshot of Vena Add InScreenshot of Power BI DashboardScreenshot of Revenue and Sales PlanningScreenshot of Corporate Dashboard - Workforce PlanningScreenshot of Operational Expenses - Drill through analysisScreenshot of Operational Expenses Planning - Input Excel templateScreenshot of Operational Expenses - Drill through analysisScreenshot of Operational Expenses Planning - Input Excel template

Vena Videos

Introduction to Vena Complete Planning
Introduction to Budgeting in Vena Complete Planning
Vena for SaaS - Financial Reporting and Reporting Made Simple
Vena for Banks and Credit Unions - Budget, Forecast and Plan With Confidence

Vena Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationYou don't need to download an app or change a setting to use Vena on your mobile device: just open your browser, go to Vena (vena.io), and log in as you normally do. The Contributor interface is fully responsive, so it can adjust to any size screen, regardless of the type of device you have.
Supported CountriesUnited States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Europe
Supported LanguagesVena supports any localization capabilities already native within Excel. Vena Cloud supports English, Spanish, and French. If a specific language is required please don’t hesitate to ask.

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Workday Adaptive Planning, Prophix, and Planful are common alternatives for Vena.

Reviewers rate Flat file integration highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of Vena are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).

Vena Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)19%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)55%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)26%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(307)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(101-125 of 214)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Vena enables our finance and accounting team to quickly and accurately display data for our entire organization. Before Vena many reports would take entire days to compile, now with Vena, we have those reports made in seconds. Creating reports is simple and new reports to fit users' needs can be made easily. As our team learns more about Vena, we continue to find new use cases for our business. Viewing Vena reports is fairly user-friendly also. Even employees who are not extremely tech-savvy are still able to work with Vena and utilize Vena's reports.
  • Creating new reports easily
  • Displaying data that updates daily
  • Allowing data to be drilled down
  • Easier integration with PowerBi
  • Faster load times
  • Quicker ways to map multiple sheets
Vena works really well displaying data and organizing it based on division, region, year, period, etc... Where Vena falls short is displaying data based on customers. Our company has so many customers that Vena cannot process sorting by customers and our customer field is completely crowded. Vena's drill-down is a great tool that allows for quick discovery of what the numbers on the reports actually mean, but they, unfortunately, cannot display individual invoices which require a separate search.
Andrew McFarlane ✪ | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Vena is used by the FP&A department to manage the annual budget, monthly rolling forecasts, and actuals. It's a tool that helps department heads know the details behind their available budgets so that there are no questions when it comes to "how much do I have left to spend each month." I was able to also build out a cash flow forecasting model that ties to the P&L and HR data so that everything works together and is updated at the same time. It's a tool that has helped with variance analysis and catches errors, excess spending, and improve our view into what is happening financially for the company.
  • Budgeting.
  • Variance Analysis.
  • Detail Transactional Drill Downs.
  • Forecasting.
  • Reporting.
  • More standard reports.
Vena is basically a supercharged Microsoft Excel add-on that ties to your database. This allows for infinite possibilities with your model building since most finance people are already proficient with Excel. It also allows you to build reports and lockdown every cell except for the ones that you want contributors (other non-admin users) to adjust. It helps you manage your workbooks in a way that is virtually foolproof so that people that use your sheet don't have to worry about breaking anything.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Vena in our financial reporting department at a large bank with hundreds of departments. Vena was used throughout the whole organization and helped us tremendously to consolidate numbers obtained from numerous teams. Without Vena, it would be very difficult and time-consuming to collect financial information at such a large organization.
  • User friendly Excel based software
  • Easy to fill and auto-fill numbers
  • Lots of available financial templates
  • Any template that needs to be customized requires involvement of Vena support
  • Training of new users can be hard due to limited number of trainings
  • The process of submission of financial templates is somewhat complicated
Vena is great for larger companies especially those that have multiple departments. For example, if numerous teams have to submit their budget numbers to the central finance team Vena would be very useful as it would help prevent human error and would help automate the submission process. Vena would probably be less suitable for smaller companies for this application but would still be useful for the purpose of financial process automation.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NAMI uses Vena for preparing our annual budget, forecasting throughout our fiscal year, and reporting relevant financial data to individual departments. We also use Vena to create the financial statements we provide to NAMI's Board of Directors. Every department across the organization uses Vena for budgeting and forecasting. Finance and Accounting is the primary user for reporting purposes.
  • Vena is easily adoptable by new users because it is Excel based. Staff are not intimidated by the software.
  • It's easy to distribute monthly reports to the staff with Vena's workflows and Report Books. Once those are set up, distributing monthly financials to individual departments is an easy process.
  • It's easy for us to upload data from our accounting system - at the transaction level - to Vena. We simply download a file from our accounting system and upload it into Vena. Whatever manipulation of the data that's required is done by Vena. We don't have to do anything.
  • Vena's customer service is excellent. Their customer service reps. are pretty good and I will say they are fair-minded during contract renewals. I never feel like they're gouging me. They are decent people to work with.
  • Because Vena continues to experience tremendous growth it is hard (at times) to get access to their internal consultants on a timely basis. It's also hard (if not impossible) to work with the same consultant on an ongoing basis as Vena assigns consultants as they become available to do the work.
  • Because of their growth, the Vena staff is constantly expanding. So, in the five years I've been with Vena, I've had at least six customer service reps... It's not the worst thing but it feels like I'm starting over every year.
  • Vena's software is constantly being upgraded. That's a good thing but I think they might be able to do a better job of providing online training and other training resources.
I've never looked back from leaving the budgeting system we had before Vena. It's been easy to "sell" Vena within my organization because it is Excel-based so most people, even with just basic Excel skills, can use the system with little training. I started with just 12 licenses and now I'm up to nearly 30. As NAMI has grown so too has our use of Vena; it's easy to scale Vena, i.e. adding programs or accounts or staff into the database is an easy process. I recommend Vena on a regular basis to other companies.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use Vena for Financial Reporting and Forecasting. We have over 70 departments and are easily able to send reports to each department head with the click of a button and have them submit changes back to us. What used to take us over a whole day of compiling reports and emailing them out manually, now just takes the click of a button. It has tremendously improved our forecasting process. We are able to track any change made by any user also.
  • Budgeting and Forecasting.
  • Financial Reporting.
  • Ease of Use - similar to excel so little training needed.
  • Wish reports could be sent to non-users.
  • Our system is not cloud based, so a nightly dump is needed.
  • Wish there was a way we could have a hybrid shared report that multiple users could make changes to and be in the file at once instead of check-in and check out.
Our forecasting used to be a manual process just using excel templates. We implemented Vena and were able to keep the same templates but add the specific Vena tools to get the template to pull the data. This made it possible to basically have no training for the users. We have been able to create reports that save us numerous hours.
January 06, 2022

Vena is great!

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used to do our modeling in Excel, but now we use Vena. It's used by two departments; one to manage it (Initiatives team) and update it and one (client managers) that uses it for budgeting, forecasting, and presentations. It makes it a lot easier to budget and forecast for our clients by creating model-wide updates when needed. That way people don't need to remember to make updates individually. Our team member has actually done a ton of work to customize it exactly how we need it, so it's nice that Vena has those capabilities.
  • Easier to make sure work is uniform between multiple employees.
  • Easier calculations and less need for manual updating.
  • Easier to manage payroll.
  • Lets us create report to paste into presentations.
  • Loading time.
  • Crashing.
  • Opening multiple reports at the same time with ease.
I think it's great for organizations that need particular detailed models that only fit them. It's good for trying to build what you need. But I think you need someone to help you build the model and keep it updated. Vena just has the tools you need to create what you need, but it doesn't do it for you from my understanding. We have a staff member dedicated to updating Vena.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Vena across our entire organization for budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting.
  • Budgeting
  • Forecasting
  • Financial reporting
  • Administration can be complex
  • Configuration can limit features
  • Not as highly customizable as some other systems
Vena is well suited for medium [sized] businesses that [have] outgrown excel but are not yet ready for large scale costly enterprise-level systems.
Tanay Pahwa | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Vena is being used only in the finance department as of now, but more uses are being explored rapidly because of the wide support that Vena has to offer.
  • Financial reporting
  • Easy to use
  • Poor interface
  • Costly
Vena is certainly very well suited for financial purposes. It is good for creating financial reports, financial budgets and modelling. It reads transactions deeply which helps reduce time overall and reduces the burden greatly for the finance department. It is comparably easy to use which makes it a better choice over others.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Vena Solutions is being used across the company. It has made dealing with the company's finances much easier and is very easy to use.
  • Finance management
  • Interface
  • Excel-like workspace
  • Takes time to load templates
  • Requires strong Excel knowledge
Vena Solutions suits our needs as a hotel. There are thousands of financial transactions day in and day out, and managing them becomes crucial. The best part about Vena is that it can be used even by interns with minimal training. The Excel-like workspace is great and provides a familiar interface for carrying out basic financial record keeping.
December 14, 2020

Vena - A Godsend!

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently Vena is being used primarily by the Finance and Accounting department. Senior executives use the tool as a source for financial reports. It addresses problems of disparate spreadsheets and emailing reports. Vena has allowed us to transition to a self-service fully accessible model. We plan to extend Vena for use in inventory management as well as HR related data.
  • Easy to use.
  • Cloud based.
  • Neat yet powerful.
  • Improving minor glitches.
  • Availability for MAC users.
  • Improving Power BI connector to have full seamless version.
Specific scenarios where Vena is well suited would be for financial reporting. Any financial reporting including forecasting/budgeting can be done quickly and accurately using Vena and templates you build. Scenarios where it's less appropriate would be aggregating loads of data to present in concise, user friendly format (Power BI more appreciate).
November 27, 2020

Fantastic product!

Mani Alkhafaji, CA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Initially we started using Vena among the FP&A team, then slowly started rolling it out to other departments. We have just completed our 2021 budget cycle and we have a range of departments across the organization using it to prepare their budgets, including: operations, IT, HR, finance, CSR, and other G&A departments.
  • Data integrity through database.
  • Standardized templates.
  • Workflow and delegation of approval.
  • Traceability and drill down functions.
  • Continue improving template performance and speed.
  • Improvement on dashboards.
Vena is perfect for anyone who wants to retain the flexibility and user adaptability of Excel, yet improve data integrity and utilize a database platform.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Vena is being used at our company as a financial reporting and consolidation tool. We have entities around the world, and tool helps us commonize and consolidate financials. We also use the tool to distribute various reports related to human resources, pricing, and inventory management. The flexibility of the tool allows for self-service and self-development of reports.
  • It is a familiar feeling as it uses excel as the front end.
  • The ability to develop reports in house makes the tool very flexible.
  • Powerful consolidation tool which allows for easy distribution of information.
  • Performance can be slow once reports get too complex.
  • Per user pricing can get expensive if users are not using the tool for a wide variety of purposes.
Vena is well suited for companies of all sizes as the tool is very scalable to your business size. It performs exceptionally well in an environment that is currently using an excel based solution, as the users will be familiar with the tool and can use existing knowledge to develop robust reporting.
November 26, 2020

Vena for Excel lovers

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
- Primarily use was planning with input from all departments, reviews and approvals by heads of departments, and consolidation and analyses by finance.
- Now used for monthly reporting with monthly distribution of financial reports to users, analysis of results by finance, preparation of presentations for internal and external purposes.
- Currently implementing a rolling forecast.
  • Flexibility and easy to use, mostly thanks to Excel.
  • Easy access for users to high level financial information and detailed transactions.
  • Planning functionalities (full budget and rolling forecast).
  • Workflows.
  • Integration with other software.
  • Technical glitches.
Well suited for teams with a strong knowledge of Excel and skills to admin a data base.
It is really well suited for an organization with a limited volume of data but I could see how the system would become slower and more difficult to manage for a company with many entities, large amount of transactions, etc.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Vena Solutions is a technology that we partner with at our organization. We resell and implement the product for our customers. Our customers range from hospitality, health care, project management, manufacturing, and others. There are several big business problems that Vena addresses. First, everyone loves Excel and people are reluctant to change. Since Vena is Excel based, users feel more comfortable with it. There is less resistance to the change and less of a learning curve upon implementation. Second, Vena does not require constant and ongoing consulting time. Our customers are self sufficient with making changes to the model and templates. Third, Vena has an organized workflow process and status tracker. It allows the FP&A team to see where all contributors are in the process. In addition, the FP&A team is not trying to collect numerous Excel sheets via email or shared locations. Fourth, Vena has excellent audit capabilities. The solution audits data saves in cells and changes to templates (with the ability for comparison to prior versions). It's built in to the solution, which means there is no need to exhaustively dig through log files. It's just a few clicks!
  • Auditing is something Vena does extremely well. There is the ability to see data changes and template changes with just a few clicks. Most technologies have audit log files, which can be cumbersome to navigate.
  • Drilling to details is a feature available to users. A user can view all the general ledger transactions for a particular account, department, time period, etc. just by clicking on the intersection in Excel and using the Vena toolbar button Drill -> Transactions.
  • Comments and Attachments allows users to add a comment and/or insert an attachment such as a PO, invoice, or receipt for example. This way the contributor and reviewer can easily see the justification and support for a number that has been planned. It's all in one place and means there is no need to email the support as a separate file.
  • In Report Books, the option to run reports as PDF would be helpful.
  • In Report Books, the option to add more than one report to the book would be extremely useful. Currently, users receive multiple emails because we can only have one report per book.
  • In Report Books, the ability to output files to a directory rather than sending them via email would be a nice enhancement.
Overall, Vena has many great features and functions, and the Vena team is constantly improving the solution. The only scenarios where Vena is lacking is spreading data from a parent member to children. This can be accomplished with Vena, but it's a little more involved compared to other technologies.
October 21, 2020

Supercharge Your Data

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently as using Vena within finance for budgetting purposes. The goal is to expand our usage of the software more into reporting operations. Vena address the challenges we face with our budgetting processes. The budget process is time consuming and our implementation of Vena was primarily to address this challenge.
  • Ease of Use
  • Intuitive
  • Time Savings
  • Reporting Capabilities
  • Learning Curve
  • Some Rigidity
  • UI for non-financial users
Vena allows for ease of complex reporting. Vena can implement with Power BI, another software crucial to our business. Vena allows finance to involve our operations staff especially in the budgetting process. It formalizes the budgetting process and adds ownership to it. We've been able to speed up our yearly budget process to deliver more effective budgets and save many man hours with manual work.
Jeremiah Adrian Howard Ross | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
There are various uses for Vena as well as financial analysis for the month-end mainly, we can establish advanced and detailed budget criteria. In addition, the data visualizations are very light and detailed, resulting in good access to financial data information, budgets, analysis, and we managed to complement and adapt solid strategies with our ERP system and its connection with Vena Solutions. We have only had a few delays in understanding all the features because not all users are EXCEL experts.
  • Optimal connection with our ERP system.
  • We perform detailed month-end analyzes to optimize our budget requirements.
  • Good data spectrum to model and map in Excel.
  • It is overwhelming for inexperienced users.
  • It takes a while to load the templates.
  • It can improve much more, but they are not serious problems that cannot be solved with a little training to all users.
I can recommend it because it can connect very well with our ERP system and this is a great advantage. In addition, Vena Solutions allows us to optimize our entire financial and budget system, which generates a positive ROI after the first few months using it. It is true that it is complex for many users, but this problem is solved simply with training, so I do not consider that the difficulty of using it is a serious problem.
Charlotte Byrne Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Vena Solutions in many departments. We have always had knowledge of Excel, so we quickly get used to using this software. We are always on the lookout for any unforeseen unforeseen people who are not familiar with spreadsheets, but with ongoing training and existing Vena tutorials, we are happy that the data is being recorded without a hitch.
  • Professional platform, pleasing to the eye of the user.
  • Great facility to unify team members in the cloud.
  • Quick communication with technical support, no matter if the problems are not resolved--they attend quickly and I like that.
  • We have consulted with team members and agree that the Vena Solutions team should think of something to improve and unify project management.
  • It takes time to create complex templates.
  • I would like to have a smaller configuration at startup.
I recommend it without thinking twice because Vena is one of the best to keep a good budget control. It is predictive, maintains control of accounts and creates the best solutions for financial data recording problems. Vena Solutions is the most reliable budgeting software on the market today and that is why I feel very confident recommending it to all businesses.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Vena to facilitate our budgeting process. As this touches on all departments, it is used by department heads across the company. As a budgeting tool, Vena eliminates version control issues, and is able to integrate with our accounting ERP to bring data over easily.
  • Consolidated all budget inputs into various reports.
  • Once setup, it's easy for department heads to input their budgetary inputs.
  • The system's UI is a bit complicated and will take time to become familiar with.
  • Any significant changes will need to be handled by Vena's implementation team, which will incur additional costs.
  • As of May, 2020, Vena is not very compatible with Apple Computers.
I think if you have challenges creating your budgets, Vena can be a suitable solution. Where the existing budgetary process is extremely complex with lots of other ERPs and systems involved, it may be challenging to fully integrate Vena.
October 16, 2020

Review of Vena Solutions

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We provide implementation services for Vena Solutions as a partner consulting firm and have successfully transformed financial management processes for many of our clients already. The most common processes are Financial Budgeting/Forecasting and Reporting, including detailed models for Demand and Revenue Planning, HR planning at Employee and Position level, Capex Planning, and different reporting packages for scenario analysis and variance comparisons.
  • Financial Modeling
  • Integration Capabilities
  • Workflow Management
  • Pre-configured Calculations
  • Standardization of interface
  • Cross-platform experience
Vena Solutions is appropriate for:
- Detailed Excel-based financial models/reports
- Advanced-data modeling requirements
- Multiple processes

It is inappropriate for:
- Those who lack Excel knowledge or want to move away from Excel

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Vena Solutions to project budgets, generate, and analyze our financial statements. Every department head has access to it in order to provide their inputs into the Budget. This minimizes the creation of multiple spreadsheets per department and saves time by streamlining the whole process. Producing the financial statements used to be a largely manual process and was prone to mistakes as a result. Vena's model has centralized the mapping to produce quicker and more accurate results. It is a major time saver for our overall month-end process.
  • Easy integration into MS Excel as an Add-In.
  • Organizes data into blocks that can be quickly modified to view data from multiple angles.
  • Knowledge base with both customer input and professional advice that can help with troubleshooting.
  • Vena is data driven. Without another software, you can not issue financials statements with an MD&A.
  • Inputs into Vena are helpful, but it can be complicated to build that into a template for updating by end users.
This is a good third party software that works to integrate data from an ERP to a manageable and easily modifiable excel format to generate budgets and financials.
October 16, 2020

Easy to deploy

Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our business department heads are responsible for their budgets. So we are using this across the whole organization with our Corporate Accounting Department coordinating the activities with the administrators to execute the workflows. It resolves the issue of emailing and receiving back numerous Excel files and working tediously to be sure that everything is updated in the correct order.
  • Uses Excel as the primary user interface.
  • Allows business users to create templates and pull out the data easily.
  • Provides some reporting about when tasks are late.
  • Needs better reporting on the status of tasks.
  • Should notify users when they have a past due task.
  • Does not work well if you have too much data (intersection points).
  • Hard to audit user security when you have 200+ users.
  • Difficult to manage a large process with many activity blocks.
This is a great solution for a smaller to mid-sized company that does not have a large number of data points (tens of millions). Using Excel as the primary user interface helps with change management because users are already comfortable with that tool. It is less appropriate for very large companies, as there can be performance issues. And if you have a large number of users (100+) it becomes cumbersome to audit the security and manage the processes with that many tasks.
Zahid Khandoker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Vena Solutions for Senior Leadership to provide budget information on a quarterly basis. Also, the finance department uses it for daily reporting. Having all the data centralized in one spot helps us generate reports much quicker than before.
  • Centralized Database where all the data is converted into your data model instead of the accounting software.
  • Workflow Management where input processes and review processes are predetermined.
  • Predetermined caritas for budget requirement.s
  • More detailed instruction manual to build personalized reports.
  • Live chat bar.
  • Daily Backup
All financial analysts will find Vena useful to be able to customize accounting data to any data model.
Radu Cocos | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Vena Solutions to facilitate our annual budgeting and quarterly forecasting processes. With Vena, we were able to develop more flexible and dynamic input templates; for instance Vena operators which allow to hide or show rows and columns. We were also able to benefit from a quick consolidation process where we can see the results from different entities in seconds.
  • Dynamic functionalities in Excel
  • Fast consolidation
  • Scalable solution
  • Difficult to use if not an Excel pro
  • Mapping data points can be time consuming
Vena Solutions is well suited for companies that are looking for a dynamic ERP solution. The interface is well designed and relatively easy to use. Developing templates requires proficiency in Excel as well as a good understanding of how the database works. Vena works very well for the budgeting process; we have found it less useful in the month-end cycle.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Vena is used in our organization for FTE planning. Before we used Excel and now with Vena we have a monthly cycle with the Vena workflow functionality. It is mainly used in our team of consultants to plan colleagues on our projects to create more insight in things like availability, revenue, etc.
  • Flexibility
  • Front end in Excel
  • Cloud based
  • Easy user adoption
  • It can be too much Excel in some cases.
  • Real-time calculations with really really big data sets can have performance issues.
Planning, budgeting, and forecasting are perfect with Vena Solutions. Also, S&OP and Excel solutions usually fit well into Vena.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We like that Vena is a one-platform solution with the features we need--account reconciliation, consolidation, cash management, FP&A Planning, and others.
  • Competitive pricing
  • Wide adoption
  • Professional support
  • Unable to try before you buy
Based on our limited experience, we believe Vena Solutions will be an effective product at a reasonable price.
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