Vena Solutions: Solid product with room to grow
September 07, 2022

Vena Solutions: Solid product with room to grow

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Vena

We utilize Vena for budgeting across 18 countries and for consolidated reporting of our financials. Additionally, with the Power BI connector, we are able to bring our financial data, operations data from Salesforce, and HR data from our HRIS system into one environment. This allows us to create dashboards for each department, but also allows for a consolidated CPM use case.

Pros

  • Easy to build templates or integrate existing templates
  • Workflow creator with approvals
  • Security controls - One template with many views based on a user's permissions
  • Excel based so easy to make the transition

Cons

  • Workflow management - The workflow status tracker is only available when logged into Vena and cannot be distributed through automated or scheduled email notification
  • Not mobile friendly - Since reports/templates are in Excel and require the add-in to view, you cannot access your data on a mobile device
  • Admin support for add-in - The add-in can be cumbersome for end users not familiar or used to working with more advanced features in Excel. Additional support and training are necessary to help users troubleshoot when data does not automatically appear when opening an Excel file.
  • License cost structure - Vena recently changed their licenses to include a view only license. This license is extremely limited and will not allow for simple approve/reject reviews. Additionally, the cost of 1 admin license (necessary to build workflows, templates, and reports) is excessively overpriced compared to the other offerings.

Do you think Vena delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Vena's feature set?

Yes

Did Vena live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Vena go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Vena again?

Yes

  • Financial reporting can be done in 20-30 minutes instead of taking 8-10 hours
Vena implemented the product and helped identify and troubleshoot while working through data validation. The help desk support has been excellent at addressing a handful of issues that have come up post implementation. They are fairly quick to respond and provide answers to questions or help implement proposed solutions.
I wouldn't say it has yet, however, we are gearing up to complete our first mid-year forecast. This is something we have hoped to achieve for a while and it would not be possible without Vena. As we continue to iterate and build out more features, we hope to become more agile as an organization because of Vena.
When looking at other tools, we were concerned about end user adoption and Vena stood out because of the use of Excel. It is a familiar format and provides almost endless flexibility when considering business processes that can be added. At first, Adapative was a front runner based on name recognition but the rigid, less flexible data model made the decision much easier. In Prophix case, it was still primarily hosting data on-site and we wanted a cloud based solution.
Vena is a great product that provides a centralized location for all of your budget and financial data. The ability to create workflows and not have to worry about data consolidation during the budget process has allowed more time to complete detailed reviews of each individual budget. It has also provided us with the ability to quickly create budget adjustments as necessary that roll up into the existing budget. While reports are easy to create, distribution has been hit or miss dependent on the end user. At the end of the day, it is another system they must login to in order to view. It also works well if you have a centralized business model with only 1-3 admins (FP&A team) creating and controlling the files and workflow processes. If you hope to empower other key individuals outside your FP&A team to build their own reports though, it becomes cost prohibitive very quickly.

Vena Feature Ratings

8.4
Long-term financial planning
8
Financial budgeting
9
Forecasting
9
Scenario modeling
9
Management reporting
7
8.0
Financial data consolidation
9
Multi-currency management
8
Intercompany Eliminations
8
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
8
Detailed Audit Trails
7
8.3
Financial Statement Reporting
8
Management Reporting
8
Excel-based Reporting
9
Automated board and financial reporting
Not Rated
XBRL support for regulatory filing
Not Rated
8.0
Personalized dashboards
8
Color-coded scorecards
8
KPIs
8
Cost and profitability analysis
8
Key Performance Indicator setting
Not Rated
Benchmarking with external data
Not Rated
8.7
Flat file integration
9
Excel data integration
8
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
9
9.0
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
9
8.0
Drill-down analysis
9
Formatting capabilities
9
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
6
7.0
Publish to Web
7
Report Delivery Scheduling
7
Data Discovery and Visualization ()
Not Rated
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
Mobile Capabilities ()
Not Rated

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