Vote Vena for non profits!
December 27, 2023
Vote Vena for non profits!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Vena
Currently, my entire organization is using Vena for budgeting twice a year. It is also being used by our Financial Planning & Analysis team for planning, analyzing, and reporting on a daily basis. Vena was a huge improvement from the tool we were using for budgeting before. It allowed us to set up workflows which made it easier to involve our senior leadership team in the budgeting process and had a short learning curve since it was an excel based tool.
- Easy to manage and maintain
- Provides a better end user experience
- Workflows and automatic emails make the budgeting process much easier to manage/complete
- API integrations with important tools such as Power BI, Sage Intacct, and Salesforce
- Easier for Finance to "own" the tool and troubleshoot data issues without having to rely heavily on internal/external Data teams
- It would be great if the templates didn't have to be launched from the download folder for end users. This concept is often confusing for end users and they don't always understand why they can't open the file back up from their downloads folder later on. Might be better if the templates opened in Excel online for end users when a workflow is in play.
- The data integration (API) is a bit confusing. All the steps and stages are hard to follow. It would be great if this area could be "dumbed" down a bit further for us non-data people.
- Permissions are a bit tedious to set up. We decided to set up permissions using permission user groups instead of task bindings because it would be easier to manage and not accidentally mess up but it still is really tedious because pretty much each person in our organization has to have a separate user group set up for them.
- The report books don't seem to work consistently and don't always follow our permission set up so they've not been useful. This is a feature I'd really like to take advantage of but it just isn't quite where I need it to be yet.
- The formula (DAX) building feature in Insights is not great. It would be more helpful if it showed you the same tooltips that PBI desktop shows you when you start typing out a formula.
- It would be very helpful to be able to drill down on a budget/forecast number and see the LID (line item detail) beneath it and not just the dimension details.
- Since implementing Vena we've been able to drastically reduce our dependence on our data team and are able to manage/maintain the tool on our own.
- Vena has saved us time with our finance committee and board reporting by allowing us to set up report templates that can be refreshed with updated information at the click of a button.
We had a wonderful sales representative who was patient with us during our decision making stage and provided us with all the information we needed in a timely manner. Our implementation consultant was also great and worked tirelessly to get Vena up and running before our reforecast process. Our Customer Success Manager has also been fabulous and is quick to reply and eager to help which I really appreciate. She also keeps us well informed of any changes happening to the tool and opportunities for learning.
Vena has made it much easier to quickly pull out information regarding our actuals or budget when in a meeting. We've also been able to set up a number of recurring reports that can be quickly/easily updated with the click of a button. We were also able to add some scaling methods to help our end users budget their expenses through 2030, which made the entire budget process much smoother/simpler.
- Jedox, Workday Adaptive Planning, Google Sheets, Planful, OnPlan, Planning Maestro, DataRails, Budgyt, Jirav and Prophix
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, ability to create reports that update quickly/easily, ability to automate our allocations, drillthrough capabilities, scenario planning, rolling forecast, great customer support, and most importantly the tool is continuously improving. Many of the other tools we saw were lacking in some or all of these features. We were using Jedox prior to Vena and it felt as though they weren't making any improvements to the tool and their customer service was awful. Jedox and Vena are similar in price so it was pretty obvious which tool was a better fit for us.
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
Vena Feature Ratings
Vena Solutions Attributes
Using Vena
45 - We have at least one staff member from each department who only uses the tool when we are actively budgeting/forecasting (twice a year). We also have licenses for our senior leadership team, FP&A team, our Vena consultant, a test account (for testing permissions and templates), and our Data Analyst.
2 - I think the learning curve is much shorter for someone who has a basic understanding of how databases work but it isn't required. It helps to be proficient in Excel and Excel formulas so template building will be easier. Vena will likely be loved more by someone who is adaptable, willing to learn, a problem solver, and creative.
- Conducting our Budget and Reforecast process twice a year
- Monthly Financial reporting and analysis
- Monthly Allocation calculations for actuals
- We were able to add in scaling methods to our input templates and used them to extend our budget out to 2030
- We created a template we now use monthly to calculate our allocations for our actuals and then use that information to enter it into our accounting software (Sage Intacct)
- We'd like to start doing a rolling forecast and incorporate scenario planning into our budget process.
- We're planning to build a financial model that will calculate our costs through 2030 which will be used for goal setting.
- We'd like to create a financial model for our health center budgets. Currently this lives in Excel but we feel we can move this into Vena and improve upon it.
Evaluating Vena and Competitors
Yes - We replaced our budget software, Jedox, which we were at our wits end with. Their customer service was lacking and the tool just felt like it was never improving. It was difficult to understand/use and required our finance team to quite heavily on our data team which made the budget process more difficult. Jedox had a great Excel add-in that we loved though which is why we wanted to get a tool that was similar in that sense but it was only for the backend users. We liked that Vena provided the Excel abilities for all users. Vena also has great customer service, a helpful knowledge base, is continuously improving, and is so much easier to use once you get the hang of it.
- Cloud Solutions
- Scalability
- Integration with Other Systems
- Ease of Use
Our organization is going through a rapid growth period and I wanted a tool that could grow with us and was easier to use. Vena met more of our needs than other tools we looked at and appeared to be continuously improving.
I would ask them to use our data and provide us with a walkthrough of the rolling forecast process when line item detail is used. This was something I really wanted to do with my organization but can't see how it could work with our current budget set up which uses line item detail. Otherwise, I think our evaluation/selection process went well. We reached out to 12 different tools and used a scorecard to gather some basic details regarding each (e.g., implementation/training, compatibility, usability, etc.). We then narrowed our list down to 7 tools and requested a demo for each. After the demos we were able to reduce our list down to 4 tools and requested a more detailed demo for each. We then had our group cast a vote on which tool they felt met our needs best and we all voted for Vena.
Vena Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No, we're a non profit and unfortunately cannot spend much on these types of features that are typically deemed to be "nice to have" rather than "must have". If there was a more favorable price for this for non profits we'd consider it.
Yes - Yes, it was resolved but it took Vena about a week to fix it. There was some sort of issue with the Sage Intacct and Vena connection so all of our actuals were wrong in Vena during our budgeting process and board reporting. It was some sort of Vena bug so they jumped on it quickly but it did take a while to fix it. Luckily we had Power BI to fall back on but other companies/organizations may not have had the same.
Yes, not sure if this counts but I accidentally deleted all of our budget data while in our budget process when I was using the versioning feature. As you can imagine, it was quite scary. I contacted our Vena consultant immediately, he was very calm and reassuring and taught me how to reload our information from a backup that Vena automatically makes. The process was very easy and now I know exactly what to do in case it happens again and am no longer afraid of accidentally destroying everything.
Using Vena
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using | Lots to learn |
- Setting up workflows
- Creating ad hoc reports
- Versioning to clear incorrect data or move data
- Previewing intersections so I can understand mapping
- Completing tasks
- Data integrations: channels, data feeds, and connections are a little tough to comprehend and follow the order of steps.
- You can't save an ad hoc report. It would be great if these could be saved or if you could email it to someone without the data connection breaking.
- Mapping multiple columns or rows at a time. You used to be able to select a large area and use auto map but they've recently changed it so it's more tedious and you can to go row by row or column by column. It makes the mapping process on large templates take longer.
- Sometimes the mapping errors aren't very clear as to what the issue is.