Vena is a great value for many different accounting systems!
May 14, 2020

Vena is a great value for many different accounting systems!

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

Overall Satisfaction with Vena Solutions

We are currently using Vena for monthly board and department-level reporting. Using Microsoft Dynamics GP as our accounting system, adding new accounts always caused a lot of manual intervention in reports. Vena's more dynamic system helps better incorporate these new accounts as we go. It also gives the departments the ability to run reports themselves.

On the budgeting side, the automated workflows will make it much easier to track who has and hasn't completed their budget. We historically had to hire a temp each year to spread and input our budget into GP. We no longer have to do that, which will save us about $35,000 per year. The system is truly paying for itself, which is helpful in a nonprofit environment where budgets are tight.
  • The integration with Excel makes building reports really intuitive.
  • The process flows are easy to set up and manage.
  • The Modeler makes organizing accounts and dimensions really simple.
  • Compiling and exporting reports is not set up well and there are many glitches.
  • There is a process for automating budget spreads, but it does not work (and Vena will be the first to admit that).
  • The knowledge base is unorganized and hard to find things, but luckily the support team is responsive. It would just be nice to not always have to go to them for help!
  • Adoption has been relatively slow
  • Having to scramble IT resources led to unexpected costs
  • The budgeting and reporting process through Vena will save the company a five figure amount of temp time annually.
Currently, my organization uses Microsoft Dynamics GP, but given that system is pretty dated, we wanted a solution that both integrated with our current solution as well as other top solutions on the market (like Intacct, etc.). The Excel-based report building was much easier for the user than other solutions we reviewed.
This might seem basic, but having multiple advanced Excel users is critical. Vena Solutions works well for my organization as we have a fairly complex budget with many departments. An organization with fewer divisions might not need something this complex. You also need to have an IT resource that understands query building out of your general ledger system. An organization must be able to afford that type of resource.

Vena Feature Ratings

Long-term financial planning
7
Financial budgeting
8
Forecasting
7
Scenario modeling
5
Management reporting
10
Financial data consolidation
8
Journal entries and reports
7
Multi-currency management
Not Rated
Intercompany Eliminations
Not Rated
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
Not Rated
Detailed Audit Trails
10
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
8
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
8
XBRL support for regulatory filing
Not Rated
Personalized dashboards
Not Rated
Color-coded scorecards
Not Rated
KPIs
Not Rated
Cost and profitability analysis
Not Rated
Key Performance Indicator setting
Not Rated
Benchmarking with external data
Not Rated
Flat file integration
7
Excel data integration
Not Rated
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
6
Pixel Perfect reports
Not Rated
Customizable dashboards
Not Rated
Report Formatting Templates
Not Rated
Drill-down analysis
9
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
7
Publish to Web
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
8
Report Versioning
Not Rated
Report Delivery Scheduling
Not Rated
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
Not Rated
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
Not Rated
Predictive Analytics
Not Rated
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Not Rated
Responsive Design for Web Access
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated

Vena Solutions Attributes

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?

No

Would you buy Vena again?

Yes

Support is very responsive, though they don't seem to be armed with a ton of creative solutions. The implementation team is much better trained than the support team.