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Powerful and Familiar
May 19, 2020

Powerful and Familiar

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

Overall Satisfaction with Vena Solutions

We use Vena for budgeting and forecasting within my department with several other teams starting to use Vena within their workflow. Vena has allowed us to create a more uniform budgeting approach while still maintaining the familiarity of using Excel. Just in a much safer and more powerful way. It has allowed us to quickly share data with areas of the business that request it without the need for a complicated system in order to keep things secure.
  • Familiarity - Forecasting and mapping within Excel means you have a level of expertise with Vena right from the word go.
  • Web Based Working - The work process on the web allows you to open documents from anywhere, a real must in today's environment.
  • Template Creation - The ability to create mapping templates is perfect for saving time and ensuring greater accuracy.
  • The Setup - Although probably expected, there is a long set-up process.
  • Accessing a Pivot table through an external connection is very slow - to the point of struggling to use this feature.
  • Time Saving - Vena has saved large amounts of time for two reasons - its powerful engine cuts down on calculating times and its template creation means that common reporting can be automated.
  • Standardisation - the Excel interface means that there was very little speed to competency for colleagues adopting it.
The Excel interface means that Vena works really well with most Excel-based applications. This interface allows us to create more complex forecasting models without needing to roll out training company-wide for colleagues to understand them. We can use Vena and share our work with teams that have not yet adopted it.

One drawback we have found is that pivot table connections to external OLEDB is very slow - This is something that may not be an issue for all business depending on your own infrastructure.

Vena Feature Ratings

9.4
Long-term financial planning
9
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
10
Scenario modeling
8
Management reporting
10
8.7
Financial data consolidation
8
Journal entries and reports
8
Multi-currency management
8
Intercompany Eliminations
10
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
9
Detailed Audit Trails
9
9.6
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
9
XBRL support for regulatory filing
9
8.2
Personalized dashboards
9
Color-coded scorecards
Not Rated
KPIs
8
Cost and profitability analysis
10
Key Performance Indicator setting
8
Benchmarking with external data
6
8.3
Flat file integration
9
Excel data integration
10
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
6
9.0
Pixel Perfect reports
Not Rated
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
9
9.7
Drill-down analysis
9
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
10
10.0
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
10
Report Delivery Scheduling
10
8.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
8
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
Not Rated
Predictive Analytics
8
9.3
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
9
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
9
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Not Rated
7.5
Responsive Design for Web Access
7
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8

Vena Solutions Attributes

Do you think Vena delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

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

This is almost the perfect product for us - it takes a familiar interface and builds upon it. There are many aspects that have improved the way we do things. Making our forecasting more secure and more in-depth. Like with anything there are aspects that can be improved - specifically connections to third-party data sources although this is such a broad feature.