Vena

My overall and remarkable insight with Vena

Comments: It's a reliable tool for creating and managing financial budgets.
It's reliable with cash flows management.

Pros:

I like how this tool is reliable for financial planning,budgeting and forecasting.It's simple to prepare custom financial reports reports with Vena.This tool is reliable with bank account reconciliation.

Cons:

I lack anything that I can complain since this tool meets all my needs and expectations.

Vena provides flexibility to set up budgets, reports and other processes as flexibly as we need.

Comments: We were able to streamline and centrally collect data for our budgeting process, which save considerable time for the budget administrator and other admin assistants across our university. We created Board-level reporting templates that can be re-used every year to report the results of the budget process with only changes made as necessary for the format of the current reporting year. We collect forecasting information from over 330 departments and compile all the information within one template to estimate the financial outcome for the fiscal year. We have been able to include data in planning of various kinds in ways that we weren't able to by just using Excel, resulting in better planning results. We can create new planning or reporting processes and have the flexibility to save additional data input that isn't part of our ERP data. Overall, we have saved time, improved processes, created one version of the data visible to all involved in the process and created efficiencies by being able to share data across processes.

Pros:

Flexibility to set up whatever process we are working on the way it needs to be set up for our business requirements. Continual improvements being done on the Vena add-in and browser administration interface. Formatting Excel templates and reports exactly as needed. Ability to pull in data from all data versions for any reporting or template. Ability to save non-financial data to use in reporting or calculations. Ability to control user input as needed to better quality data. Prompt customer service responses. Great implementation team. Administrative control over data visible to individual users. Workflows to show status for process steps and email notifications when a workflow step is ready for input or review. Once learned, allows for creation of new processes to collect or report data.

Cons:

Having to download each Excel file, but once downloaded, it's easy to select the data we want to see.

Lots of features!

Pros:

Its similar to Excel which gives me familiarity and makes a bit easier to understands and navigate.

Cons:

I have only used it for a short while. It has a lot of features, which can possibly be a little confusing, but a fault of the software, just that I have not yet fully explored it and used it long enough to understand all the options it provides.

Coming full circle - back to excel?

Comments: I have used a handful of popular systems in my 10-year career. When I first heard of Excel focused planning tools I was at first excited. How can a system that solves for the very tool that all of finance uses go wrong? In the beginning, FPA wanted to get out of Excel and have one version of the truth. Then the industry pivoted back to Excel with a bunch of intermixed features between Excel and cloud solutions workflow. With that, issues arise such as..If everything is Excel based, is it just easier to use Excel? Sadly Vena, and many others like them, fall short with the basic product offering equation. What problem are you actually solving for? The balance between a native Excel feeling and the Vena software controlling it feels under-developed. And how can it not be? If you solve for Excel then you stray from the Vena platform, if you focus on Vena platform you move away from Excel. The result is a mediocre product at best. Here is a basic example. In Excel you can group columns, easy. In Vena, you can write simple code on the report to hide a column. In the same report you can use one or the other, or both, the results are reports with frustrating formatting quirks. Though there are some pluses to Vena, I would think twice about committing to it as it is not a robust planning tool. The main question you, the user, should ask is the following.” Do I buy into the future where Excel (a system owner my Microsoft) really the future of financial planning software?

Pros:

Honestly, if you have used other planning software, I can not really say there is much.

Cons:

• No web interface that shows your financials. All financials must be displayed through reports that you build through Excel. Yes, you can pull intersection data and get a dump, but that is cumbersome. • Loading headcount takes up to an hour to load since it needs to be customized. • Mapping a report takes too long. You must map not just columns and rows, but the “page”, or global like dimensions. Vena should be smart enough to know this without the user, it is not. • Mapping a report takes way too much space. You can not nest a query within a cell. • Hard running a report with two global assumptions. You have to create another intersection mapping. • Hard to audit a complicated report, hence you are incentivized not to, therefore what is the point? • Reports and input sheets can exist on the same report sheet. Though useful at times, it is easy to override data and can get confusing. Though you sometimes have to do it for modeling purposes. • The software learning curve peaks too early. I understand having a simple software, but not at the expense of functionality. • Writing intricate code to help automate financial planning is not practical. There is only a primitive editor, and no result box that guides you. Our consultants told us do not even try because they seldom touch it. Specifically, it is extremely hard to validate what is occurring. • Building a three-statement model is a disaster. Imagine building a balance sheet, but not being able to pull a number from the

Templates worked fairly well

Comments: Overall I really liked working with Vena. It housed some very key templates and data for budgeting, forecasting, and cash flow analysis. It may only be my company, but our workflows never seem to work correctly. The templates and background data integrate well and are easy to use, though. Wouldn't be upset at all if my next company utilized Vena.

Pros:

The ability to store templates and data was pretty seamless and worked well

Cons:

Workflows were odd and confusing - could never get them to work. Sorting templates to find the data you needed was equally as difficult, although that could have been an institutional thing.