# Vena Reviews **Vendor:** Vena Solutions **Category:** [FP&A Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/fp-a-financial-planning-analysis) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 475 ## About Vena Vena is an agentic AI-powered Complete FP&A platform that fully amplifies the Microsoft technology ecosystem with native integrations and product innovation to make it easy for anyone to independently access FP&A capabilities, expertise and insights within their natural flow of work. Over 2,000 companies of all sizes use Vena's award-winning platform to accelerate budget cycles, planning processes, financial and business-wide reporting and more. Vena is perfect for finance and accounting teams looking for flexible and easy-to-use Excel-based FP&A platform that can be implemented quickly. Try an interactive product tour: https://www.venasolutions.com/product-tours-hub Get a free demo: https://www.venasolutions.com/request-a-demo G2 categories include: Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Software, Budgeting and Forecasting Software, Financial Close Software, Sales Performance Management Software and more. ## Vena Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **user-friendly interface** of Vena, which streamlines planning and forecasting tasks effectively. (113 reviews) - Users value the **seamless Excel integration** of Vena, enhancing report creation and streamlining financial processes effortlessly. (60 reviews) - Users value the **seamless integration with Microsoft Excel** , enhancing financial planning and maintaining operational efficiency. (52 reviews) - Users value the **familiarity and reliability** of Vena's user interface, making it great for accounts and finance. (50 reviews) - Users appreciate the **ease of reporting** with Vena's Excel-based system, enabling efficient creation and management of reports. (49 reviews) - Excel Compatibility (48 reviews) - Users value the **seamless integration** capabilities of Vena, enhancing efficiency across various tools and platforms. (47 reviews) - Efficiency (46 reviews) - Users appreciate the **integration with Excel and budgeting tools** , enhancing financial planning and simplifying processes. (44 reviews) - Data Management (42 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **learning difficulty** of Vena challenging, especially for those without financial planning backgrounds. (29 reviews) - Users note a challenging **learning curve** with Vena, making it less user-friendly for newcomers and non-professionals. (27 reviews) - Users note a **steep learning curve** with Vena, as initial setup can be complex and requires significant training. (25 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning** curve challenging, especially with complex features and limited staff time for training. (18 reviews) - Users face a **challenging setup difficulty** with Vena, often requiring additional support and experiencing delays in implementation. (18 reviews) - Slow Loading (18 reviews) - Users find the **initial setup complex** , often requiring time and external assistance to build effective models. (17 reviews) - Users find Vena to be **expensive** to run and maintain, coupled with challenging implementation and high costs for updates. (16 reviews) - Difficult Setup (15 reviews) - Slow Performance (14 reviews) ## Vena Reviews ### 1. The full package **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Goods | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 10, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** The integration and seamlessness w/ excel. **What do you dislike about Vena?** I am not sure what I dislike yet. It is a powerhouse of a product. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** N/A - Benefits as a non-profit I can visualize many ### 2. Better than what I've used before! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Real Estate | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** I like the connection with Excel, since that's the place I'm most comfortable working. I also like all the approval routing **What do you dislike about Vena?** Permissioning is complicated when factoring in different user groups across all departments. It can also be a little slow. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We like the approval routings and visibility across different groups. ### 3. Great Tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Milada R. | Associate Client Manager and Staff Accountant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** That you can access your budget model from anywhere, it's effortless to use and well organized. It rarely crashes. It's improved the way we can budget and forecast for our clients. It's also helped with the presentations we create. We can better analyze and track expenses and revenues within a particular budget. Vena makes our forecasting more accurate and more accessible to track the associate costs. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Sometimes it's slow because of the size of the model. Or when you missed an update and have to go back to fix it all. The cell calculations don't stay, so it's hard to go back and see what you did or why you did it. Sometimes if I'm working with another coworker on a client, it is hard to track their changes. Sometimes I spend a lot of time trying to figure that out to adjust it back to the correct amount. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** It's great for large teams that are working on the same model. It's excellent for exporting data and presentations for clients. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it for budgeting and forecasting. It's much easier with how our team built it out. We are all able to make the same updates at the same time. It's good at keeping you on track. I'm solving many of my school's budgeting issues by creating more detailed budgets with the line item feature in our vena models. It has also made it much easier to model for multi-site clients. It's also been a great help with cash flow updates. ### 4. Seamless Connection to Maximize Efficiency **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cody S. | Associate Client Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Complete Integration with Accounting Tools **What do you dislike about Vena?** Vena utilizaed unintuitive steps to be able to transfer information from month-to-month. The actual transfer is easy. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** I would be specific in how you intend to use the product and communicate that to the Vena team. They will be able to help. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Vena has allowed our organization to standardize our analysis practices which has increased our productivity across clients and opened the door to providing additional services for our clients. The best part of Vena is that we can customize our use of the system so that we can provide the services required of our niche sector. Vena is utilized across states in our organization and has performed seamlessly to keep consistency in our work. While improving, the speed at which our templates upload information and open is slow and is the most significant area of growth for Vena. Updates to the system normally occur outside of business hours and have never disrupted our work. ### 5. Great product for forecasting **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Warehousing | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The process to first get Vena setup with our Microsoft ERP system was a fairly easy one. Once the documents were created Vena has been a fantasic solution to provide our sales team insights and help organize them in providing more accurate forecast information for our products. **What do you dislike about Vena?** occasionally we will have a data issue that causing the upload files to fail, but once we fix the data it is easy to run the process again. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Great product **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We had someone in our accounting department spend the better part of a day just gathering all of the data needed to provide to our sales team to get a picture of our business to then update their forecasts. Then that accounting person had to take the data out of the spreadsheet and update our ERP system. With Vena all of this is done without the accounting person spending any time prepairing the data. Everything is just ready to go and updated daily. ### 6. Budgeting success (and more) with Vena! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Food & Beverages | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The fact that our end users/customers get to work in native excel is a big win. One less new thing for them to learn. This is also great support from the Customer Success Team and Vena support. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Only thing that I wish we could change is having the ability for excel functions to stay in budget input files. This would enable our managers to adjust formulas rather than numbers in their input files. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Consider that Vena will be able to assist with whatever business problem you are trying to resolve and that their product will be able to do more as well. We started using Vena as a budget solution and we now utilize it for end of period reporting and balance sheet workpaper (account reconciliation) workflow as well. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Great workflow and security measures. We are able to see where each process stands and make sure that managers only see the information they need to see. ### 7. would recommend **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 12, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** financial reporting capabilities, internal and external **What do you dislike about Vena?** the filters, i would prefer the predictive text was not there **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** forecasting is easier to visualize ### 8. Best balance between low maintenance/ease of use and flexibility/customization of any tool I've seen **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Greg H. | VP of Finance, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 01, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Ability to use existing excel templates by uploading into tool and transitioning over to database over time. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Creating your standardized approach to reporting/forecasting takes time and involves a lot of decisions that could have long-term implications. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Understand the solution you want before implementation, if you can, because you have to create it. There's a ton of value in this but more work up-front, especially around where you want to go vs. where you are. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Single source of the truth and self-serve reporting along with version control. We have benefited by getting the right information to the right people as quickly as possible and reduced conversations around "where" information comes from and increased "what" the information tells us. ### 9. Excel based cloud FP&A **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jennifer L. | Director of FP&A and HR, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 21, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** You get to leverage the power and flexibility of Excel and still plan in the cloud. Pricing was the best versus all competitors. Quick implementation. **What do you dislike about Vena?** There is a bit more maintenance on the balance sheet side than I like **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** I would recommend it! **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We do our annual budgeting and monthly outlook updates in Vena. We use it for by-person forecasting of headcount expenses. We do reporting in it. Being in the cloud is always helpful to significantly reduce versioning issues and make collaboration easy ### 10. Best FP&A Software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Melissa C. | Controller, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The flexibility of utilizing Excel to capture vital information from a variety of systems to combine into critical reports to run the business. **What do you dislike about Vena?** If you are not experienced in using Excel, it might be a challenge. You also have to learn the Vena language and understanding hash tags. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Make sure you request hands-on experience. Really understand what information you need and how the templates you create will work. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been able to shorten the time it takes to put our budget together. Also, we are able to reforecast with ease. It has proved us the ability to do scenarios that helped us keep our business afloat in 2020. ### 11. Great Application - Simplified our business processes! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Real Estate | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** Streamlined budgeting process across our portfolio. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Training takes some time, it's not necessarily user friendly to the basic operations user. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Budgets now have one home, we no longer have to share multiple excel spreadsheets with thousands of versions. Auditing changes is a breeze! ### 12. Great tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Networking | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 01, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The best feature about Vena is the ability to work and model in excel. While other tools allow an excel like feature in their portals, Vena has an add-in in excel which is very easy to use.Their workflow feature is also beneficial to track activities. Hierarchies and alternate hierarchies are features that i havent seen in other tools. they are very easy to setup with an initial hump to identify and setup the dimensions. They also have an API to Power BI that makes it very easy to provide a daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly update to the higher management on the expenses. Ability to save either comments or excel files as backup to the work that is done for forecast analysis. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Contributors are not having the ability to create/model their spreadsheets. This creates issues having to have the admin make all the changes for the contributor. Also, ability to copy paste excel spreadsheets becomes an issue because of multiple hidden rows and columns. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Budgeting and forecasting are easy to do with Vena. It's a self-service tool with significantly less need to reach out to an outside SI for modeling. Also saved significant amount of time trying to create spreadsheets for the different organizations. Uploading the budget/forecast by various members of the organization and knowing when the forecasts are due, and when the forecasts are uploaded is an significant improvement to what we had before. Not having proprietary knowledge of the code for modeling purpose is another significant plus point. ### 13. Effective budget tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 10, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** flexibility and native excel expereince **What do you dislike about Vena?** When glitches or issues exist, but clients are not made aware **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** budget for organization experiencing rapid growth and scale ### 14. 6 month user review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sarah G. | Staff Accountant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Vena is very user-friendly, and the tools available make it easy to troubleshoot and create efficient, effective processes. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Large files can take longer to download but we've been making improvements with Vena's support on this so it's continuously getting better and better. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** I'd recommend this to other businesses. Vena has dramatically enhanced our ability to focus on what matters vs. wasting time manipulating data. We can now focus on the analysis and forecasting of data. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our managers can now access their financial information and back up immediately vs. having to wait on someone else. We're closer to real time accounting that we've ever been. ### 15. Fantastic Software! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Real Estate | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** Vena has great version control. We love that it's a native Excel plugin. **What do you dislike about Vena?** I wish SCIM provisioning was supported so I could link Vena with Okta for automated user provisioning. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Version control with offline document across the organization ### 16. Application Administrator **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mark G. | Application Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2022 **What do you like best about Vena?** Reporting aspect of the application and allowing automaton for the users. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Difficult loading a mass amount of data. Consistently must slice the data to load individually. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solving several reporting needs for several departments across the organization. ### 17. Starting to see the benefits! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chrysta A. | Business Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 17, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Cloud/relational data. Live, accurate updates. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Cumbersome to implement with our current system. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Share as much detailed information about your organization as you can - organizational chart, chart of accounts, etc. - so that Vena can make suitable recommendations. We built several custom templates, which have been useful in gaining contributor support from the organization. The custom templates were created through significant effort wih the Vena implementation team, so while our organizational buy-in was higher, it may have been more profitable to go with templates that Vena already recommends and uses. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Improved reporting speed. Improved budget planning accuracy. Easier access to data. ### 18. Good reporting tool for a mid-sized company **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Soumya S. | Financial Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 01, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** What I like most about Vena is that it is excel based. As so you can use most if not all of the excel functions in building a report. One doesn't necessarily need to train its people to use Vena, and if you choose to do so, it is also effortless. **What do you dislike about Vena?** It does not work well on a Mac PC. In most organizations, people outside the accounting and finance department use Macs, and they usually are the end-users use Macs. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have made our reporting process easier and faster with Vena. ### 19. Try Vena - it does more than budget and forecasting **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mayu H. | Senior Accounting Systems Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I really like the workflow process in Vena. You can track the status. You can reject it and have the owners redo it before final approvals are made. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Can get heavy with babysitting the data flow between the cube and system. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** It's more than budgeting and forecasting. If you know how to use Excel and have licensing issues for adding users to the system, Vena is great to help update the system without logging into it as it can map and feed data. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** No more large Excel files going back and forth in emails and losing version control ### 20. Flexible Excel-based tool ideal for mid-sized orgs FP&A needs **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 31, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** As a financial analyst, I love that Vena is excel-based and that I don't need IT support to administer the tool. Super flexible tool that allowed us to save invaluable time for month-end reporting and variance analysis, and made possible the implementation of a rolling forecast. Support from Vena is very good. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The downside of flexibility is the risk of confusion and user errors. Implementation was rocky at best as Vena did not have the resources to cater for the ramp-up of sales. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** A more flexible planning tool resulted in better forecasting accuracy. Automated functions sped up the distribution of reports at month-end, freeing up some time for more value-added activities. Workflows are easy to use and enable us to formalize planning processes. It also empowers users to have all the information they need, from detailed accounting transactions to high-level dashboards and analyses. ### 21. Non Profit User **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 08, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** It has the flexibility of a spreadsheet with the power of a database. The ability to control user access is a major plus. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Some of our larger files can be slow to open and perform certain operations. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are trying to disaggregate the budget process while also trying to put helpful information in the hands of our end-users. ### 22. Powerful Business Planning **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brandon C. | Director of Camping Budgets and Finance, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 21, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Vena is a very flexible tool for budgeting, strategic planning, and forecasting. We have been pleased with the Excel-based nature of the tool. It has driven new insights at all levels of our departmental mission. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Many complex features require a certain level of expertise to manage. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We created a collaborative budget and forecast environment that gathers data from all our US locations. We now have almost real-time reporting on many operations. What once was dark and out of sight is now visible for management decision-making! ### 23. Best of Both Worlds **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I love living in Excel and not an App for FP&A modeling. Being able to leverage my Excel skills without having to learn another skill set to build models saves time and ensures the highest level of sophistication. Staying in one place (Excel) makes working faster and more efficient. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The ramp is steep to get onboarded to learn the Vena roles and the Section, Blocks, and Intersections. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Compare to Adaptive to see the benefits Vena offers compared to having to model in App and then leverage OfficeConnect for reporting. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Loading our Excel-based forecasts to a data model. It saves us time and makes the model dynamic and repeatable/updateable. ### 24. Our company has seen great improvement in our budgeting process since we began using Vena. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rodrigo E. | Staff Accountant - Payroll, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The familiarity of Excel with all the advanced features Vena provides. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The load time of our files. We are working on updating the formulas and structure of the original files but are still experiencing a bit of a wait time when opening a Vena file. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Find the pain points you currently have and brainstorm ways Vena can help alleviate some of them. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** The emailing of multiple versions of Excel files. We are now able to have people update files in real-time. ### 25. Very easy to use and very helpful working with other departments **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Commercial Real Estate | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The time-saving aspect. It is easy to use the referencing items and pull in data automatically as opposed to manually inputting things. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The training online is a very broad overview of vena, and I use Vena for much more specialized and complex things than what they talk about. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Go through some training exercises with Vena and make sure that those in your organization understand Vena's framework. With a good understanding of the framework, your employees will have a much better experience using the product. I have found this out the hard way but once you know what you are doing it is one of the best products on the market. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** None ### 26. Collaborative, practical, great for multiple template workflow **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I appreciate the automatic flow from template to template. It forces me to be organized in my work and complete all assumptions and rates before working on the main data. It creates a uniform work flow for all managers at my company so anyone can work on anyone else's clients and understand the workflow. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Save time can be long, especially if it's a larger template. The loading time can be really inefficient, especially when I'm trying to make a minor change. It's the largest disrupt to my workflow. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Continuous solving problems: keeping formulas active based on a new tab that's not part of workbook - would like continuous link to worksheets. Now I work around that by creating another template in the exact format as Vena, holding it offline, and then pasting values for salary tables or schedules when there are changes. ### 27. A perfect partner for budgeting and financial analysis. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dibyani D. | Technical Writer (Proposal Manager), Computer Software, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I used Vena in an organization I freelanced for and they used it to create quarterly financial reports with it. The thing I liked the best is it is compeletly cloud-based and accessible remotely to anyone with the correct access. And on top of that, all of our revenues were reported realtime to keep each team's budget in check. **What do you dislike about Vena?** I felt there were some kinks to work out in the software. If I have to point out one thing, they lack an easy resolution guide/process and simple bugs take time to fix. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** The templates are very easy to use and customisable according to our team's needs. ### 28. Vena for FP&A **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Ability to have all values, assumptions, and comments be loaded into different documents in different scenarios, and knowing the information will have the same integrity among all documents. Contributors can then work on their tasks with manager's oversight, **What do you dislike about Vena?** Set-up time, and the ability to have intersections come in as a negative amount would be helpful. Our cube is presentation balances, so if we want a true balance report, the drill downs do not work on the liability and revenue balances. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Apply good resources up front for a successful implementation. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Team workflow and time management is increased. ### 29. Vena Review 2021 **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohamed S. | FP&A Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Collaboration, Task-based, Excel interface **What do you dislike about Vena?** automated data load crashes from time to time support team didn't know the reason till now **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** If you're looking for an easy task/process-based CPM system with a familiar interface (Excel) this is your go-to solution. Be prepared and understand your business requirement and have a qualified subject matter expert before implementation. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Monthly closing and post-closing process, reconciliation, budgeting, and forecasting ### 30. FP&A Vena Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Quick implementation. Easy to use. Very flexible. **What do you dislike about Vena?** It could be better for doing variance analysis. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** I've used many different planning systems (including Anaplan, SAP/Cognos TM1, and Hyperion Essbase) and Vena has been the easiest and quickest implementation and the easiest platform to maintain and update. I enjoy having it as our platform and am glad we went with it! **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Using the headcount model to manage headcount costs. Makes it a much more automated process as we can import from Bamboo. Rolls into our monthly forecast process update, which we are also using Vena for. ### 31. Plan Every Thing with Vena **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Faizan A. | Electrical Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** It covers all your needs from financial planning to forecasting, and that's what I like about it. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Thr preview time should be atleast 2 weeks to explore all its features. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am making my decisions based on the data that I have, which without vena is hard to see. ### 32. My VENA Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Great user interface and not too complicated when it comes to learning how to use it. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Sometimes there are some bugs/errors that are hard to troubleshoot. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am able to help clients organize their work and save time on a lot of their processes. ### 33. It is very great software for financial reports and budgeting **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andy K. | Senior Accounting Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Very convenient and easy to get the reports I want. **What do you dislike about Vena?** It takes some efforts to create custom reports **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am solving with Vena for various monthly reports. The most benefit I have with Vena is to provide a specific period of data very quickly. ### 34. The perfect blend of power features and ease of use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Doug V. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 12, 2020 **What do you like best about Vena?** The well designed data cube allows administrators and power users great flexibility in data structure and template creation. At the same time, casual users can easily enter data, run reports, create ad hoc queries, and drill to details. Vena has replaced all of the high maintenance Excel workbooks used to create budgets and generate financial statements in the past. It allows us to quickly consolidate a complex organization with more than 100 entities and easily report on any level, from a full division to a single location. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The user security features do their job but are probably the least intuitive part of the system. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Choosing Vena as a partner is a decision you'll be grateful for at the end of your next budget cycle. Take the time to think through the things you want to achieve and design your data cube(s) with future flexibility in mind. Find the right person in your organization to champion the product and give them time to focus on implementing it well. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Gathering input from dozens of contributors was a challenge with standard Excel workbooks. Users might change formulas, move rows or columns, and generally wreak havoc, then expect Finance to put all the pieces back together. Consolidating the budget or forecast was difficult with fertile ground for errors. Because Vena stores everything to a central database with always connected and protected templates, a rolled up view is available on demand and without grief. The cherry on top is an audit trail that can tell you exactly who changed what numbers and when. Because Vena was already in place and has the ability to easily store inputs from multiple users, we were able to solve non-financial problems thrown at us by the COVID crisis. In less than a day, we created a new data cube and templates to track PPE inventory (masks, gloves, gowns, etc.) at all locations throughout the state. Users enter their daily inventory allowing purchasing and operations to quickly see the status and move supplies where they are most needed. Additionally, we are able to capture and compile COVID related costs for required reporting on government stimulus funds. ### 35. Vena Experience on G2 **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 19, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Easy platform to use, great way to store data **What do you dislike about Vena?** performance issues can happen with more data flow, and there is a lot to learn before being able to use it compitently. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Accounting, Budgeting and Forecasting, Box office, Scenario Modeling, consolidation. ### 36. Great Tool for Planning & Budeting **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Goods | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The best feature of Vena is that works through Excel. That makes it easy to sync existing models into Vena and create workflows that are managed through a single portal. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The Admin setup is tricky if not setup correctly and needs a resource to understand the workflows and manage it properly. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Workflow management, consolidation of revenue and expenses into P&Ls. The benefit of Vena having version control and better management of timelines through divided responsibilities. ### 37. Vena Solutions is a one stop shop for budgeting/forecasting **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Vena has been extremely flexible and user friendly and has shortened our budget process from 6 months to 4 with data automation, dashboards, and process management. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Time to set up - took us a few months to get templates built and ready to go. Implementation time was quite a bit longer than anticipated. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data integrity issues mainly. We have realized benefits in terms of time, putting that time into more useful analytics. ### 38. Good tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Easy to use and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. Notifications help keep tasks on track and love that it is via excel. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Performance issues when a lot of excel files are open, although that is more of an excel/ laptop issue rather than a Vena one. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Look beyond budget and planning needs. This tool may also help with program deep-dives, inventory, etc. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Vena is making planning simpler. The reports our Senior Specialist, Finance Reporting, has created capture many complexities in an easy-to-digest format. Data entry for budgeting is much quicker and more straightforward than the older tool we used. ### 39. Very capable, all in one platform solution for business reporting **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mining & Metals | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Account Reconciliation Tool. We hope also to evaluate the Consolidation and other tools, but Account Reconciliation has the highest and most immediate needs for us. The user interface also appears to be advanced and intuitive, but I can't speak to the look and feel of all areas. I have seen only Account Reconciliation and task manager. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The limited customer base. We want to ensure that Vena has wide adoption with companies with our ERP, in our industry, and multi-national. This would show us it is capable of future requirements. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Account Reconciliation and Task Management. We used a spreadsheet method for Account Reconciliation and felt we needed more advanced reporting and approval workflows. ### 40. Vena - an Excel-based solution for budgeting and reporting **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Zuhair A. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 10, 2020 **What do you like best about Vena?** It's based in Excel so Excel knowledge does carry over into a starting point for understanding and learning Vena. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The initial setup is very important, it's harder to make larger changes to how your data model works once you've done your initial setup. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Make sure that Vena fits the scope of what you need and that you work with Vena consultants to make sure your initial setup covers all of the bases. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our budgeting process was very manual and didn't involve everyone the budgets impacted. Now we're able to integrate more stakeholders into our budgeting process to reduce the amount of time we spend revising budgets. Eventually we're looking to make reporting available more quickly through Vena as well. ### 41. My Experience with Vena Has Been Really Good **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The fact that Vena is Excel-based makes it very easy to deploy among non-financial staff. The learning curve is pretty low. **What do you dislike about Vena?** It's hard sometimes to get a consultant within a reasonable timeframe who understands the industry I work in. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Before Vena, creating financial reports and dashboards for our Board and staff was a lengthy monthly chore. Now, the process is pretty much automated once I upload data from my accounting system into Vena. ### 42. Powerful Budgeting, Reporting, and Analysis Tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 17, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Overall, it is a great, powerful, and user-friendly application. Excel interface is my favorite part about Vena. It makes Excel better by implementing the add-in function. **What do you dislike about Vena?** At the beginning, it does require a lot of time learning its system/functions. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** It is a great solution for planning, budgeting, and reproting. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to centrally manage our budgeting process. It saves time. ### 43. Great experience so far! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I like that Vena uses Excel - it makes it easier to use and understand. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The system is so adaptable that the slightest error can send you into a tailspin until you figure out the mistake. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Know what you need! The best questions yield the best answers! **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick response to data inquiries from management. Time savings ### 44. Powerful tool that reduces chances of human error **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bryson W. | Finance/Client Manager , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 06, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Integration with accounting software is one of the best features in Vena **What do you dislike about Vena?** Refesh times and having to save and refresh are not the best. There is also no way to save formatting changes; everything reverts to default when refreshed. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Vena as a tool for tracking, reporting and budgeting finances for 11 schools. ### 45. Vena made things smooth and streamlined **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Sports | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Vena?** Easy to use / Easy to teach / Easy to transition / Making reports more attractive **What do you dislike about Vena?** Hard to say. Vena is always getting updated with new features that help with overall experience. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Do it. Things will be a lot smoother with the help of Vena team. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Vena helped with consolidation of financials and budgeting procedure. Things are a lot smoother and straight forward. ### 46. Very enjoyable **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** garrett l. | Finance Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 01, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I like the flexibility and ability to store any data set **What do you dislike about Vena?** Clunkyness surrounding powerpoint and word embedding. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** solving budgeting and forecasting. Better data integrity. ### 47. Vena changed how we do reporting. Cut time significantly. Very efficient. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Easily update reports just by changing dates. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Complicated to set up. Needed a lot of help from consultants to start. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Make sure you train at least 2 people who know it well so if one leaves you can still use the product. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Efficiency gains and time savings preparing complicated reports. Able to incoporate all levels of management in preparation of budget. ### 48. Very Flexible **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Media Production | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** I love that Excel is the front end, because makes it easy/efficient to build and customize reports using a familiar tool. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The workflow is a little restrictive when it comes to making changes and shutting down parts **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We do all our reporting and budgeting in Vena, and there is very little maintenance from month to month and year to year. ### 49. Great tool if your scale requires it **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brian H. | Client Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 06, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** Versions can be saved through time, it's all online, lockable sheets, and formulas. **What do you dislike about Vena?** Saving doesn't save formulas or calculated cells. Loading times can take a while. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** We create forecasts, track actuals, and create budgets with Vena. We have benefitted greatly from the version control and everything being online/lockable. ### 50. Seamless and Intuitive! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin S. | Business Analyst, Finance, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Vena?** The ability to quickly generate reports. **What do you dislike about Vena?** The difficulty in exporting to Power BI. **Recommendations to others considering Vena:** Vena is very easy to learn. Once you have some in-house Excel power users, you can expand the benefit of Vena with their creativity. **What problems is Vena solving and how is that benefiting you?** Vena is helping us solve global financial consolidation. It also allows for easy, fool-proof stakeholder input when preparing budgets and forecasts. ## Vena Discussions - [How long does it take for Vena to sync the files?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/31775-how-long-does-it-take-for-vena-to-sync-the-files) - 2 comments, 2 upvotes - [What is the maximum time to wait for synchronization of the information?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/30678-what-is-the-maximum-time-to-wait-for-synchronization-of-the-information) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What's the best way to create a truly dynamic input template?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/28805-what-s-the-best-way-to-create-a-truly-dynamic-input-template) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View Vena pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/vena/reviews?page=8§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-23+16%3A54%3A57+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=51037d22-6a50-4177-91a2-5c598ae1c384&secure%5Btoken%5D=9533cfce91ee2c7187386eebd999269ee5c4ef2f5421c6c1a98cc61b775d397d&format=llm_user) ## Vena Integrations - [Agentforce 360 Platform (formerly Salesforce Platform)](https://www.g2.com/products/agentforce-360-platform-formerly-salesforce-platform/reviews) - [Azure Databricks](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-databricks/reviews) - [BudgetPak](https://www.g2.com/products/budgetpak/reviews) - [Databricks](https://www.g2.com/products/databricks/reviews) - [Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-microsoft-dynamics-365-business-central/reviews) - [Microsoft Excel](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-excel/reviews) - [Microsoft Power BI](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-microsoft-power-bi/reviews) - [Microsoft SQL Server](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-sql-server/reviews) - [NetSuite](https://www.g2.com/products/netsuite/reviews) - [Net@Suite](https://www.g2.com/products/net-suite/reviews) - [Oracle Hyperion Planning](https://www.g2.com/products/oracle-hyperion-planning/reviews) - [Sage Intacct](https://www.g2.com/products/sage-intacct/reviews) - [SAP Cloud ERP (SAP S/4HANA Cloud)](https://www.g2.com/products/sap-cloud-erp-sap-s-4hana-cloud/reviews) - [SAP ECC](https://www.g2.com/products/sap-ecc/reviews) ## Vena Features **Budget Creation** - Data Import - Budget Hierarchies - Versioning - Formulas - What-If - Budget Periods **Data Management** - Data Import - Data Consolidation - Data Validation **Platform** - Reward Structuring - Event Management - Workflow Automation - Compensation History - Automated Compliance - Performance Management Integration - Embedded Analytics - Reporting Capabilities - Compensation Data Management - Internationalization **Reconciliation** - Consolidation - Management - Accounting **Financial Planning** - Extended Planning - Reporting - Integration **Generative AI** - AI Text Generation - AI Text Summarization **Reconciliation - Financial Reconciliation** - Automation - Bank Statements - Exceptions - Algorithms **Sales Performance Features - Sales Planning** - Account Scoring - Revenue Planning - Account Segmentation - Sales Performance - Sales Forecasting - Integrations - Scenario Modeling **Platform - Compensation Planning** - Compensation Budgeting - Merit Cycle Planning - Pay Transparency - Automated Compliance - Reward Structuring - Compensation History **Agentic AI - Sales Performance Management** - Autonomous Task Execution - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance **Agentic AI - Accounting & Finance** - Autonomous Task Execution **Agentic AI - FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) ** - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making **Incentives** - Badges - Triggers - Commission Calculator - Leaderboards **Financial Insight** - Budgeting - Forecasting - Planning **Budget Management** - Consolidation - Adjustments - Workflows **Reporting Structure** - Reporting Hierarchy - Report Templates - Report Types **Reporting** - Report Types - Standard - Custom **Benchmarking and Equity - Compensation Management** - Benchmarking Data - Pay Equity - Salary Bands **Audit - Financial Reconciliation** - Accuracy - Compliance - Reporting - Audit Trail **Territory Management - Sales Planning** - Territory Management - Territory Planning **Additional Features - Compensation Planning** - Reporting Capabilities - Workflow Automation - Integrations **Personalization** - Profiles - Custom Reports - Dashboards - Goal Setting **Data** - Data Visualization - Data Analysis - Custom Reporting - Reporting Templates **Forecasting** - Historical Data - Reforecast - Forecast Types - Rolling Forecasts - AI **Standard Analytics** - Standard KPIs - Standard Reports - Financial Statements - Drill Down **Closing Process** - Audit - Journal Entries - Distribution **Integrations - Financial Reconciliation** - Accounting - Inventory - ERP - Banking **Quota & Capacity Management - Sales Planning** - Quota Management - Capacity Management - Quota Planning **Administrative** - Integration - Employee Structure - Behavior Monitoring **Status Communication** - Collaboration - Version Control - Real-Time Data Updates - Scorecards **Analytics** - Variance Analysis - Forecasts Comparison - Forward Looking **Custom Analytics** - Dashboards - Custom KPIs - Custom Reports - Self Service - Multiple Entities **User Permissions and Security - Financial Reconciliation** - Access - Authentication - Encryption - Regulations **Agentic AI - Sales Planning** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning **Platform** - Customization - Integration APIs - Internationalization - User, Role, and Access Management - Performance - Mobility - Reporting - Dashboards **Agentic AI - Financial Reconciliation** - Autonomous Task Execution **Agentic AI - Budgeting and Forecasting** - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making **Agentic AI - Financial Analysis** - Cross-system Integration - Decision Making **AI - Financial Close** - Autonomous Task Execution - Compliance - Reconciliation - Data Collection - Analysis ## Top Vena Alternatives - [Anaplan](https://www.g2.com/products/anaplan/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (392 reviews) - [Prophix Software](https://www.g2.com/products/prophix-software/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (218 reviews) - [Datarails](https://www.g2.com/products/datarails/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (323 reviews)