Vena Review

PROS: Vena brings the comfort of utilizing Excel and the ability to build templates only once and just replicate them when needed. The latter ability has saved us a lot of time from doing tens of hundreds of templates manually. Another strength of Vena is its integrated workflow process. It gave our company the ability to incorporate many stakeholders in the process. Lastly, I like the ability to connect Excel models without breaking links.

CONS: Excel occasionally crashes. But there's nothing to worry because there are saved backups. Aside from that, I wish Vena would make solving problems with the system more self serve by providing more comprehensive and easy to follow in the app troubleshooting guide.

PROS: Vena has been our go-to solution when it comes to creating and accessing reports. When it comes to building reports, we only have to create one and leverage it across more than a hundred entities in our organization. No need to spend long hours and a significant amount of time building countless new reports. In terms of accessing reports, the service let us access any reports we need easily. No need for temperamental and complex integration to get the reports. The service also helps us ensure that our team is building reports in line with the best practices in the field. Vena team is always within reach.

CONS: I am not well versed in excel formulas so I had a bit of a hard time using them. Fortunately, I have colleagues who know how that stuff works. Whenever I need to use formulas, I just seek help from them. I am able to figure things out with their guidance.

PROS: We can forecast, plan, and create solid financial reports for our company all in one location. The ability to update reports in real time with so much ease through ETL uploads has made it faster to complete reporting. Our approval processes and workflow has become easier to manage and monitor, thanks to the solution's forecast and planning tools. Learning how to use the system is a no brainer for staff with experience in Excel. But if aren't familiar with the program, there are training to help you get started. And whenever a technical problem arises, Vena team helps solve issues immediately.

CONS: It is difficult and sometimes takes time to build reports because you still have to begin with a blank Excel worksheet. But with a little practice, this won't be an issue anymore. The loading time of reports and the wait time when uploading huge ETL is quite slow. Apart from that, support is not available round-the-clock. So if a problem arises at night, we can get help the following day. But it's because of the time zone.

PROS: From the perspective of a staff accountant, the best thing about Vena is its ease of installation and use. I have already used Excel so learning how to operate this program has become easier. Overall, I like the quality of the service and the responsiveness of their customer support team.

CONS: I don't find any cons of using the product yet.

PROS: I like the platform’s workflow structure functionality as it allows our team to design various workflow patterns to suit varying needs of different company departments as well as the ability to model a wide array of data and map them in Excel. Our end users are most likely used to using MS Excel so this is convenient for them. I also like the quality of customer support. Their team are always willing to step in, guide users, provide advice and insight on best practices, give resources for documentation, and always give their best to resolve your concern.

CONS: We have to manually refresh our sandbox environment in order to get up-to-date data while testing new improvements for our production environment. It would be great if they offer an option to automate this process. We already expressed this request to them and hopefully, they’ll add it into the platform soon.

PROS: Vena delivers a plethora of perks that end-users enjoy. UI and reports can be customized to suit the user’s requirements and needs. We can modify the templates and reports with so much ease. Changes made are instantly reflected across all other templates. Permissions management is available as well as other security measures, giving end-users peace of mind. Customer support is excellent and reliable. Last but not least, it integrates with MS Excel, making the product easier to use.

CONS: We are still figuring out how to maximize the value of the product. So far, the only minor issue we’ve encountered was the load time of complex reports and templates. They often take too long to load. But processing the simple ones are quite fast.

PROS: I like the automated translation of currencies, seamless data consolidation, and the standardized budget templates. This platform has reduced the amount of money, time and effort spent on monthly maintenance.

CONS: The option to access Pivot Table via OLEDB connection takes forever to load. Not useful after all. Also, there’s no report writer.

PROS: Our organization is able to make effective budgets based on the income and daily expenditure.

CONS: The platform works very effectively and I have not experienced any drawback from its performance.

PROS: Our budget cycle has become a more manageable and smoother procedure. We don't have have to handle everything manually, which saved us more time to focus on analysis.

CONS: It is difficult to plug a number as a fast fix. But this is just because Vena is basically a database.

PROS: We are able to perform tasks like generate reports right insight the Microsoft Excel. Our end users have already been using Excel so using the solution has somewhat become a no brainer. They love it. Training our internal users to make and keep templates as well as reports using the software was pretty easy.

CONS: Administering workflows and writing complex reports are tricky and difficult but not impossible to learn.

PROS: One of the best things about using this platform is that there’s no need to learn entirely new software. Vena works as an extension of Microsoft Excel, which is a widely used program and most of our staff know how to use it. In addition, the ability to create a single template to be used by many users to handle various projects is very helpful. It eliminates the need to create a new template for every upcoming project. On top of that, the service provider has a reliable customer support and service representative that’s always available to provide assistance whenever it is needed.

CONS: It would be nice if there’s a way to make the loading time of complex templates and other functionalities like design features a bit faster.

PROS: The ability to use MS Excel as an overlay to the cloud cube database is an incredible thing. We are able to enjoy the perks of using both.

CONS: There’s nothing to dislike; only exciting upgrades to look forward to. The dashboard is still in the first phase and there are still lots of room for improvement.

PROS: The platform is effective in terms of generating reports and creating templates. The excel-based interface made the solution easier to use. Our budget managers are able to forecast templates and set up personalizes budget easily (but you need to get a grasp of the mapping methodology first).

CONS: End-users need to be cautious when setting up templates so data integrity won’t be compromised. This can be challenging at first but if you get used to being careful, working on it would become easier. Apart from that, modifying variables and ensuring they reflect across the system sometimes is not as easy as you may think.

PROS: Vena is a great tool for budgeting and reporting and has been very helpful to the business. It has a steady, snappy, and really amazing user interface that makes using the software easy. Its customer service is also great. They are always available and ready to help us address our concerns and needs.

CONS: There are lots of buttons to click when setting up the software but I don’t think it is a deal-breaker. The platform has helped us handle certain business processes more efficiently. Overall, I don’t see anything that could be considered as a con.