I use Vena for financial mapping, and I find its customizability really valuable. The ad hoc report feature is used a lot in our company because you can create anything and add any fields. This flexibility was a key reason for switching from Planful, as we needed more customizable software for our investors. After the initial setup and learning phase, creating reports became quite easy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think the way you can't refresh the balance sheet ending balance without doing it one month at a time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really like Vena's workflow feature, as it pushes ownership to end users and saves me from constantly having to follow up over email. I also appreciate that it integrates seamlessly with Excel, which makes it more comfortable to work with for budgeting and forecasting. The initial setup of Vena was very easy, which was a significant relief. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish the language and report writing was easier to learn and understand. If there was some way to make it easier to do on your own without relying on EMS. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Vena mainly for consolidation and financial reporting. I appreciate how it provides one source of truth with the ability to refresh data, ensuring consistency and reliability in reporting. I like the fact that it is a modern tool and incorporates leading-edge technologies in every update, which allows me to keep up with the latest developments, particularly in AI. The initial setup was very smooth because the professionals Vena hires for implementation are truly remarkable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It still takes a level of familiarity. It is somewhat overwhelming for the new user. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vena can adapt data from multiple ERPs and transform it into a single, cohesive format, which makes it easier for us to see how the company as a whole is performing. It also continues to add new features, helping the platform stay aligned with current trends and avoid being left behind. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The formatting in ad hoc reporting resets whenever I make new selections. It’s not a major issue—just a minor inconvenience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vena has been great and has alot of features, but there are often data interruptions and updates that cause Vena not to work properly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There have been several instances where Vena will not work for us. Sometimes it is down for 20 minutes and sometimes it is down for multiple days without any way to access reports and templates. This has been the most frustrating part with using Vena. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really like the Excel native interface that Vena features. It's intuitive and native for almost every finance professional. Almost every file and document finance deals with is in Excel and having the planning, budgeting, and reporting interface all easily interact with Excel is a big plus. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We aren’t using all the vena features since we are a small team. Vena insights is a tool I would like to use more of, but I haven’t had the time to dive into the complexities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Vena for forecast, budgeting, and template creation, and I appreciate its ease of access and having all our data in one place. I like the functionality, and the mapping feature stands out because you can do so much with it. The initial setup was easy since our IT team handled most of the process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Learning how to map and all the functions with Vena is challenging. It's hard to learn without multiple months or even years of using it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vena centers its functionality around Excel, but all your data is securely stored in the cloud rather than within the spreadsheets themselves. Together with excel flags, there is potential to build reports that does exactly what you intend to show. The ability to dynamically expand within models, reports, and templates greatly simplifies the work for those responsible for maintaining them. The cascade feature of reports dynamically runs the report in slices without having to select the slices manually, saving a lot of time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

After using Vena for a few years, we have found that most of the challenges we face are related to template automation and ensuring that Mac users can effectively use the platform. We continue to discourage users to access Vena from Mac environment and strictly direct our users to access Vena from Windows environment. It works very well with MS Office, but does not have much integration for GSuite. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like how Vena provides a single source of truth and automates the close process. This streaming of the process really cuts down the month-end close time, which is great. It also significantly reduces the time spent tracking down spreadsheets and reconciling info. The support team was very helpful and great during setup. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Large up front lift for your team Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that Vena keeps the flexibility of Excel while adding centralized data, version control, and structured workflows. The approvals and audit trails improve transparency, and it scales well as our planning needs grow. Vena helps centralize our planning process while still allowing teams to work in Excel, making adoption much easier across finance and non-finance stakeholders. It's especially useful for consolidating budgets across departments, managing rolling forecasts, and producing standardized management reports. The workflow and approval features improve accountability and reduce version-control issues, while the centralized database ensures everyone is working from the same set of numbers. Vena eliminates version-control issues and manual consolidation by centralizing data and automating planning workflows, which reduces errors, improves data integrity, and shortens budgeting and forecasting cycles. The structured workflows and approvals improve collaboration and accountability, helping planning cycles run faster and more smoothly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some advanced features and configurations have a learning curve, and setup can take time to optimize. Performance can also slow with very large or complex models, so improvements in speed, UI responsiveness, and more out-of-the-box templates would be helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.