INFLUENTIAL SOFTWARE SERVICES LIMITED

Vena – Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Software Integrated with Excel

Vena's CPM platform combines deep FP&A planning capabilities, AI-powered reporting and analytics, flexible workflows and robust data governance with the productivity, collaboration, and innovation of your Microsoft applications. Vena is natively integrated with Excel, M365 and Open AI technologies to empower Finance teams - complete planning platform with enterprise-level scalability.

Features

• Integrated software for business planning across the whole organisation
• Consolidated reporting in real time
• Workflow automation for key processes
• Full audit trail of user inputs
• Native integration with Excel
• Data and ERP source system agnostic. APIs, native connectors, ETL
• Ease of use, purpose-built for Finance without expensive third-party support
• Dashboard reporting with embedded Microsoft Power BI
• Visibility of financial and non-financial performance
• Integrated AI agent that automates FP&A, accelerates insights, improves decisions.

Benefits

• Reduce cost of ownership in medium term
• Lower your upfront investment and see value faster
• Increase user adoption and utilization with familiar native Excel interface
• Increase visibility over key financial reporting and planning processes
• Ensure data integrity and accurate reporting with real-time data refresh
• Significantly reduce lead times for key processes including monthly closedown
• Automate spreadsheet-based processes with full auditability and transparency
• Automate business-wide processes with Vena’s applicability across multiple use cases
• Secure financial data with advanced security features and role-based permissions
• Deep FP&A planning capabilities

• Education pricing available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at contact@influentialsoftware.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 15

Service ID

401573638357008

Contact

Andy Richardson
0845 6430592
contact@influentialsoftware.com

About the service

• Service categories:
  • Applications
    • Enterprise resource management
      • Financial
        • Financial and Accounting Applications
• Multi cloud support: No

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model:
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
• Service constraints: Please refer to the latest information from the vendor
• System requirements: Supports wide range of browsers

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes
• Support response times: There is an SLA which outlines response times depending on severity
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: Yes
• Web chat support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• AI chatbot: No
• Web chat support accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web chat support is accessible: Via the support pages on our website or via the help feature embedded into our application.
• Web chat accessibility testing: Unknown
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Standard Support Plan; Every customer has access to our Standard Support Plan for online and telephone support, including:; • 24/7 application monitoring; • Help desk phone and email support 24/5 Monday-Friday; • Unlimited case submissions; • Up to 3 Power Users to contact Vena support; • Maximum first response time of 1 business day for Severity C issues; • Access to the Vena Customer Portal, online videos, FAQs, user guides, and a community help forum in our knowledge base; • A dedicated Customer Account Manager to help recommend products, services and processes to help you get the most out of Vena; ; Extended Support Plan; For after-hours support and accelerated response times, our ; Extended Support Plan combines all the services of our Standard Support Plan with:; • 24 Help Desk with on-call telephone support; • Maximum first response time of 5 hours for Severity A issues; Up to 20 Manager or Administrator users to contact Vena support.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Training is provided as well as a range of consulting services to assist with implementation and data import etc.
• Service documentation: No
• End-of-contract data extraction: Vena offers multiple methods of data export to our customers, depending on your source systems, available resources and preferences:; 1. Manual export via mass or queried export within the application; 2. Automated/scheduled export of data via flat file format; 3. Automated/scheduled export via Microsoft Power Automate; 4. Automated/scheduled export via Vena’s open REST API; 5. Automated/scheduled integration via Microsoft Data Factory in Fabric; Vena supports .csv format for data export from the Vena application.
• End-of-contract process: Contracts are normally renewed on the contract anniversary. If a customer wishes to terminate the contract, then all customer data is permanently deleted.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Same functionality and user experience. Note that Vena does not have a separate mobile application. Rather, Vena users can easily log onto the application via any mobile device through their mobile browser.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: The Vena API is an open REST API for both data import and export that allows users to:; • Retrieve template information; • Upload files to steps; • Create jobs; • Edit jobs; • Run jobs; • Export Data
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: HTML
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Vena provides a fully configurable set of tools that does not require code customization. This includes data modelling, workflow management and template/report design, which leverages all the capabilities of a native Excel interface. Customizations will not be impacted by product upgrades. Here are some of the ways in which Vena may be customized/configured to meet your business requirements:; • A sophisticated process designer that allows users to drag-and-drop their workflow process, including input steps, review steps, alerts and report access.; • The ability for workflow messages to be customized, including autofill with specific data.; • The ability to require managers to acknowledge receipt/review/approval of reports(s); • User permissions pertaining to access and security are controlled by the administrator and can be customized as needed.; • The database can be fully configured to support tables and fields as required. Templates and reports are authored in a native Excel interface and can be completely customized by the client.; • Pre-formatted reports that can be leveraged as a starting point. Vena leverages a native Excel interface as the authoring environment, which allows clients to customize their reports as needed.; • The ability to create and customize dynamic validation rules based on user inputs

Scaling

• Independence of resources: As a multi-tenant SaaS platform, auto-scaling enables Vena to support unlimited concurrent users without performance degradation.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: System performance (e.g. system availability, outages, etc.) is available to customers via public URL. Customer tenant metrics, like usage, is available to share through the customer's designated Vena Account Manager.
• Reporting types:
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request
• Resource tagging: No
• FOCUS resource tagging: No

Supplier type

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Vena

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Security Clearance (SC)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 4.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest: Other
• Other data at rest protection approach: All data in Vena is encrypted at rest using AES-256 bit encryption. Passwords are also securely stored through one-way hashed (bcrypt) with salt.
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation / Secure Erase
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Vena is source-system agnostic and supports a full spectrum of data integration capabilities to connect and load data from source systems (e.g. ERPs/GLs, HRISs, CRMs and more), including ETL functionality, native API connectors and an open REST API. Vena offers multiple methods of data export to customers, depending on source systems, available resources and preferences:; 1. Manual export via mass or queried export within the application; 2. Automated/scheduled export of data via flat file format; 3. Automated/scheduled export via Microsoft Power Automate; 4. Automated/scheduled export via Vena’s open REST API; 5. Automated/scheduled integration via Microsoft Data Factory in Fabric
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats: Any format supported through the interfaces supplied with Vena

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Please refer to the latest information from the vendor

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Vena will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the Service available with a monthly uptime percentage of at least 99.5%, twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week, in each case during any monthly cycle (the “Service Commitment”). Monthly uptime percentage is based on the number of minutes the system is unavailable outside of planned maintenance windows in a calendar month and between the hours of 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, with holidays excepted. For the avoidance of doubt, the Service is considered unavailable when the system/Service cannot be accessed by the Subscriber between the hours of 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM, Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, due to a service provider problem. In the event that Vena does not meet the Service Commitment, Subscriber will be eligible to receive a Service Credit as described below. ; ; Service Credits are calculated as a percentage of the proportional monthly subscription value of the total subscription fees paid by Subscriber for the Service (which was unavailable) in accordance with the schedule below. The monthly uptime percentage is based on the number of minutes the Service is unavailable outside of planned maintenance windows in a calendar month.
• Approach to resilience: Each Vena instance is distributed across at least three Availability Zones, which means all live data is replicated and distributed across at least three physical data centers in a different location within a given cloud region, ensuring high availability and resilience. As part of our data backup and DR approach, backups of customer data are replicated and stored in a second cloud region in the event of an entire region becoming unavailable.
• Outage reporting: A public dashboard with email alerts can be subscribed to – status.vena.io

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Access is granted based on an employee's role based on principles of least privilege. Only the access that is required for the employee to perform their duties is granted. Only a limited group of Vena employees on the infrastructure team have access to infrastructure/systems hosting customer data, for the purposes of troubleshooting systems issues and performing maintenance. All access is audited and controlled through access management controls, such as API logs, two-factor authentication and VPN access to the environment. All backend operations to access any data (including backups) is logged.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: No audit information available
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Software Security Code of Practice: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: Other
• Other security governance standards: Vena has successfully completed SOC 1 & SOC 2 Type II audits which were performed by Deloitte LLP. The examination was conducted in accordance with attestation standards established by the AICPA. Additionally, Vena is a Trusted Cloud Provider with the Cloud Security Alliance and has a TRUSTe Enterprise Privacy certification
• Information security policies and processes: Vena employs a three lines of defence model to govern risk management. This model is widely used in the industry. Each of the three lines plays a distinct role within Vena’s control environment. ; ; The first line of defence lies with the business and process owners, like IT, Finance, HR and Vena’s Cloud Operations teams, which are responsible for maintaining effective controls and for executing agreed upon risk and control procedures on a day-to-day basis. ; ; The second line is performed by our Corporate Security department and overseen by a Security Risk & Compliance committee, which supports management to help ensure risk and controls are effectively managed. This line performs risk management and compliance functions to help build and/or monitor the first line-of defence controls. ; ; The third line of defence provides assurance to senior management and the board that the first and second lines’ efforts are consistent with expectations. Vena employs independent external auditors for our third line of defence. They are solely responsible for providing an independent opinion on the sufficiency of the internal controls with respect to the requirements specified within accepted industry standards such as SOC.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: The change management process requires that existing security control mechanisms are not negatively impacted prior to approval – adherence to existing controls is reviewed through automated build testing and manual peer core reviews.
• Vulnerability management type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Vena Cloud is a fully Infrastructure-as-code production environment deployed across several distributed cloud regions, providing us resiliency, reliability, recoverability and security. We routinely rotate in fresh ephemeral compute instances on a weekly basis to pick up the latest security releases and OS-level patches to ensure continuous compliance with critical OS-level vulnerabilities. All base images are scanned prior to deployment using automated vulnerability scans and release will be blocked if there are any high or critical severity vulnerabilities found.; Additionally, Vena regularly performs external penetration tests by an independent third party on an annual basis.
• Protective monitoring type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: Vena employs Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) on both corporate and infrastructure endpoints to provide advanced threat detection and response, mitigating risks such as malware, ransomware, and other advanced persistent threats. Additionally, Vena utilizes a third-party Managed Detection & Response (MDR) service that covers all assets with EDR agents installed. This service includes managed detection and response, incident investigation, forensics support, and proactive threat hunting.; For cloud infrastructure, logs are continuously monitored and analyzed by anomalous threat detection services like Microsoft Sentinel and AWS GuardDuty. Any alerts generated are promptly investigated, and necessary actions are taken to address potential threats.
• Incident management type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v4.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Post-quantum cryptography secure: No
• Incident management approach: Vena’s incident response framework provides the foundational processes for incident detection, management and recovery. The framework also establishes roles and responsibilities during an incident, including escalation procedures, incident classification criteria and response procedures. The foundations of the incident response framework were designed to meet the requirements laid out in ISO-IEC 27001:2013; specifically, the control objectives specified in A.16.1 Management of Information Security Incidents and Improvements.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v4.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Pricing

• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: No

Discount percentage by annual call-off contract value (excluding VAT)

• Less than £250,000: 0%
• Between £250,000 and £500,000: 0%
• Between £500,001 and £1,000,000: 0%
• Between £1,000,001 and £2,500,000: 5%
• Between £2,500,001 and £5,000,000: 10%
• Over £5,000,001: 12.5%

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2022 certification: No
• ISO 9001 certification: No
• Quality management systems (QMS): No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber Essentials Certificate Number: A8bc0a80-aed8-4ad5-bed0-5deb6766f843
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Cyber Essentials Plus Certificate Number: 3070a202-2c38-4eb2-b2b7-83d5fd73fab6
• Other security certifications: No

Social value

• Mission: Kick start economic growth:

  To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

  Policy Outcome 1: Fair work: That offers fair wages and good working conditions. Help people get a job, stay in work, and progress in their careers, with good employment opportunities across the country. Notes: Where there is a large proportion of labour costs in the contract, commercial teams should consider MAC in Outcome 1 as a priority

  • New or retained jobs on the contract workforce in the relevant area that meet the criteria set out in MAC 1b, 1c and 1d
  • Providing opportunities for, and measuring and monitoring of, staff workforce conditions over time, including employee engagement, involvement in decision-making and satisfaction and adapting to any changes in the results, with clear processes for acting on issues identified
  • Plans to engage the contract workforce in deciding the most important workplace issues to address
  • Ensuring new workers are informed of their right to join a trade union
  • Monitoring of employee engagement rates (by protected characteristic) and, where necessary, the development of actions to ensure all voices are heard across the diversity of the workforce
  • Employment contracts that reflect actual hours worked; steps taken to ensure employees understand their contracts and have the ability to review and adjust them if actual hours regularly exceed contracted hours
  • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about, and feel empowered to, address their physical wellbeing
  • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about and feel empowered to report and address bullying and harassment
  • Activities to cascade good practice on fair working conditions throughout the supply chain
  • Offer a pay and leave entitlement to all eligible staff who become kinship carers, ideally equivalent to statutory adoption pay and leave
  • Payment of more than the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage (as appropriate) to the contract workforce
  • Monitoring and reporting of gender and ethnicity pay gaps and plans to address them where necessary
  • Entitlement to sick pay for the contract workforce, with provision in place for any staff who do not meet the earnings threshold for statutory sick pay, payment of sick pay from day one of absence and payment of staff on the contract workforce who are off sick a replacement income of 100% of their usual earnings for as long as possible
  • Understanding of in-work progression issues affecting the market, industry or sector relevant to the contract, and in the supplier’s own organisation and those of its key sub-contractors
  • Measures to support in-work progression to help people in the contract workforce, to move into higher paid work by developing new skills relevant to the contract
  • Support for the contract workforce by providing career advice, and providing opportunities for staff working on the contract with in-work progression career development into known skills shortages or high growth areas
  • Support for educational attainment relevant to the contract, including training schemes that address skills gaps and result in recognised qualifications
  • Understanding of the modern slavery risks and issues affecting the market, industry, sector or country (of origin or of source) relevant to the contract, and the workforce in the supplier’s own organisation and those of its key subcontractors
  • Measures to identify, mitigate and manage modern slavery risks relating to the contract and how these will be implemented
  • Outline policies and practices to be applied to or put in place for the contract to mitigate and manage modern slavery risks, including: Pre-employment checks, recruitment practices. Workplace conditions, safeguarding plans and processes in place and regular monitoring with relevant groups considered, which may include sampling
  • How these flow down the supply chain and are monitored Illustrative examples include reporting, site visits, audits, etc.
  • How to ensure business decisions re: price/cost, short lead times, payment timescales do not create modern slavery risks in the supply chain
  • How the supplier will work with NGOs, trade unions or other businesses to address modern slavery risk
  • Means of influencing staff, suppliers, customers, communities and/or any other appropriate stakeholders with respect to modern slavery risks relating to the contract

  Policy Outcome 3: Resilient, innovative and flexible supply chains: Support economic growth through enabling resilient businesses, opportunities for small businesses and voluntary, community and social enterprises

  • Understanding of the types of businesses in the market and the level of participation by new businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, VCSEs and mutuals
  • Activities to identify opportunities to open up sub-contracts under the prime contract to a diverse range of businesses, including new businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, VCSEs and mutuals
  • Plans for engaging a diverse range of businesses in engagement activities prior to appointing subcontractors (including activities prior to award of the main contract and during the contract term)
  • Activities that demonstrate a collaborative way to work with a diverse range of businesses as part of the supply chain
  • Advertising of supply chain opportunities openly and to ensure they are accessible to a diverse range of businesses, including advertising all subcontracting opportunities on Contracts Finder
  • Ensuring accessibility to contracting and subcontracting opportunities for disabled business owners and employees
  • Structuring of the supply chain selection process to ensure fairness (e.g. anti-corruption) and encourages participation by a diverse range of businesses, including with regard to new businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, VCSEs and mutual
  • Understanding of local demographics, needs and opportunities for the co-design of the goods, services and works to be delivered under the contract
  • Methods for engaging with different parts of the community (including the education system and charities representing the community) and how communities come together to inform decisions, strategy and projects to leave a positive legacy for future generations
  • Measures to involve local stakeholders and/or users in design (e.g. in the design of services, systems, products or buildings)
  • Support for community-led initiatives relevant to the contract. Illustrative examples: improving transport links; reducing loneliness; helping with English language proficiency; and facilitating social mixing among people with different backgrounds

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at contact@influentialsoftware.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.