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Thinking about implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in finance? You’re not alone. Many other organizations are either already using AI or learning about it, so we’ve got you covered with six advanced Power BI Embedded features. In this blog, we’ll explore six AI-powered tools—guided by Rishi Grover, Vena’s Co-Founder and Chief Solutions Architect—that you can leverage to generate faster insights for your team using Power BI. Let’s begin. 1. Key Influencers “How do I see which factors affect my selected dimension?” When you’re analyzing one dimension, Key Influencers lets you: see which factors affect your selected dimension contrast the relative importance of those factors   Key Factors shows you: top contributors to your selected dimension that influence an increase from your base scenario to your comparison scenario top contributors to your selected dimension that influence a decrease from your base scenario to your comparison scenario   You can analyze any of your dimensions and drill down into your accounts with the greatest variability. 2. Top Segments “Can I analyze multiple dimensions together?” Top Segments shows you the influencers made up of a combination of values. The difference between Top Segments and Key Influencers is that while Key Influencers analyzes a single dimension, Top Segments analyzes multiple dimensions together.   Now, with multiple dimensions selected, you can analyze: top contributors that influence your comparison scenario to be higher than your base scenario top contributors that influence your comparison scenario to be lower than your base scenario FP&A software powering your plan to grow Drive smarter, more data-driven business decisions with numbers you can trust. 3. Decomposition Tree “How do I analyze dimensions and then slice and dice to visualize data across multiple dimensions?” With your dimensions selected, Decomposition Tree shows you aggregated data and helps you determine where next to drill down into. You can analyze your selected dimensions and then drill down into your data in the order of your selected dimensions.   You can conduct root cause analysis by using AI Splits—which automatically helps you find the highest and lowest values with all available fields considered—within the Decomposition Tree. 4. Predictive Forecast “How is AI added into my forecasts?” This is best used for time series data or whole numbers that increase uniformly. With your actuals brought in, Predictive Forecast shows you forecast results that are adjusted by: seasonality desired confidence interval (you can calculate a range based on this adjustment) outliers   You can also: see how these adjustments affect your results forecast with greater granularity to weeks or days explore what-if scenarios 5. Anomaly Detection “How else does AI support root cause analysis?” Without even needing to slice and dice your data, for any of your data entities or segments in your time series, Anomaly Detection shows you for each anomaly detected: detection confidence interval variance from the expected value possible explanation(s) in natural language You can identify mistakes or outliers, along with their possible causes, with seasonality—and not only trends—considered. 6. Natural Language “How can my users get answers quickly? Natural Language lets users submit simple queries—by inputting a few keywords—to get an answer in the form of a Q&A visual that you can drill down into. The Q&A visual has four core elements: Question box Auto-suggested questions Ability to convert the Q&A visual into a standard visual Ability to configure the natural language engine Now, you can empower your users to get their answers when they need them. Power BI Embedded With Power BI Embedded—the market’s only end-to-end reporting and analytics solution—now directly embedded into Vena’s Complete Planning platform, you can integrate AI-informed data strategies into company-wide business intelligence, enabling instant insights at scale for you to work smarter and faster—without requiring additional Power BI licenses. Using out-of-the-box interactive dashboards, you can turn data into real-time, actionable insights for every one of your users in their data-driven decision making. As you drill into your data, you should be able to visualize and review your unbiased data against baselines, generate insights and make proactive decisions. Ready to start your own growth journey?

Remember when you walked over to another department, tapped a coworker on the shoulder and told them that their task was ready in the workflow? In today’s “new normal,” we often find ourselves sending messages and waiting. Sometimes for minutes, other times, it’s days. Have they read it? Are they in a meeting? Are they off this week? You need their review before the end of the day so you can move it along. The next person’s waiting on you—and they need to approve this budget by tomorrow. Oh, and now the last person just sent you an updated version. Ah, the joys of remote work. And this is only one example of the drawbacks we’ve all likely encountered since early 2020. In our 2021 Industry Benchmark Report, it was revealed that 74.6% of organizations we surveyed introduced new remote working environments. A study by Microsoft and LinkedIn found that about one-third of all American workers shifted from office to remote work full time in April 2020. Their workflows—and cross-team collaboration—looked different, and for some, those shifts are now permanent. To drive their cross-functional team collaboration further, our recent Winter ’22 product release included two new major features in Vena 365 Connect: 1 Intersection Comments 2 Audit Trails Intersection Comments With Vena's intersection comments, you’ll turn siloed departments into integrated business planning partners by accelerating information sharing and aligning processes. You can create threaded discussions around performance and tag and receive email notifications—which direct recipients to that spreadsheet—on specific comments. Audit Trails With Vena’s audit trails, you’ll take control of the collaboration process and eliminate version control issues as you prepare corporate budgets. You can access the exact list of data changes of a particular point in time, as well as the details—who changed it, when they changed it and what they changed—of every edit. Vena 365 Connect As more employees prefer the remote environment, teams may drift apart. Don’t let the virtual offices slow down your team and their budgets. With Vena 365 Connect, your team can embrace digital transformation to work faster and more collaboratively. Stop waiting hours—or even days—for replies, and let Vena empower you to get your budgets approved on time. Drive Cross-Team Collaboration Accelerate information sharing, align your processes and eliminate your version control issues.

You’ve been assigned to prepare the reconciliation for one of your company’s accounts. Your company needs you to uphold its financial integrity—and inspire confidence in its numbers with stakeholders, auditors and regulators. Can your current account reconciliation process quickly identify a variance and its cause? With Vena’s Account Reconciliation Solution and Excel-based account reconciliation templates, you can reconcile accounts faster—in just four steps. Here’s how: 1. Check Unreconciled Dollar Amounts Vena automatically calculates your total dollar amount in unreconciled accounts. Your unreconciled accounts are instantly identified and you can quickly see their Unidentified Difference amounts. For every unreconciled account, you can also view its: Beginning GL balance Current period activity Reconciling items In period additions Projected ending GL balance Balance per GL load 2. Reconcile With Transaction-Level Details Need more visibility into transaction-level details? No problem. With Vena, you can see the history of activity and adjustments of every unreconciled account, as well as their respective expected GL balances against the actuals. To reconcile a variance, you can use Vena’s drill feature to view its transaction-level details. You can quickly discover which transaction(s) caused that variance and can proceed to make the adjustment(s) to reconcile the account. Vena can support thousands of transactions for each account per month.   (Read how the Arizona Cardinals implemented Vena to turn 10 days of work into five seconds and accelerated their month-end close.) 3. Submit Your Adjustments To track your activity so auditors can easily review your work, Vena automatically records your adjustments into journal entries. These adjustments are time stamped and added to a detailed audit trail report. All you need to do is approve and submit. 4. Certify Your Review Checklist After reconciling your account, all that’s left for you to do is update your account reconciliation review checklist—you’ll get all green checkmarks—to let auditors know you’ve completed your assigned task.   (Read how Vena helped Capstone Infrastructure cut their month-end close times by 50%.) Closing Faster With Vena’s Account Reconciliation Software Vena integrates your AP systems, capital asset management systems and bank statements with Excel to add your subledger data and automatically identify unreconciled accounts. Our Account Reconciliation Solution also facilitates automated workflows, stores transactional data with enterprise-level security and provides Excel-based account reconciliation templates for all your standard and specialized reconciliations. With Vena, you’ll be able to uphold your company’s financial integrity, provide confidence in your numbers to your stakeholders, auditors and regulators—and reconcile faster. Automate Your Account Reconciliations Learn how Vena can transform your account reconciliations and accelerate your month-end close.