AIR Puts Data Into Action in Record Time With Vena Copilot

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Vena Copilot acts as a virtual admin staff member, making calculations and providing insights

Reducing time spent on specific tasks by 25–50%, enabling team to focus on more strategic work

Implemented Vena Copilot self-sufficiently, completing technical set up in 30 minutes

Vena Copilot is an easy way to get quick, reliable data from your financial system without having to scroll through reports or open documents. It learns very quickly how you ask questions and has the ability to provide you with analysis. It's a one-stop shop for quick financial information.

Charles McCumber

Director of Finance, Association for Institutional Research

The Challenge: Putting Data To Work Despite Limited Resources

The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) is dedicated to data—educating and supporting institutional researchers across college campuses on how to best use data to support operational decisions. And with data being such a core part of the association’s mission, it’s no surprise they try to make it readily available within their organization as well.

So when Vena released Vena Copilot—an AI-based complete planning assistant that helps businesses get the most out of their FP&A data—in spring 2024, AIR’s Director of Finance, Charles McCumber, jumped at the chance to try it.

Charles had been using Vena since 2022 to enable AIR’s finance team across their budgeting and forecasting needs. At the time, the team had been struggling to build out their FP&A processes and wanted a solution that would allow them to do more, without adding headcount.

When researching software vendors, Vena’s easy-to-use native Excel interface and out-of-the-box templates stood out. “We're a small organization—we only have a staff of 20, so our finance department is just myself and my staff accountant,” Charles says.

With the new addition of Vena Copilot, Charles would be able to accomplish even more with those limited resources, while maximizing the critical data at his fingertips.

A female professor with short gray hair smiling and delivering a lecture in front of a classroom of college students

Quick and Easy AI Assistance Embedded in Existing Workflows

Implementing Vena Copilot was straightforward, Charles says. “I've done a lot of software implementations since taking this role, trying to get everything into the 21st century and in the cloud,” he adds. “There's always a learning curve. There are always pain points. But with Vena Copilot, this was nearly plug and play.”

Without a lot of extra setup, Charles was able to take advantage of the benefits of Vena Copilot quickly, asking questions of AIR’s data—comparing budget to actuals, for instance, or delving into the performance of specific AIR programs—and getting immediate, accurate responses. And with Vena Copilot's Reporting Agent, Charles can now create ad hoc reports with very little manual effort on his part.

The result has been extensive time savings. “Copilot has reduced the time it takes me to complete recurring reporting tasks by at least 25%—possibly even up to a third in some cases,” he says. “I’ve measured the time saved on specific tasks and have consistently seen a 25% to 50% reduction.”

All of that has allowed Charles to focus more on higher-value work like scenario planning, budgeting and “thinking strategically about the future,” he says. This year he completed his audit season faster than ever and has been able to respond to queries from across the business without the 15 to 20 minute wait times that were previously the norm.

Charles also uses Vena Copilot’s built-in Microsoft Teams integration, giving him an even quicker way to provide those answers to team members and replace some of his former reporting tasks. “Copilot in Teams is a natural fit—it’s where all our other tools and processes already live,” he says. “It’s made it much easier to share insights and data with our CEO and CFO, even if they’re not using [Vena] directly.”

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