Vena Earns 19 Top Ranks and 21 Leading Positions in Annual BARC Planning Survey

Recognition across four peer groups highlights Vena’s leadership in Customer Satisfaction, Product Satisfaction, Ease of Use, Self-Service and Support TORONTO – June 22, 2026 – Vena, the Microsoft-native platform for Orchestrated Planning, Decisioning and Close, today announced it has been recognized with 19 top ranks and 21 leading positions across four peer groups in The Planning Survey 26 by BARC. The results reinforce Vena’s market position as a trusted platform for finance teams looking to modernize planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation while continuing to work in the tools they know best. Notably, Vena was named a top-ranked leader in Customer Satisfaction across all four peer groups in which it was featured—including Integrated Products for Planning and Financial Consolidation and Integrated Products for Planning and BI & Analytics—reinforcing the platform’s ability to deliver strong outcomes and value for finance teams. Vena also earned “top-ranked” and “leading” positions across Product Satisfaction, Ease of Use, Self-Service, Implementer Support, Vendor Support, Price to Value, Recommendation and Sales Experience. A breakdown of survey participants’ exceptional results with Vena include: 100% of surveyed users achieved a better quality of planning results with Vena 100% of users rated Vena’s sales experience as very good or good 95% of users rated Vena’s implementer support as very good or good 95% of users were satisfied with the performance of Vena “Vena’s results reflect a high level of customer confidence in the platform’s ability to deliver value beyond implementation,” said Dr. Christian Fuchs, Senior Analyst for Data & Analytics at BARC. “Customer feedback points to a solution that helps finance teams build more consistent, scalable and trusted planning processes as their businesses evolve.” The Planning Survey 26’s validation of Vena’s planning technology contributes to several recent accolades, including: A leading position on the 2026 Nucleus Research CPM Technology Value Matrix A core vendor, with an Outstanding BPM Pulse rating of 4.80 in the 2026-2027 Vendor Landscape Matrix BPM Partners Surveyed customers pointed to Vena’s Microsoft ecosystem alignment and ability to drive lasting operational impact across finance as key strengths. One customer said that Vena had become “a core platform” for how their team plans, forecasts and reports, helping reduce manual work while improving confidence in financial processes. The customer added that Vena is “not just a tool” but a critical part of their finance ecosystem because of the value it provides in scalability, control and long-term efficiency. “BARC’s results reflect what we often hear from customers: finance teams need planning technology that is powerful enough to support business complexity, but intuitive enough to drive adoption across the organization,” said Hugh Cumming, Chief Technology Officer at Vena. “Vena’s solutions are designed to do exactly that – help teams plan, report and close with greater confidence, in the Microsoft tools they already trust. We’re proud to see customers validate that approach so strongly in their feedback.” The Planning Survey 26 is based on the world’s largest survey of planning software users, conducted from November 2025 to February 2026 with 804 respondents and analysis of 20 products. The survey evaluates user feedback across 26 criteria (KPIs), including Business Benefits, Project Success and Customer Satisfaction. To view Vena’s results in The Planning Survey 26, click here. About Vena Vena is a Microsoft-native platform for orchestrated planning, decisioning and close across Microsoft Excel, Power BI, Azure and Fabric. With a governed, AI-ready data foundation and agentic AI embedded in the flow of work, Vena helps organizations move from insight to action, make better decisions and execute on time with confidence. Thousands of organizations worldwide rely on Vena to perform better and achieve more. For more information, visit venasolutions.com. Contacts Media Contact Jonathan Paul Vice President, Content Marketing jpaul@venacorp.com

June 22, 2026 |

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New Vena Research Finds FP&A Teams Are Hitting a Maturity Ceiling as Decision Latency Slows Business Response

A survey of over 400 finance professionals finds FP&A teams are at an inflection point, with fragmented data and limited operational alignment stalling their ability to help organizations act decisively amid volatile business conditions. TORONTO – June 2, 2026 — Vena, the Microsoft-native platform for Orchestrated Planning, Decisioning and Close, today released its 2026 FP&A Impact Report. Based on a survey of 431 finance professionals conducted in October 2025 in partnership with research analyst firm Benchmarkit, the report reveals that while FP&A teams are being asked to play a more strategic role and accelerate AI adoption, most are still constrained by fragmented data, limited operational visibility and a lack of real-time alignment across the business. The findings paint a picture of a profession at an inflection point. Finance leaders are confident in their strategic value, yet the self-reported data tells a more complicated story. And even among the most mature FP&A teams, the report finds that decision latency—the gap between when an insight is available and when the business can act on it—remains a challenge. “The most forward-thinking FP&A teams understand that the value they create isn’t just in delivering reports, but in helping the business act on the insights they uncover,” said Melissa Howatson, Chief Financial Officer at Vena. “What this year’s report makes clear is that without solving the underlying data and collaboration challenges, even the most ambitious finance teams will hit a ceiling. The path forward requires Finance to better orchestrate people, processes, data and AI so insights can move through the organization into timely, coordinated action.” Key Findings from the 2026 FP&A Impact Report Include: Forecast Accuracy and Delivery Timelines Raise Concerns More than half of organizations report revenue forecast variances greater than 6%, signaling gaps in data, cross-functional alignment and real-time visibility. What’s more, 45% of respondents said it takes their FP&A team a week or more to deliver a decision-ready forecast when market conditions change unexpectedly, impacting their organization’s ability to move quickly. FP&A Business Partnering Is Happening at the Surface Level, Without Full Operational Context 43% of survey respondents cite limited alignment with other business units as a top bottleneck, making it the second-most-reported obstacle impeding FP&A. Only 34% of organizations have fully integrated operational drivers such as unit sales, headcount and marketing spend into their financial forecasting models, signaling a meaningful gap in working context. Data Quality Is Still the #1 Challenge — For the Second Year Running Data quality and availability were cited as a top bottleneck by 58% of respondents, making it the most-reported obstacle for FP&A teams and consistent with the top challenges uncovered in Vena's 2025 annual report. As a result, finance leaders are taking action: 48% named "improve data integration across systems" as their top priority for the next year, amplified further by pressures to adopt AI. Without a governed source of unified data, finance teams will struggle to realize value from AI transformation efforts. AI Mandates Are Outpacing Data Readiness AI has become a C-suite priority, with 70% of respondents reporting mandates from executive leadership to adopt AI in the finance organization. Yet, 51% of respondents report only moderate or limited integration between their FP&A tools and source systems, raising serious questions about whether their data foundation is ready to support large-scale AI adoption. Looking ahead, 37% of respondents expect more than half of their FP&A workflows to be fully operated by AI agents within the next two years. Most Executives Still Don’t View FP&A as a Growth Driver When asked how their executives perceive the FP&A function, only 9% of respondents answered "critical drivers of growth." Meanwhile, 61% said leadership views their team as a "transactional/reporting function" or "reliable advisors on financials," signaling a gap between the strategic potential FP&A can deliver and how the rest of the business actually sees them. The report comes against a backdrop of significant macroeconomic pressure, with global trade uncertainty increasing the urgency for FP&A teams to guide their business from insight to execution faster. At Vena’s recent annual industry conference, Excelerate Finance Fest, Melissa Howatson explored how finance teams can move beyond planning cycles by orchestrating people, processes, data and AI so insights can translate into quick, decisive action in a volatile business environment. Watch Melissa’s keynote on demand. To download the full report, visit venasolutions.com/resources/fpa-impact-report. About Vena Vena is a Microsoft-native platform for orchestrated planning, decisioning and close across Microsoft Excel, Power BI, Azure and Fabric. With a governed, AI-ready data foundation and agentic AI embedded in the flow of work, Vena helps organizations move from insight to action, make better decisions and execute on time with confidence. Thousands of organizations worldwide rely on Vena to perform better and achieve more. For more information, visit venasolutions.com. Media Contact Jonathan Paul Vice President, Content Marketing jpaul@venacorp.com

June 2, 2026 |

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Vena Announces Financial Consolidation and AI-Amplified Platform Innovations at Excelerate Finance Fest 2026

New Financial Consolidation product, expanded agentic suite and unified data foundation with Acterys advance Vena’s vision for Orchestrated Planning, Decisioning and Close. Toronto, ON – May 13, 2026 — Vena, the Microsoft-native platform for Orchestrated Planning, Decisioning and Close, today announced the launch of Vena Financial Consolidation. The new Excel-native, AI-enabled product is designed to help finance teams close faster with audit-ready confidence. The announcement builds on a broader set of platform innovations announced at its annual conference, Excelerate Finance Fest, including the general availability of Vena Planning Agent and Vena MCP Server, as well as a unified data layer across Vena and Acterys. Finance teams have gotten better at planning, but the business is still not moving fast enough. As AI compresses the time to insight, finance teams face a new challenge which was a focal point for this year’s Excelerate conference: decision latency, the gap between when insight is available and when the business can act on it. Vena helps address that challenge by orchestrating people, data, processes and agents across planning, decisioning and financial close so insight can move into governed, on-time execution. “The modern finance function will increasingly be measured by how quickly it can turn trusted data into coordinated action,” said Hugh Cumming, Chief Technology Officer at Vena. “Our latest product announcements are designed to help finance teams move from insight to action, reduce decision latency and keep the business moving with greater speed, control and confidence.” Vena Financial Consolidations Helps Teams Trust the Numbers and Close Faster Closing the books remains one of finance’s most manual and risk-sensitive processes. Vena Financial Consolidations streamlines consolidation workflows and strengthens confidence in reported results. The AI-enabled product supports core processes including intercompany eliminations, FX translation and ownership structures within a governed, Excel-native environment. By connecting financial close and planning in one platform, Vena Financial Consolidations helps teams move from rebuilding numbers at period end to reviewing results with greater confidence, supported by a governed path from planning through to audit-ready reporting. Vena Planning Agent and MCP Server Bring Governed AI Into the Flow of Work Many AI tools operate outside governed financial systems, limiting their ability to drive trusted action. Vena’s Planning Agent and MCP Server bring AI directly into governed planning workflows. Planning Agent, now generally available, enables users to generate forecasts, update plans and apply scenario logic using natural language within Vena. Also generally available, Vena MCP Server connects tools like Claude, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot to live, governed Vena data, allowing teams to analyze and update plans while maintaining permissions, approvals and audit trails. Vena and Acterys Expands Planning Across Excel and Power BI Finance teams often plan in Excel while teams across the business engage with data in Power BI. Following its acquisition of Acterys, Vena is bridging that gap. The unified data layer across Vena and Acterys enables real-time data flow between advanced operational planning in Power BI and finance-led planning and decisioning in Excel. This allows teams to work from connected data in the tools they prefer, so operational activity can feed directly into financial plans and reduce delays between action and impact. To learn more about the innovations unveiled at Excelerate Finance Fest, visit the Vena website. About Vena Vena is a Microsoft-native platform for orchestrated planning, decisioning and close across Microsoft Excel, Power BI, Azure and Fabric. With a governed, AI-ready data foundation and agentic AI embedded in the flow of work, Vena helps organizations move from insight to action, make better decisions and execute on time with confidence. Thousands of organizations worldwide rely on Vena to perform better and achieve more. For more information, visit venasolutions.com. Media Contact Jonathan Paul Vice President, Content Marketing jpaul@venacorp.com

May 13, 2026 |

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Vena Earns 19 Top Ranks and 21 Leading Positions in Annual BARC Planning Survey

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