Latest news with #FP&A
Indian Express
5 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Gurugram man says he needs Rs 7.5 lakh a month ‘just to breathe', the Internet reacts: ‘Mumbai is better'
A LinkedIn post sharing the hidden financial pressure of living a luxury life in Gurugram has taken the Internet by storm. Shared by Vaibhav J, a resident of one of the city's upscale neighbourhoods, the post is a candid breakdown of what it truly costs to 'just exist' in such an elite setting. 'I own a house in Gurgaon, India. Translation: I need ₹7.5 lakh/month just to breathe,' Vaibhav wrote. He went on to share details of his monthly expenses, explaining how the cost of living extends far beyond just housing. 'Here's what you really signed up for: ₹2.08 lakh EMI for a ₹3 crore house. ₹12,000 per month maintenance for the fountain. ₹60,000 car EMI—because you can't roll up in a Swift. ₹65,000 per month for IB school for kids. ₹30,000 per month for 'foreign trip proof-of-life'. ₹30,000 monthly for domestic staff—cook, maid, driver. ₹20,000 for club nights and dinners you don't even enjoy. ₹12,000 for grooming and dressing 'DLF Phase 5 ready'. ₹10,000-plus on random purchases. ₹15,000 for birthday gifts and wedding envelopes—a 'fake smiles tax',' he wrote. The expenses add up to a staggering Rs 5 lakh per month, and Vaibhav further breaks it down what that means in pre-tax income terms. 'Now factor in income tax at 30 percent. To spend ₹5 lakh a month, you need to earn ₹7.5 lakh (₹90 lakh/year pre-tax). We had neither done savings nor bought insurance. And I haven't even eaten yet.' Concluding the post, he wrote, 'That's not top one percent income—that's top 0.1 percent burn rate.' See the post here: The post quickly gained traction, prompting several social media users to compare Gurugram with Mumbai and Bengaluru. 'Mumbai still better,' a user wrote. 'FP&A bloke alert, lots of lavish spending found,' another user commented. 'Over a decade ago I was in DLF Phase 2 near JMD arcade and then moved to Phase-5 near Amex. Things weren't tht expensive back then,' a third user noted.
National Post
03-06-2025
- Business
- National Post
Vena Earns 100% Product Satisfaction Rating and 55 Leading Rankings in BARC Planning Survey 25
Article content TORONTO — Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today shared it has been named a top-ranked or leading product in 55 categories across four peer groups in The Planning Survey 25 conducted by the Business Application Research Center ( BARC). With 18 top ranks and 37 leading positions, Vena continues to stand out as a customer-centric, technologically advanced leader in the FP&A software space. Article content Survey participants reported exceptional results with Vena: Article content 100% are satisfied with Vena.* 94% are satisfied with Vena's performance.* 97% achieved a better quality of planning results with Vena. 97% increased the transparency and traceability of planning with Vena. 97% achieved more precise/detailed planning with Vena. Article content 'Vena's top-tier rankings in key performance indicators such as project success, price to value and customer satisfaction underscore its commitment to excellence and customer-centric innovation,' said Dr. Christian Fuchs, Senior Analyst for Data & Analytics at BARC. 'The strong customer feedback in our survey reinforces Vena's ability to deliver rapid, effective implementations while maintaining very high satisfaction levels.' Article content A number of surveyed customers cited Vena's deep synergy with the Microsoft technology ecosystem, particularly its integration with Microsoft Excel, as a major strength. The 'seamless' Excel integration played a key role in Vena's top ranking in the ease-of-use category, outperforming the peer group average by almost two full points. In addition, Vena's recent launch of workflows embedded directly within Microsoft Teams continues to enhance productivity and collaboration, enabling finance professionals to plan, report and share insights where they already work. Vena also ranked as the top provider for user experience in the Integrated Products for Planning and BI & Analytics peer group, which combines scores for self-service, flexibility, ease of use and performance satisfaction, underscoring the platform's overall usability and strength. Article content 'These recognitions highlight our commitment to delivering innovative, high-impact solutions that empower our customers with the flexibility, insights and support they need to plan with confidence. We're especially proud of our rankings across price to value, customer satisfaction, project success, sales experience and implementer support—all on par or even ahead of the biggest players in this space,' said Hugh Cumming, Chief Technology Officer at Vena. 'From launching the first FP&A-specific AI agents to expanding our footprint through Microsoft Azure Marketplace availability, we're dedicated to delivering solutions that meet FP&A professionals where they are.' Article content The Planning Survey 25's validation of Vena's leading FP&A technology adds to a number of recent accolades, including: Article content The Planning Survey 25 is based on the world's largest survey of planning software users conducted from November 2024 to February 2025, with 1,187 respondents and analysis of 19 products. It evaluates user feedback on 33 criteria (KPIs), such as Business Benefits, Project Success, Customer Satisfaction and more. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Article content
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
i3 Verticals to Participate in June 2025 Investor Conferences
NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 28, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--i3 Verticals, Inc. ("i3 Verticals" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: IIIV), announced today that management plans to participate in four upcoming investor conferences: Conference Date Time and Place Participant(s) Baird Global Consumer, Technology & Services Conference Wednesday,June 4, 2025 1x1 meetings Presentation - 11:25 a.m. ET InterContinental New York BarclayNew York, N.Y. Geoff Smith, CFO Clay Whitson, CSO Benchmark Fintech Conference Thursday,June 5, 2025 1x1 meetings Fireside chat - 11 a.m. ET Virtual Geoff Smith, CFO Clay Whitson, CSOMolly Lanford,Director FP&A BMO Virtual Software Conference Monday,June 9, 2025 1x1 meetings Virtual Clay Whitson, CSOMolly Lanford,Director FP&A D.A. Davidson Consumer & Technology Conference Tuesday,June 10, 2025 1x1 meetings Four Seasons Nashville, Tenn. Clay Whitson, CSOMolly Lanford,Director FP&A About i3 Verticals The Company delivers seamless enterprise software to customers in strategic vertical markets. Building on its sophisticated and diverse platform of software and services solutions, the Company creates and acquires software products to serve the specific needs of public and private organizations in the Public Sector. View source version on Contacts Clay WhitsonChief Strategy Officer(888) 251-0987Investorrelations@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
National Post
27-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
From Back Office to Center Stage: Vena Honors Finance and Operations Heroes With 2025 Venny Awards
Article content Article content TORONTO — Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today announced the winners of the 2025 Venny Awards. The awards, presented at this year's Excelerate Finance 2025 conference, celebrate the Heroes of Finance who are setting new standards for innovation, operational excellence and strategic leadership within their organizations. Article content 'The Venny Awards recognize leaders who aren't just embracing technology, but leveraging it to drive meaningful change across their organization,' said Hunter Madeley, CEO of Vena. 'These leaders are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in finance and operations, using data and technology to create real impact. We're proud to celebrate their achievements and the role they play in shaping the future of finance.' Article content The Venny Awards, comprised of seven categories, were presented to the following winners: Article content Financial Modeling Mastery: Acknowledges individuals who leveraged Vena's platform to boost operational agility and resilience through advanced financial modeling techniques. Article content Winner: Kwame Moloko, Acting Chief Financial Officer at Scancom Ltd (MTN Ghana). Moloko led the introduction of Vena at MTN Ghana, embedding it into core planning and reporting processes. His forward-thinking approach to financial modeling has helped his organization uncover new efficiencies and drive smarter, data-driven decisions. Article content Financial Insights Innovator: Recognizes individuals who have demonstrated exceptional use of Vena's analytics and AI capabilities to generate groundbreaking financial insights that transform strategic decision making. Article content Winner: Brandon Combs, Director of Finance at Young Life. Combs has redefined how Young Life approaches data, using Vena's analytics and AI tools to turn financial complexity into clarity. His use of real-time data and enhanced analytics has helped transform the organization's decision-making process—surfacing key insights that drive meaningful action and measurable impact. His work exemplifies how data-driven innovation can shape what happens next in finance. Article content Excellence in Complete Planning: Celebrates leaders who have mastered the integration of financial and operational planning to drive strategic insights and enhance organizational agility. Article content Winner: Meg Bear, Controller at Turner Enterprises. Bear works diligently to find ways to make planning smarter, more aligned and more actionable. This award recognizes her commitment to complete planning that drives results and supports long-term success. Article content Excellence in Financial Leadership: Honors leaders who have exemplified outstanding achievement in driving transformation to elevate the office of finance and improve business performance. Article content Winner: Brandon Sharp, Chief Information Officer at Brookfield. Through the strategic use of Vena, Sharp has led Brookfield in building a continuously evolving, driver-based forecasting model that keeps pace with a volatile market. His leadership has redefined what agile planning looks like—breaking down silos, aligning cross-functional teams and delivering real-time insights that shape confident, data-driven decisions and meaningful impact. Article content Microsoft Innovation Leadership: Celebrates individuals or teams who have leveraged Microsoft's ecosystem to drive transformative innovation in finance and operations, showcasing exemplary collaboration and technological excellence. Article content Winner: Andrew McFarlane, Finance Manager at Kuali. McFarlane was a pioneering user of Vena Copilot, participating in the solution's beta program and demonstrating great technical acumen as one of the product's first power users. McFarlane's proactive approach to optimizing ETL processes and simplifying allocation templates has streamlined data management and improved overall workflow, making him a standout leader in the Vena community. Article content Community Advocate Award: Celebrates those who have played a pivotal role in building and nurturing the FP&A community. The recipient of this award has demonstrated exceptional leadership and dedication, continuously advocating for their peers and helping drive the community forward through innovative practices and collaborative efforts. Article content Winner: Gus Arndt, Performance Reporting Manager, Associate Managing Director at Oakworth Capital Bank. As co-chair of the Banking & Credit Union user group at Vena, Arndt has demonstrated exceptional leadership, from setting agendas to facilitating meetings and driving collaboration. His advocacy and commitment to strengthening the FP&A community have made him a standout leader, dedicated to fostering innovation and knowledge sharing. Article content Strategic Integration Partner: Recognizes partners who have integrated Vena's planning platform with other systems to enhance capabilities. Article content Winner: Citrin Cooperman. A long-standing and trusted Vena Partner, Citrin Cooperman has been instrumental in helping customers unlock greater value from the Vena platform. Their expert integration strategies bridge Vena's Complete Planning platform with source systems to enhance the capabilities of the Office of Finance. By aligning technology with trust, Citrin Cooperman continues to empower finance teams to go further, faster—turning complexity into opportunity through collaboration. Article content Looking ahead, the Venny Awards will continue to grow, welcoming nominations from a broader community to foster wider recognition of excellence in finance and operations. The program will expand to include new categories, reflecting the evolving role of finance. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
National Post
15-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
Vena Sets New Standard in Agentic AI for FP&A With Microsoft Teams Integration
Article content Article content TORONTO — Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today announced the general availability of Vena Copilot for Microsoft Teams. Designed to bring dedicated FP&A expertise and insights into businesses' workflows, this launch marks a bold new era for the Strategic Office of Finance. Article content Unveiled at the company's annual community conference, Excelerate Finance 2025, Vena Copilot for Teams is a giant step forward in agentic AI for FP&A. For the first time, users across the business can access Vena Copilot's industry-first, agentic AI purpose-built for FP&A directly within Teams meetings, chats and channels—putting an FP&A analyst in every conversation, and the power of best-in-class FP&A expertise at the fingertips of every decision maker. From generating instant insights to scenario simulations to collaborative Excel reports, Vena Copilot is transforming how FP&A teams and business leaders plan, decide and drive impact together—without ever having to leave Microsoft Teams. Article content 'The best organizations thrive in all market conditions by simply being better at leveraging the power of data and their people to act decisively. To lead, businesses need connected, intelligent systems that enable real-time collaboration and actionable insights,' said Hunter Madeley, CEO of Vena. 'Vena Copilot for Teams delivers just that—freeing FP&A teams to focus on strategic planning while giving business leaders and budget owners instant access to the kind of insights and expertise they need to make faster, smarter decisions and stay ahead of what's next.' Article content Agentic AI Already Transforming the Office of Finance Built for agentic AI from day one, Vena Copilot now extends its power with Vena Copilot for Teams—bringing intelligent automation to finance professionals and decision makers where they work. With two purpose-built agentic AI tools and seamless orchestration that coordinates multiple capabilities behind the scenes, it's a smarter, faster way to plan, analyze and act—with more innovations on the way. Article content Vena Reporting Agent: Officially launched at Excelerate Finance 2024 following a successful open beta, this powerful tool turns natural language prompts into custom, pre-formatted reports in seconds. It enables finance teams to deliver quick, confident answers to stakeholder questions and dive deeper into analysis through Vena's Ad Hoc Reporting—without the manual lift. Vena Analytics Agent: An industry-first for FP&A, this agentic AI powerhouse was first introduced at Excelerate 2024 and has been helping teams move faster and plan smarter ever since. It runs complex variance and trend analyses, powers scenario simulations and delivers real-time, actionable insights—so finance and business leaders can lead with clarity, speed and impact. Vena Planning Agent: (Roadmap 2025) This new AI agent integrates Vena Copilot right to where you do your planning—in Excel. Through a chat interface, users can perform driver-based planning and predictive forecasting—leveraging AI to deliver highly accurate financial plans informed by historical data and real-world economic trends. Article content Trustworthy AI Purpose-Built for FP&A Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Vena Copilot is a virtual FP&A partner working seamlessly alongside professionals in both the Vena platform and in Microsoft Teams. Built with enterprise-grade security, it derisks the adoption of agentic AI by protecting customer data and never training public AI models—ensuring confidentiality and control at all times. Article content Vena Copilot transforms conversational prompts into complex FP&A tasks, completed in seconds by a team of purpose-built AI agents. What once took hours is now automated—delivering instant outcomes with full transparency and data integrity. Article content This innovation doesn't just automate—it democratizes FP&A. By removing workflow bottlenecks and making advanced AI accessible to all users, Vena Copilot frees up finance teams to focus on strategic priorities. With Vena Copilot, finance teams become faster, smarter and more agile, while maintaining the highest standards of security and trust. Article content Already Delivering Results: Vena Copilot Is Turning AI Potential Into Real Performance Vena Copilot for Teams is already driving measurable outcomes in the Office of Finance. With agentic AI tools and smart orchestration working behind the scenes, finance teams, like the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), are planning, analyzing, and executing faster and smarter. Article content Charles McCumber, Director of Finance at AIR, adopted Vena Copilot to scale his team's capabilities, allowing him to focus on higher-value, strategic work. He shared the following insights based on his experience with Vena Copilot for Microsoft Teams: Article content 'Copilot in Teams is a natural fit—it's where our tools and processes already live. I can answer stakeholder questions faster, keep meetings on track, and cut time spent on recurring tasks by at least 25%—freeing me up to focus on higher-value work like scenario planning, budgeting and thinking strategically about the future.' Article content Smarter, Faster, More Intuitive: What's New in the Vena Copilot Suite In addition to the launch of Vena Copilot for Teams, Vena's agentic AI suite received a series of powerful enhancements designed to elevate the user experience and accelerate time to value: Article content An updated UI that prioritizes scalability, readability, functionality and ease of use—including intelligent guidance that directs users to the right AI agent based on their prompts. New pre-built prompts customized to each user's data set, giving first-time users an intuitive way to explore and get started. A major expansion of the Vena Copilot prompt bank, with 500 new prompts tailored to real-world FP&A scenarios—based directly on user feedback. Proactive feedback from Vena agents to continuously refine and improve output performance in real time. Article content Innovation That Helps You Plan Better and Achieve More Also announced at Excelerate, our latest wave of innovations brings powerful new capabilities across the Vena platform. From AI-driven insights to deeper integrations and more intuitive user experiences, these updates reflect our ongoing commitment to continuous innovation—so you can keep driving smarter, faster decisions with confidence. They include: Article content Template Studio (Generally Available) Quickly create standardized financial templates with a drag-and-drop builder and a library of pre-designed options like Custom Planning, OPEX and Income Statement templates. Export API (Generally Available) Seamlessly connect Vena's planning platform to your broader data ecosystem, enabling flexible consolidation, visualization and analysis. Enhanced Ad Hoc Features (Generally Available) Use Drill Transactions for detailed transparency and Aggregation for on-demand financial consolidation and streamlined analysis. Enhanced Task Tab (Open Beta) Boost workflow efficiency with advanced search, filtering and a scalable task view to help prioritize and complete work faster. Vena for PowerPoint Improvements Simplify template enrollment by managing it directly within Vena's PowerPoint add-in for a smoother onboarding experience. Article content To learn more about how Vena enables finance teams to plan with confidence and lead with agility, visit Article content About Vena Vena is the only agentic AI-powered FP&A platform purpose-built to harness the full power of the Microsoft technology ecosystem for finance teams everywhere. Vena amplifies Microsoft's world-leading productivity tools, cloud technology and AI innovation to make FP&A, operational planning and adjacent strategic processes more flexible, efficient and intelligent. Thousands of the world's leading companies rely on Vena to power their planning. For more information, visit venasolutions. com. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Article content
