Most group finance teams have the close itself well organized, right up until someone asks where the intercompany eliminations actually live. Vena's Summer '26 release is out now, and its real focus is traceability: knowing where a number came from and who changed it.
Most group finance teams have the close itself well set up: tasks are assigned, sign-offs are tracked, and the deadline mostly holds. Ask the same team where the intercompany eliminations actually happen and the answer is usually a workbook that one person owns and rebuilds every quarter. When the auditor asks why the elimination on an intercompany balance moved between Q1 and Q2, the answer lives in that person's recollection of what they changed.Vena's Summer '26 release is now live, and the through-line is traceability: knowing where a number came from and who changed it. What is still on the roadmap we covered in a separate post, this one is about what has actually shipped.
Can you finally consolidate inside Vena?
Vena Financial Consolidation is now generally available. It covers the 4 things that usually sit outside the system, being intracompany eliminations, FX translation, ownership structures and consolidated reporting, and it runs in Excel in the same governed environment as your close tasks and your reporting.
What changes is that the consolidated number now carries its own history. The Q1 to Q2 question has an answer inside the system rather than in someone's memory. The close itself might not get much shorter, but the week after it does.
One thing to flag: none of this configures itself. Ownership percentages, elimination rules and your FX policy (which rate applies to which account, how the translation reserve is treated) are deliberate decisions somebody has to make, and they are also the decisions that are most expensive to revisit once a full year of comparatives is sitting on top of them. This is the piece we spend the most time on with clients, and it is worth getting right before the first period runs.
One scope note: this is consolidation and consolidated reporting. If your obligations extend into full statutory disclosure and note preparation, that is a separate conversation, and the answer depends on your reporting requirements rather than on Vena.
What happens to a plan once it has been approved?
Orchestrated Planning connects people, data and agents across Excel and Power BI, and it covers everything from pipeline forecasting through to capital investment planning.
The part worth attention is the write-back. Actions now commit to source systems through a governed path, with version control, permissions and an audit trail behind them. So an approved forecast stops being a document that waits 3 weeks for someone to re-enter it somewhere else, and the record of who changed what survives the handover.
Can you trust the answer AI gives you?
The next generation of Vena's Analytics Agent remove the setup step. You open it and start asking, and it builds its understanding of your data model in the background. more usefully, every response now arrives with its multi-step reasoning attached. Ambiguous questions get clarified before the agent assumes anything, and context carries through the conversation, so a follow-up builds on what came before instead of starting cold.
That reads like a usability tweak, however for anyone who signs off on the numbers it is not. Reasoning shown alongside the output is closer to an audit-trail change than an AI one, and it is the version a controller can actually defend to the board.
One thing to flag: it is in closed beta and not switched on by default. If you would like to run it against your own model while the beta is open, raise it early!
Frequently Asked Questions on Vena's Summer 2026 Updates
Is Vena Financial Consolidation available now?
Yes, generally available as of the Summer '26 release. Whether it is switched on in your own environment depends on your licensing, so check that with your account manager.
Does this replace a dedicated consolidation tool?
For eliminations, FX translation, ownership structures and consolidated reporting, it does the work in the same place as your close and planning. If you also have statutory disclosure and note management obligations, start from the requirement rather than the tool.
Can we use the new Analytics Agent yet?
Not by default, it is in closed beta. If you would like to run it against your own model while the beta is open, raise it early.
What this means for your team
Two of the changes in this release point the same way. Consolidation moving into a governed environments means the number can be explained rather than only produced, and planning actions committing back to source through a governed path means the same discipline applies once a plan has been approved. Neither change is dramatic, but both are the sort of thing you notice a year in, when the auditor asks how you got a number and the answer is already in the system.
If you are consolidating outside Vena today, this is the release that makes it worth looking at again. And the setup decisions underneath it, being ownership and eliminations and FX policy, are what decide whether it works in practice or has to be unpicked in a year.
Are you interested in learning more about Vena, would you like to discuss where your consolidation sits today and what moving it would actually involve? Bring your current process and we will work out what the first period would take. Contact me through email: julian.gianocostas@finext.com
