Month-end close and the reporting that follows still take up more of most finance teams' time than anyone would like. At this year's Excelerate Finance Fest, Vena shared a look at what's coming later in 2026, and several of the announcements are aimed at exactly that kind of work. A lot of the May release features, the planning agent, MCP server, query agent, and updated reporting agent — are already live and we'll cover those in a separate post. This one is focused on what's still ahead, because there are a few announcements that we think will have a real impact for finance teams. Here's what's still on the way, and roughly when: This summer: a new workflow engine and Vena Financial Consolidations. Later in 2026: planning intelligence and Vena Home.
What does Vena's new workflow engine do?
Vena's workflow has always been about coordinating people: who inputs, who reviews, who approves. The new workflow engine coming this summer keeps that structure in place but adds AI as an active participant in the process.
The example Vena walked through was month-end reporting. Right now, that usually means someone on your team spending significant time compiling variance explanations, drafting commentary, and assembling a management pack. With the new workflow engine, Vena AI can handle the initial drafting: pulling the numbers, generating variance explanations, and structuring a CFO-ready narrative. Your team then reviews and approves before anything goes out.
One thing we think is important here: Vena has built in a clear distinction between draft data and committed data. AI-generated content doesn't get written to the cube until a human confirms it. For finance teams where auditability and control matter, that's a meaningful design decision, and it's the kind of thing that makes an AI-assisted process actually usable in practice.
Beyond the AI capabilities, this new engine also addresses a long list of workflow feature requests: versioning, the ability to modify a workflow while it's live, and ETL templates that work across different data models, among others.
What is Vena Financial Consolidations?
This was the biggest announcement at Excelerate. Vena has been used for consolidation work before, but often through custom configurations rather than dedicated out-of-the-box functionality, and the company pointed to customers seeing close to a 50% reduction in their monthly close from the base it's building on. What they're releasing this summer is a proper productized consolidation solution: local controllers working in their own charts of accounts, improved journal management, intercompany variance identification, and full audit visibility across the consolidation process.
The intercompany piece is one we're particularly interested in. Finding and resolving discrepancies between entities is a manual and time-consuming part of most close processes today. The combination of Vena's data layer and Claude via MCP is designed to surface those variances in minutes rather than hours, and ideally flag them before they cause delays.
The other thing worth highlighting is that this all sits within the same platform as your planning. When you close the month, your actuals update your forecast automatically. No separate systems, no manual hand-offs.
If you're currently managing consolidation outside of Vena, this is worth paying attention to. It's due this summer, so if you want to understand how it would fit your setup, it's a good time to have that conversation.
What is planning intelligence in Vena?
Vena is also working on a set of AI capabilities they're calling planning intelligence, which goes beyond generating outputs and focuses on making those outputs more trustworthy and auditable.
A few things stood out to us here. The first is extended AI auditing: you'll be able to see exactly which data slices Vena AI used to arrive at an answer and adjust them directly if needed. For anyone whose work goes through a review process, that level of transparency matters and guarantees you avoid mistaken context.
The second is intent clarification. Rather than generating a result and leaving you to figure out whether it understood your question correctly, the system will ask upfront if there's any ambiguity. It sounds simple, but it removes a lot of the back-and-forth that makes AI tools time-consuming in practice.
The third is faster insight to action: the system can build interactive visuals on the fly, and you can adjust and explore them directly rather than exporting the data to chart it elsewhere. It's a quicker way to get a visual read on a decision or a question, whether that's for a conversation with the business or for business users to look at on their own.
The fourth is cumulative context: the system remembers preferences across sessions. If your team always reports in a specific currency or always wants a particular data view, you set it once and it applies going forward. Over time, that makes the tool feel a lot more tailored to how your team actually works.
What is Vena Home?
On a smaller scale, Vena is introducing a home screen that gives users a clear overview of what needs their attention: outstanding tasks, frequently used reports, and templates they open regularly. As Vena gets used across more of an organization, having that kind of landing page makes it easier for everyone to stay on top of their work without needing to navigate through the full platform each time.
Frequently asked questions
When will Vena Financial Consolidations be available?
It's due this summer, alongside the new workflow engine. Planning intelligence and Vena Home are scheduled for later in 2026. If you're currently managing consolidation outside of Vena, the summer release is the one to plan around.
Does Vena AI write directly to my numbers in the new workflow engine?
No. The engine keeps a clear distinction between draft data and committed data: AI-generated content isn't written to the cube until a human reviews and confirms it. That's what keeps the process auditable and under your control.
Do my actuals update my forecast automatically when I close the month?
Yes. Vena Financial Consolidations sits in the same platform as your planning, so when you close the month your actuals flow into your forecast automatically, no separate systems and no manual hand-offs.
What to do with this
The theme across all of these announcements is the same: AI handling more of the routine work, with finance teams focusing on reviewing, adjusting, and making decisions rather than doing the assembly themselves. Whether that's a significant shift for your team depends on how you're currently using Vena, but the pieces are coming together in a way that makes it worth thinking about.
If you'd like to talk through what any of this means for your setup, feel free to reach out. We're happy to spend some time on it.
