Case Study: Saint Mary's University achieves 70% faster budget approvals with Vena Solutions

Saint Mary’s University Approves Budgets 70% Faster With Vena

Saint Mary’s University, the second-largest university in Nova Scotia with 30% international students (accounting for 50% of undergraduate tuition), relied on legacy systems and offline spreadsheets that left finance teams battling data silos and slow reporting. Pulling up-to-date income statements and enrollment revenue could take days, budgeting across 250 departments was manual and time-consuming, and the university lacked the ability to do granular, timely analysis for informed decision-making.

By implementing Vena — an Excel-based, integrated planning platform connected to Ellucian Banner — Saint Mary’s standardized budgets, automated data consolidation and added powerful drill-downs to reconcile fund accounting and enrollment data in real time. The results: final budget approvals are 70% faster (from three weeks to three days), capital project analysis shortened from a week to two hours, management reporting was consolidated from five templates to one, and leaders gained the agility to reallocate resources quickly (a capability that proved critical during COVID).

Saint Mary's University

Darrell Rooney

Senior Director of Financial Services