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Accounting · head to head

Circula vs Vena Solutions

Circula logo

Circula

Accounting

Expense, travel and employee benefit management for German speaking finance teams

From
€15/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Vena Solutions logo

Vena Solutions

Accounting

FP&A planning that keeps Excel as the front end and puts a database and workflow behind it

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Circula the module pricing stacks: expenses at fifteen euro per licence plus ninety nine euro for cards plus a hundred and forty nine euro for accounts payable means a fifty person company pays well over a thousand euro a month before add ons.; Vena Solutions vena publishes no pricing and contracts are modular, so two organisations of similar size can pay very different amounts and neither can benchmark without going through procurement.
  • They diverge on capability: Circula covers German per diem engine, Vena Solutions covers Excel add-in interface.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Circula and Vena Solutions actually diverge.

Attributes where Circula and Vena Solutions differ
AttributeCirculaVena Solutions
Starting price€15/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer user per monthquote
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, Windows, Excel add-in

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Accounting).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Circula

  • German per diem engine
  • Receipt capture and OCR
  • Corporate credit cards
  • Employee benefits
  • Accounts payable
  • Mileage and travel
  • DATEV and ERP export
  • Approval workflows

Only in Vena Solutions

  • Excel add-in interface
  • Central multidimensional database
  • Workflow and approvals
  • Audit trail
  • Rolling forecasts
  • Close management
  • Power BI integration
  • ERP connectors

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Circula

  • A German company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposurenot Vena Solutions
  • A finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one DATEV exportnot Vena Solutions
  • An employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of itnot Vena Solutions
  • A mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculationsnot Vena Solutions

Vena Solutions

  • A finance team that wants governance and audit over budgeting but refuses to give up Excel formulasnot Circula
  • Replacing a shared drive full of departmental budget workbooks with routed templates and tracked submissionnot Circula
  • Consolidating actuals from more than one ERP into a single reporting set without a data warehouse projectnot Circula
  • Running monthly rolling forecasts where the model is complex enough to need real spreadsheet logicnot Circula

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Circula

  • The module pricing stacks: expenses at fifteen euro per licence plus ninety nine euro for cards plus a hundred and forty nine euro for accounts payable means a fifty person company pays well over a thousand euro a month before add ons.
  • A minimum of ten licences excludes small teams, and the flexible licensing model for occasional claimants makes monthly cost harder to forecast than a flat per seat price.
  • Strength is in German tax rules, so companies with significant operations outside the DACH region gain little from the feature that justifies the price.
  • The accounts payable module includes only a hundred invoices per month, so invoice heavy businesses face metered overage on top of the platform fee.
  • Card issuing carries a per card transaction ceiling and depends on partner issuing, so high value procurement spend can hit limits that a bank issued corporate card would not.

Vena Solutions

  • Vena publishes no pricing and contracts are modular, so two organisations of similar size can pay very different amounts and neither can benchmark without going through procurement.
  • Implementation services for data integration and template configuration typically make up a large part of first-year cost, often exceeding the licence, and that figure only appears in the proposal.
  • Excel dependency is structural: organisations on Google Workspace, or staff working only in a browser or on Chromebooks, cannot use the primary interface as intended.
  • Because it accepts existing spreadsheets, it can preserve years of undocumented logic and circular workarounds rather than forcing the clean-up that a rebuild on a purpose-built modelling tool would require.
  • Model performance degrades with very large dimensional models, so organisations that grow into genuinely large planning problems eventually hit the limits of the spreadsheet-first design and face a second migration.

Pricing, plan by plan

Circula

€15/month
  • Employee and Travel Expenses$15/month
    • Per licence, billed annually
    • Minimum 10 licences
    • OCR receipt capture
  • Credit Cards$99/month
    • Platform fee, unlimited cards
    • Per card spend limits
    • Transaction limit of EUR 750,000 per card
  • Accounts Payable$149/month
    • Platform fee
    • Includes 100 invoices per month
    • Supplier invoice capture and approval
  • Benefits$1/month
    • Per licence
    • Tax free benefit allowances
    • Mobility and meal benefits

Vena Solutions

On request
  • Vena Professional$undefined/year
    • Core planning platform and Excel add-in
    • Workflow, audit trail and version control
    • Standard support
  • Vena Complete$undefined/year
    • Everything in Professional
    • Power BI integration
    • Premium support and a customer success manager

Which should you pick?

Choose Circula if

  • You need german per diem engine.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want receipt capture and ocr.
Circula review

Choose Vena Solutions if

  • You need excel add-in interface.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Excel add-in.
  • You also want central multidimensional database.
Vena Solutions review

Questions people ask

Is Circula or Vena Solutions better?
Neither clearly leads. Circula starts at €15/month and Vena Solutions at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Circula or Vena Solutions?
Circula starts at €15/month and Vena Solutions at On request.
Does Circula or Vena Solutions run on more platforms?
Circula runs on Web, iOS, Android. Vena Solutions runs on Web, Windows, Excel add-in.
What is Circula best used for?
Circula is most often used for a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure, a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export, an employer offering the tax free monthly benefit allowance and needing auditable records of it, a mid sized business replacing spreadsheet mileage claims with rule enforced distance calculations. Of those, a german company that must apply statutory per diem rates and meal deductions correctly to avoid payroll tax exposure and a finance team wanting card spend, expense claims and benefits in one datev export are not what Vena Solutions is typically brought in for.
What can Circula do that Vena Solutions cannot?
Circula covers German per diem engine, Receipt capture and OCR, Corporate credit cards, Employee benefits. Vena Solutions covers Excel add-in interface, Central multidimensional database, Workflow and approvals, Audit trail.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Circula: Does Circula calculate German per diems automatically?

Yes, by destination country and trip duration, including meal and accommodation deductions, which is the main reason DACH finance teams buy it.

Vena Solutions: Do we have to give up Excel?

No, that is the point of the product. Excel is the interface, backed by a central database and workflow.

Circula: What does it actually cost for fifty employees?

Roughly seven hundred and fifty euro a month for expense licences alone at the fifteen euro rate, before the ninety nine euro card platform fee and any accounts payable module.

Vena Solutions: Is pricing published?

No. Vena quotes per organisation based on users, modules and services.

Circula: Is there a minimum commitment?

Yes. A minimum of ten licences and annual billing on the published rates.

Vena Solutions: How much is implementation?

It is quoted separately and commonly forms a large share of first-year cost. Get it itemised before comparing against Anaplan or Adaptive.

Vena Solutions: Does it work without Microsoft Office?

Not properly. The Excel add-in is the main working surface.

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