BQE CORE Review: Pros and Cons, Features

We are benefiting from Scheduled reports, epayments, batch updates, batch everything!, ease of workflows and the tap to talk app for exceptional support. Coming from BQ, CORE is amazing!

We have been using it primarily for billing and it has streamlined and improved the process immensely. Work in Hand report makes it much easier for Principals to review all their projects at once, not miss any billing, know exactly where projects stand.

All of it - we came from a paper, Excel, Filemaker Pro, Timeslips, Quickbooks mess. The automation with the cloud feed is great for accounting. The ePayment option is something I just set up for our company and am looking forward to having clients take advantage of, the project management module helps us track our time and expenses in the project in ways that we could not before. For the first time in our 45 year company history we have a company budget for this year. While I am still learning and looking at how our company can best utilize CORE in all areas, we are definitely benefitting from using it. It has made tracking unpaid invoices much easier, thus making it easier to follow up with clients who we need to receive payment from. We now have a payables system to use, instead of a paper file. I could go on…

In my capacity as an Accounts Manager, I feel liberated to access critical client data in real time. Ability to update the Core database remotely from multiple devices has increased efficiency and productivity for the Finance & Accounting Dept.

With Core the management team has become efficient when using the AR Aging report with retainage by easily showing what is outstanding including the retainage portion is important for them to understand

Prior to switching to Core we were using BillQuick for 17 years and about time to switch to a cloud based software with a beautiful look and feel. Overall experience is great.

While we were looking for a software it was important for us to make sure whichever software we switch to should be user friendly. With Core, it was easy for our staff to learn how to use Core because of its intuitiveness. Most of our staff is in the field and expense tracking was kind of a pain. With Core mobile phone our staff find it easy to capture expense receipts which makes job costing and reporting easier.

Our firm enjoys time and billing and reporting features of Core

Our overall experience with Core is great. We have been a BQE customer for many years. Before Core we were using BillQuick for 17 years and we decided to upgrade to Core because it is more user friendly, modern and has dashboards that give us real-time picture of our business. The reporting is powerful too and our staff finds mobile app very useful.

Core is easy to use

We are active BQE Core users for almost 2 years now. Its easy project setup is allowing us schedule billing, tracking time spent on projects for accurate job cost analysis. BQE customer service team has exceeded our expectations as we continue to receive outstanding customer service

Core allowed us to streamline our invoicing process from start to finish processing time of a day or two in our old system to a handful of hours. Custom reporting tailored to our company’s processes also allows us deeper insight to tracking time against a project and gives us accurate data to easily keep our clients informed about the financial detail and progress of their projects (while simultaneously monitoring employee realization rates and productivity). Technical support is top notch, the phone is answered quickly and the people on the other end of the line are excellent at solving issues or questions that pop up.

Overall experience has been good. Tech support people very knowledgeable, professional and patient. Some bumps in the road in the very beginning but well past that now. The reporting is Core is far superior than what we had in our previous software.

We have been with BQE for almost 17 years now. We started out with BillQuick and then in 2018 we switched to Core. Core is so much better because we can enter time, do reports and do everything we need to do from any place that we are, on any mobile phone, laptop, iPad or computer. We especially like how we can set up scheduled reports that will be emailed directly to our managers as often as they want them and we do not have to remember to send the reports ourselves which saves a lot of time. Core is the way to go.

It easy to track time, process invoices and track customer payments in BQE. I do not have to worry about in terms of developing or maintaining the software as it is all done by BQE. Customer support is always great.

We have been using BQE software for many years to track our time for payroll and billing our clients for the projects we do for our clients. Our clients need detailed invoices and BQE allows us to provide the details for reference in client billing

My experience has been incredibly positive. Every step from the evaluation phase through our renewal for three years. Everyone that I have engaged has been very knowledgeable and are clearly well educated in the use of the software. The account management team has consistently informed us of new developments and tools. So that we can evaluate them for implementation into our suite of licenses. The partnership with sales team has been a large part of the reason that we committed to a 3 year renewal. Core has really reduced the workload to create projects and project information and allowed me, as the Operations Manager, to focus more on helping to run the business and mentor our project manager.

Overall we are very satisfied with BQE. The price is right for the functionality you receive. We use BQE Core for time and expense entry and Invoicing only. It is a useful tool to track time, run reports, and generate invoices

It’s how we bill our clients and pay our professionals. Now we’ve learned additional functionality for performance and reporting. Plus we’re looking forward to seeing how the CRM may add value with a single tool on our phones and PCs. Love the ability to charge out our jobs. Ease of use of the application. CORE is user friendly and for when working on the fly. Tech support is fabulous, friendly, and they know their product. Also, CORE is user friendly for back end administration. Reporting is very versatile, and I can pull up what I need quickly.

The best feature is obtaining all the data that is inputted into the software and providing the reports that is required for time and/or expenses on each Project. Inputting our time and expenses in is so much faster - one does not have to do it manually and then trying to established what the billing and or expenses are for each client… as we have many projects on the go. Manually would be time-consuming vs. inputting into BQE.

It has the essential features we need to manage project time and budgets. In general, it is a solid and reliable product. We have not had any significant problems over the course of using it. Support is very timely and accurate. Technical support team knows the product well and has always helped in a timely and accurate manner.

I love the “real time” time and expense additions so that I can bill time and then invoice in the very next step. Invoicing quickly has helped me get my new business off the ground and some cash flow coming in. Color coding of the status on jobs is a wonderful addition and makes a quick glance to get info very easy. I’m getting better with the accounting side of things, and am still learning. BQE Core is doing what I need it to do to track jobs and invoicing. I feel it can grow along with my business.

BQE has made it easy for us to track time, see profits and the productivity in the staff. The staff! Everyone I have interacted with over the years has been amazing!! They are always tremendously helpful in setting up the software for my new firm! Even doing this for another company once before… I had IT last time and BQE support team was patient and walked me through the process with such patience and they truly love what they do!!!

Reporting in Core is easy to use. Our staff is liking the Core interface better as it is user friendly. We are very happy that we switched from BillQuick to Core. In our engineering firm we use Core for managing timesheets, expense reporting, billing, accounting and project management.

Using CORE has expedited our entire AR process which is good for cash flow. I like having everything in one place. Our entire billing process is much simpler now. Easy to create and send invoices to our clients and they look very professional Tracking everyone’s time provides additional insight into our productivity.

The ability to call and quickly connect with customer support is very helpful. We have been using Core for more than one year for time tracking, billing, project manager and accounting features. The technical support team is pleasure to speak with and very informative. They are able to help me understand and utilize Core better.

Billing process is easy and intuitive as we can provide clients with a detailed invoicing if required. Core is really helping us manage time and expense tracking. On the project management side we can easily forecast capacity in hours and can create detailed estimates with minimal efforts. Ability to manage subcontractors pretty much like our employees is very helpful. Last but not the least we are enjoying excellent customer service and support.

Core has allowed us to keep all eggs in the same basket. Billing team using the same program as timesheets has saved hours. Setup of Core was easy. Training has been very supportive and useful. Support has been very helpful and quick to respond and follow-up. BQE Core has allowed us more time to focus on the completion of a project rather than collecting information and scheduling from different sources

The real time performance metrics of projects on beautiful dashboards keep our management team informed about the project management aspects of our projects. Invoicing is very flexible and easily supports different invoice formats. I am very pleased with what I am experiencing with CORE. It’s simplicity in Time and Expense tracking and the way it handles all types of invoicing needs of design professional services is excellent.

The flexibility of Core is exceptional, and their technical support is top notch. Core has helped us manage our projects and streamline our billing process, which includes 3-tier structure. Prior to Core we use to use excel to manage our multiple database.

CORE has given our principals and project managers more access to real time data reducing the potential for errors in reporting and data transfer in multiple areas to better service our valued clients. CORE has eliminated need for complicated spreadsheets and various other methods of housing project data. Coming from QuickBooks desktop accounting which we have used for almost 19 years, CORE accounting subscription has given us access to company financial data anywhere.

We use Core in all roles of our business - Time Tracking, Invoicing, Project Management and Accounting and I am increasingly impressed at the capacity of BQE Core and it’s abilities. There are many ways we see Core streamlining our business processes.

All aspects of project management and keeping track of accounting records all in one place. When I began working at RBM, invoices were being generated through excel and snail mailed which took almost a week to complete especially when having to retrieve weekly timesheets. With BQE, this process takes less than 1 day to complete.

BQE Core is very user friendly. We have been using the software for little over a year and it has definitely helped us get efficient. The time entry process is extremely easy and it has improved the way we process invoices and make payments.

It took me many years working in a very outdated software until I felt I found the right program (Core) to switch to for time and billing. It has met all of my needs so far! Love it. I have not had to call in for customer service often but when I do everyone has been helpful and I have not encountered any issues what so ever. I have not worked in the Project Management or Accounting modules of the program. The flexibility for invoicing. The ability to email the invoices right from the program.

After switching to Core it has definitely helped us get more organized. BQE Core has a easy and intuitive user interface which makes our day to day processes easier. With Core being a cloud software close to 200 employees are using it on a daily basis for time and expense tracking, billing and engagement management. All the processes are faster and better with Core. It is is our main business management software and before BQE Core we had a local system installed on our servers

We are getting more and more use out of Core in a little over 1 year of using the software. So far we are just diving in, but it has helped our time tracking and expenses and keep our documents in one place. We are using our custom report for allocations and it is working well for us.

We have been using Core for more than year and a half. After testing many other products in the market when we were deciding to switch, I can now say for Architects Core is by far the best product. And your ongoing feature videos are the best learning tools. The features and power are so vast that I believe BQE should offer certification courses for Core. We still are in early stages of exploring all the amazing features of Core, but there is no question as a firm we have become more disciplined in managing client expectation on budget and project performance as a whole.

Love the customer service. Recently, I needed a help with resolving a report issue I was having the support engineer came straight to my aide. I really enjoy BQE software it really makes our report process much cleaner and quicker.

That it is available online is a big plus for us. So far most of our employees have transitioned from the old software to Core fairly easily.

The centralized time keeping and invoicing works great for us. The invoicing platform is particularly neat as all our employees track the project time and expenses in Core.

As a startup, I was researching for the best integrated accounting, time and expense tracking and billing software. I selected BQE Core because it had an intuitive interface, easy reporting and it was on cloud. For any startup business the cost is always a big factor, the fact that BQE Core was a fraction of other similar software packages was an added bonus! We use BQE for our integrated accounting, time/expenses, and invoices, and it has been integral in helping us to understand and grow our business in the first year. At every moment, I have the info available to understand my cash flow, liabilities and A/R all in one interface, which never would have been possible if I used other accounting software.

Moving to Core has definitely helped us eliminate the manual data entry process. Prior to using Core the time entry process was not that easy and we had to enter time manually for all the employees in our old software. Another area that so far we like in Core is the powerful invoicing.

Our small but rapidly-growing architectural firm was looking for a project management and billing solution. We were particularly impressed with CORE’s user-friendly, “all in one” design.

We are an architecture firm and it is clear Core is geared to us. We are new to Core, so it’s hard for me to name features i like most. Definitely like it. Time management and auto reports have helped us a lot. What I love so far is the 24 hour support. The agent I usually speak with has been especially helpful. He is patient and a great teacher. He points out issues/features that I had no idea about. He has been extremely helpful.

After using BillQuick for more than 10 years we switched over to Core. The transition was extremely smooth. Core is an excellent product which my staff transitioned to with ease. The online tutorials were so good that staff just dove right in to working with Core with almost no support needed.

Any questions that I have as I was setting things up were quickly answered but staff who are always quick to respond, extremely knowledgeable and always friendly. I would definitely recommend Core to anyone!

Prior to using BQE software I used Wind-2 and SEMA4 which are costly programs. I was not a newbie to using project management software when implementing BQE. My greatest frustration in using those legacy programs was that they did not have any flexibility in them that allowed me to update or “correct” erroneous entries into the system database without having the data reprogrammed in some way by the vendor. Support for BQE can assist making changes on the fly if need be and hopefully will continue to support the services industry in the future. I have witnessed the mission of BQE to continue to improve the software and support for its users. I am happy to say that I took a leap of faith in upgrading my office to BQE and have not been disappointed.

Core has been a huge time savings for us. The ease of creating invoices, making and customizing reports, and entering time has improved our ability to get more done overall. We have been very pleased with all aspects of customer service, the integration team, custom reports team, trainers, and call center for the one off type questions and issues. We would recommend Core to anyone on the fence about the service. It is such a user-friendly software program.

Having project assignments, time tracking using the multiple timers and of course recurring billing for automating our invoicing process are the most productive features of Core. We are done with entering data, so far, i am liking everything I see and I am looking forward to seeing the reports. Employees enter their own time. Recurring bills negate entering the same info each month.

The time card entry process seems to be better than our old system. Lot less steps for our staff to get their time sheets in. We are still in the learning process, I can say one thing about BQE support personnel…they are helpful and very patient and understanding. I appreciate them very much

What we like the most about Core is the way everything is integrated in one application instead of using standalone apps that do not talk to each other. The ease of pulling up the needed data is definitely helpful. I have liked how some of my suggestions to Core ideas have been implemented. If more of these could be fixed and added to the software, the use of the software would be more efficient and effective.

I liked the flexibility and design once I gone through the learning curve. The reports are straight forward and serve my purpose without customizing.

We transferred 12 years of “Project History” to bqe-CORE effective January 1, 2019. I am the Business Manager and I report directly to the owner of the Company. I keep current the clients we work with&…and all project-phase information for the company, billing-invoicing, using the CORE operating system. As a former Marine Corps officer&. then commercial banker (15 years) I believe that People make the difference&… not machines. The people at bqe CORE, particularly the HELP DESK, are all professionals they know what they are talking about and they care. I highly recommend bqe CORE!

I value honesty, and I value those that take ownership. I recommend bqe-CORE. I just designed a ‘custom report’ for our company utilizing the CORE ‘Custom Report’ section. They were great to work with. We are now using “my” Company report starting January 2020. This “custom report” pulls in all our client “project data” real time. It shows what’s important to us&. our project team. We have many concurrent project-phases (hourly or not to exceed contract phases) under the parent project, that start one year and end the next. This custom report is a great tool for us& color-coded “RED”, showing when over budget (time or “not to exceed” contract fee).

Time entries are easy for the project managers. When everything is entered correctly Core does give a good view as to where we are with invoicing, budgets, contract etc. For most part calling customer service is easy and the staff is knowledgeable and patient when we are asking for help.

I have to say it has succeeded with flying colors after being bombarded with all kinds of unusual circumstances with hundreds of our architecture projects! Well done! I’m constantly amazed how well thought-out the original approach was in Core’s basic design allowing it to handle all of our client’s weird situations, and we’re just one of the zillions of other companies using Core who do things so differently than we do. I say this with a little authority, as well, because I wrote my first program at age 15 in 1968 and I have seen (and suffered) everything in all the eras of computing since. Core is badass. Every system has issues, but it’s important we all stop and appreciate the unimaginable amount of work that went into making Core really effective. No one paid me to say this and I’m not getting any brownie points. I’m saying this because I know intimately what the developers have gone through to make today’s Core possible. Whew!

BQE Core was at the top of our list when our company was researching a replacement for our current accounting software. The cloud-based software was a great solution, but ultimately we decided to go with another software because our CEO decided that a local server-based system was a better fit for our company.

By far one of the most beautiful and powerful software for engineers and architects. We switched from a very expensive software. Everyone at the office fell in love with Core immediately. Highly recommend.

An integrated system that allows for bookkeeping along with project management. BillQuick back ends into Quickbooks for full accounting features. Employees enter their time, supplier bills are entered and invoices are created with full costs of a project available easily in the same system.

We use BillQuick (BQE) to keep track of time on projects (as we are an engineering firm), bill, receive payments and generate financial statements. This program allows billing of time in many ways - phased fixed fee, fixed fee, hourly, etc. and through email as well. The program has several reports for job cost/billing/WIP/profitablity, etc.

Although BQE has the capability of integrating with other accounting software, I did not want to have to keep track of 2 different programs, so we purchased their version with the accounting feature (2012). The usual reports-Balance Sheet, Income Statement are more than sufficient and meet our needs. They are still tweaking some features/reports in this area but this program allows almost anything to be exported to excel so you can modify whatever you need. The can also create a report for you for a fee.

Since we run our payroll through an outside party, I don’t require this feature, which in my opinion, would greatly increase the cost of the program.

I would highly recommend utilizing the trial feature that BQE offers to get a better idea of the features and reports.

I find this program an excellent tool for businesses that are too small for software that exceeds $10,000 and too large for Quickbooks and/or Peachtree that require extensive time recordkeeping.

I think the product has a lot of functionality. It does not have an intuitive user interface.

Project Financial Management software, with invoicing capability.

It not only keeps track of time and expenses but also breaks that down to phase of project and individual doing the work. I am still learning the software but what I am using is very impressive. generation of invoices and reports is simple an thorough. I would recommend this software for anyone that performs constantly varying, phased type of service.