BQE CORE Reviews

Summary: In the short period of time that we have been on Core, our experience has been mostly positive. We have submitted a few ideas to Core team that will make the experience even better.

Positive: We are a little over four months in Core and the ease of use of Core has helped us understand the software quickly. We are really benefitting from invoicing and CRM features in Core. The customer service team is great and has helped us get acquainted with the product tremendously.

Negative: It is too early to say as we are still trying to learn the software.

Summary: The workflow of approving time and expenses, vendor accounts payable, and invoicing is the smoother process for us now. With accounting now in Core, we have access to real-time data of our entire business, including project financials.

Positive: We were among the first few BQ customers who upgraded to Core, and we like the flexibility of data entry from anywhere using the browser and mobile phone. With Core, we also started using the built-in accounting, and it has helped us tremendously see the connection between project management, billing, and accounts payable. In addition to resources available in the Core help center, we do take full advantage of a quick and always available support team.

Negative: After our switch to Core accounting, we had some issues with bank reconciliation, and as always, BQE's helpful support team listened and solved the problem.

Summary: Core has helped us solve the invoicing time, which used to be two days and now down to 1 day. With smooth accounts receivable, it has helped us built greater transparency with our clients.

Positive: After upgrading from BillQuick to Core our billing department has been extremely happy with the move. We like the easy workflows in Core and this has helped us reduce the billing time greatly. Reporting in Core is easy too and with report scheduler we can now deliver reports through automation to our managers and clients.

Negative: So far so good. Anything we experience that is not desirable is submitted to support staff. Monthly updates from Core have been very helpful.

Summary: Overall our experience with Core has been very positive. We love BQE's wonderful support team and learn a lot from on going webinars.

Positive: We upgraded from ArchiOffice to Core after using AO for more than 10 years. In AO we had to run Accounting and Billing separately which led to an extra step of integrating it with external accounting software. With Core we are enjoying all in one solution and this has enabled us to have a greater visibility in our firms financials. At the same time it has empowered our management team with real-time information. Reporting and dashboards in Core are definitely superior.

Negative: I would not say it is a 'con'. Yes it was hard at first, but definitely worth the effort to learn. It is about getting used to new habits after using AO for more than decade.

Summary: In less than 1 year using Core we are already noticing huge improvements in our billing process and overall it has made our business efficient.

Positive: Previously we were using Excel for project management, timesheets, and AR invoicing. In addition, we were using Word and Excel to generate manual invoices (then converting to PDF). Not only has the billing process been improved, but we have been able to implement Internal Financial Controls. We purchased the HR and Accounting modules a couple of months ago and are in the process of implementing our own HR templates. We are looking forward to automating the HR process.

Negative: There should be ability to hide or delete built-in accounts in the Chart of Accounts.

Summary: Seamless integration across one interface has been a game changer for project management. Collaboration, time and expense entries and accessing overall health of projects is readily available. Key performance indicators and customizable dashboards offers the foodies who eat with their eyes an appetizing experience using Core.

Positive: With Core our firm employees have the ability to login Core remotely from multiple devices and that definitely has increased efficiency in our finance and accounting department. All including project management. Collaboration, time and expense entries and accessing overall health of projects is readily available.

Negative: More collaboration with customers to get their feedback about features they need would be helpful. Most hiccups are sorted instantly with the knowledgeable support team. And with constant feedback, customization and updates, Core has met our firms needs.

Summary: 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...

Positive: 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.

Negative: Cut down on some of the approval steps that may not be necessary for all businesses. That being said, it does force me to look at the data people are entering and perhaps correct it before things get out of hand too far down the line.

Summary: Overall we are happy with time and billing, and reporting features in Core. Prior to using Core we had to figure out retainage and retainer reconciliation manually in Excel.

Positive: With Core the invoicing and payment process has gotten better. Most of our projects do have retainers and thank goodness we do not have to keep track of it manually in Excel. At the time of billing we know exactly how much retainer is available and the best part is Core can auto apply these retainers. The reporting side of Core is another area we enjoy.

Negative: Some of the terminology related to retainage should be region specific. It would be great to see more added to custom labels.

Summary: Overall, we are very pleased with Core features and the technical support we receive whenever we need any assistance is amazing.

Positive: Our projects have a detailed WBS (work break down structure) and it is important for us to track all time and expenses at the phase level to see how each phase and the overall project is performing. With the ease of use in Core we are able to easily setup clients and projects, and billing. We love the customer service that is part of the software.

Negative: Filtering on our forecasting reports need to be flexible.

Summary: Overall our experience is quite positive. Our company uses the time management and billing features and staff was quick to adapt. The main thing Core has done is save countless hours in the billing process as well as the ability to generate useful reporting that is helpful to staff at the ownership and management levels.

Positive: Core allowed me 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.

Negative: Core sends out one separate invoice per phase to QBO rather than one invoice that includes all phases. This makes verification and checking of accounts receivable a bit tedious

Summary: We find it less time consuming for tasks like managing Contacts, Fee Schedules, Time and Expenses. For Project Management, my ability to run comprehensive reports is great! Accounting...being able to run reports to isolate various data is also a great tool.

Positive: Core has helped us gather data so that we can invoice seamlessly. All the data gathered (time and expenses) in a given period allows us to batch invoice which has been a huge time saver. It is also nice to be able to tweak data when necessary and process a batch of draft invoices in one shot. With Core we can combine multiple phases of the same project on a same invoice. Overall we have established as great working relationship with friendly BQE staff.

Negative: It would be nice to have a batch update the address information of vendors.

Summary: The overall experience with Core has been wonderful. We are loving the fact all our time and expense tracking, billing and accounting can be now done in one software 'Core'

Positive: Core is a one stop software for all our business needs. It is extremely easy to use, especially it is easy to track time and expenses and process invoices. Whenever we need any assistance, BQE's amazing customer service team is a phone call or email away.

Negative: It will be good to have report designer part of Core.

Summary: Overall, we are getting more efficient and same processes take less time to achieve in Core. Employees are loving it that they can input time entry no matter where they are.

Positive: The accessibility of the of Core using a browser and the mobile phone it is easy to keep track of time and invoice the projects. It has also helped us look at the bigger picture of our business in real time on customizable dashboards. We are now able to process Aging Reports and Statements to send to clients to show them their unpaid invoices.

Negative: Very early on we had issues with custom invoices and reports. It has not happened recently as BQE is good at getting issues fixed.

Summary: Very satisfied! We were looking for an online software to track employee time & expenses, manage projects, and process billing all in one platform and Core by BQE offered that and much more.

Positive: With Core we are able to keep track our mission critical business key performance indicators are at a glance. The customized billing is detailed yet simple and so easy to process and email directly from the software. Core streamlines processes, makes reporting easy, and helps us make decisions for our business based on precise data.

Negative: We had to migrate data from a different source which took a little longer than expected but no fault of BQE consulting team. There was a lot cleanup required from the data source.

Summary: We are very satisfied with Core (both product and the service) Support staff is great and very patient.

Positive: After switching to BQE Core Engineer we saved many hours that were otherwise getting wasted in using different programs. Core handles our timesheets and invoicing. Based on time and expense tracked against the projects and invoicing we then have access to different variety of reports to give us the health of our projects.

Negative: Initially we experienced a bit of a learning curve but it went gradually went down as we started using the software.