Core Reviews & Product Details

Core definitely streamlined our invoicing process. The overall invoicing time in Core went down from 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Core sends out one separate invoice per phase to QBO rather than one invoice that includes all phases Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

With Core we have been able to access our Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable very easily. Setting up new clients and projects is pretty straightforward. The projects are broken down very easily into phases so that the effort at the phase level for job costing purpose. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The billing forecasting reports need to be more flexible with the invoice date filter. Currently you can see it for entire year . Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The best feature for me in CORE is the ability to export to a CSV report and manipulate the data as I wish.

Another nice and updated feature is the ability to run invoices with various projects included and to be able to combine them all in one area. Being able to see my final number on one sheet is nice. I like that there is a team always available to help and that I am able to request specific persons for assistance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Since CORE updated the batch invoice to now show all of the data without having to wait for it to "think" (which has caused a lot of errors in the past), is a very good updated feature. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Knowing the situation that we all are in, I cannot imagine how we would have run our business if we had to deal with a software that was residing on our servers and PC's. Core is on cloud and it really saved us. Most of our staff is working from home and all of them can report hours and expenses on the projects wherever they are working from. Our project managers do not have to make decisions on incomplete project information. It is all happening in real-time. Management is not required to be in the software to review reports because with report scheduling feature they get delivered to them at a set frequency. Our billing and payment process has improved too because of these automations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have been with BQE for many years and one thing we always appreciate is the attention that is paid to whenever we report a problem. No software is perfect but how quickly it gets addressed is a key. With that said we would like to a built in report designer. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The most helpful features of Core definitely are time & expense tracking, project management and processing billing. When we were looking for an online cloud software Core offered all this and much more. Our management team finds it extremely helpful to keep track of KPI's of employees, projects and overall for the entire business on beautiful dashboards. Our client billing is not straightforward and with the help of custom reports team we were able to eliminate MS Excel billing and now all our clients are invoiced out of Core Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Yes, it took us a bit to get the invoice designed and as I mentioned it is because our invoicing is not like any other design firm. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

BQE Core has allowed us to put time and expense tracking, project management, and billing all in one application. We no longer have to use three applications to perform those functions. Because we use Core, our Project Managers have clear and concise access to project information through the dashboards and reports. The ability to memorize and schedule reports allows PMs to be sent weekly cost reports so that they are more aware of the charges on their projects without even having to open Core. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The workflow for dealing with vendor bills and other project expended that are directly charged to projects needs better clarity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The number one reason I like Core is because it is user friendly, particularly for back end administration. I had been in legal for years. Although I've always had a hand in software selection, IT dept handled the application, etc. I was able to set up the back end for our firm, which started in July. My users have learned the software quickly including those that have not previously billed their time. Short training. Simply - user friendly which is how I always select an application for a specific unit. 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Can't think of any off the top of my head. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to jump right in get things set up and start working. Progressive customization allows for constant improvement of tracking and workflows. There is a LOT of bang for your buck here. 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Having multiple tabs open would be helpful from a workflow standpoint. It would be nice if when I make changes in the Global settings that I could tell it to apply those to older jobs…I’m thinking invoicing here. Two of my overall big requests would be: 1) the ability to add some of the custom fields to an invoice. I have to populate this manually…I have to switch between jobs and the invoice to grab the info…therein comes the multiple tabs option. 2) The other would be to auto-populate the basic job information in a standard/form letter. I send out engagement letters on every job and would like the letter creation to be auto-populated Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We are relatively new to BQE Core and it has been nothing short of wonderful experience. So far we are enjoying the easy of billing, entering time and expenses in one software. The custom service has been amazing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We would like to custom reports part of software and it looks like BQE is going to make this feature available in Core in the next few updates Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The important KPI's in Core for our projects, clients and staff help us run our business efficiently. Love the mobile phone app! The fact that I can review this important data from anywhere anytime is a huge benefit. We love the easy of use and the flow of the software. BQE Core's insightful dashboards and business intelligence tells us exactly how our projects are performing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Cannot say we dislike but whenever we find an issue it gets addressed in a timely manner Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like how intuitive the software is, and how its set up to help me answer my own questions sometimes. I also appreciate the availability of the support team. It is helping us see the real data to analyze areas of improvement for our company. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is a lot of information with CORE and I'm sure its a lot of work to accommodate everyone's special requests and customization, so I appreciate the consideration of the ideas and feedback of the clients. No real changes to suggest as of yet. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Core is by far the powerful software we have acquired for the price point it comes with. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Global Settings: User Interface "Display As" is limited. For example would like to have specific "display as" for project invoices and time cards.

Vendor Payments and Check Printing: Need Payable to: different than the send to print on check. Font print very faint when printing checks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Being able to use the program from anywhere a browser is available although I personally have not had to log in anywhere other than the office but some of my staff has. 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The downside is the refresh rate. At times there is lag due to internet connection which is obviously not an issue with Core itself but the internet connection. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

After 1.5 years of working with Core, and 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 exploiting 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I believe the project management is the only feature that needs some attention and maturing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For most part calling customer service is easy and the staff is knowledgeable and patient when we are asking for help. When everything is entered correctly Core does give a good view as to where we are with invoicing, budgets, contract etc. Entering time and expenses is easy for our staff including managers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I am not a fan of write up/down feature and wish we could turn it off as our firm does not use it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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 fact that we do not have to deal with multiple apps to run our firm is in itself a huge deal. The real time performance metrics of projects on beautiful dashboards keep our management team informed about the project management aspects of our projects. Invoice is very flexible and easily supports different invoice formats. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Would like to see more industry specific chart of accounts. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

After researching the best accounting, timesheet and billing software. I chose it because it had an intuitive interface, easy reporting, and cloud availability. It's catered directly to our discipline, and allows us to easily track our own time/expenses, as well as sub-consultants and teams. 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.

I was really happy with the initial experience of Core. If you have a base-level understanding of accounting, just watching the instructional videos will give enough information to set up your full account. Having staff available 24/7 for questions has also been very helpful when you're stuck and figuring something out during late-night invoicing! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

In a separate excel doc I track our projected income and expenses for each two-week period so I can plan cash expenditure. If BQE had a feature to track overhead and projections in relation to billable work, that would really integrate all functionality in one software. Other than that, I don't have any suggestions for improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Our small architectural firm was looking for a consolidated project management and billing software that would allow us to record employee time, manage project tasks, budget, invoice and track project performance. We took advantage of CORE’s 30-day free trial and with some additional training and support from BQE, we were fully operational with CORE in a very short time. Our partners can easily access reports and project performance data through the mobile app feature, and our administrative staff finds the time review and billing process to be efficient and user-friendly. We’ve been quite pleased with both CORE and BQE Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is a bit a learning curve. With the help of training and consulting we were able to get past this hurdle. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Billing process is easy and intuitive as we can provide clients with a detailed invoicing if required. 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Improving intelligence for notification features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We use Core to create new projects, add clients, add phases to projects, and notes particular to a client or project, create invoices and record payments. I like that it is a fairly easy to use, and that help is always available to assist. We like how we can place so much of our project information into it, and then it is accessible by multiple users and all this data is available on dashboards and reports. Also like how employees can enter their time by project. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We would like to be able to modify the invoice templates more ourselves without having to make special requests. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

All the processes are faster and better with Core. It is is our main business management software and we before it we had a local system installed on our servers. 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. Core has a easy and intuitive user interface which makes our day to day processes easier. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

More tools for creating reports according to our needs and more options for administrators Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Allocation and forecasting, project management and time and expense setup are all helpful. We are getting more and more use out of Core. 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Any changes, we pass through ideas and so hopefully they are updated as new features - we would like to know the status of our requests just so we can discuss in our meetings. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

submitting time and expenses has been easier, than old product. Website is stable and has had little to no known issues with website. Interface is intuitive and having the navigation bar on the left is easy to use. The navigation bar was very to understand where to go. There are many features that I do not use as a user. Time, expenses, and to-do are the only functions I use now. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

When making a PDF, some reports generator multiple tabs just to make one PDF and then export/save. Be nice to just only have one browser tab open up. Still learning to use the software since system was launched last month for us. One month of use is not sufficient time fully use the product. Would be good to use during different conditions to test usability during difference situations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have been using BQE Core for close to a year and the best thing our staff likes is that it is very user friendly. It is extremely easy to enter time. Our invoicing and receiving payments has been much more efficient because it is east to process invoices and make payments. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I feel some of the reports are a bit confusing and we have already provided feedback Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

BQE Core has allowed us more time to focus on the completion of a project rather than collecting information and scheduling from different sources. 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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Adding payroll to the bundle, this would complete the package and tie together all the pieces. Providing more details in help within the program, a pop up link to a detailed explanation of what the field is will be helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.