Likelihood to Recommend Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.
Read full review I believe it is well suited for our industry! We are professional services consulting firm and we need this! However if there is a smaller company who does not need to track these items, then they should not use this big of a platform
Read full review Pros Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface. The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team. Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time. Read full review I like the functionality of being able to make payments electronically and the amount of banks and payment methods that are available. Another very useful feature of this tool is that the system allows to set a parameter to perform automatic invoices. I also really like the amount of templates that this tool has. Since it allows us to make customizable reports to our clients. Read full review Cons High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when. Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system. Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search. Read full review For some types of projects, we are unable to use BigTime's invoicing feature. It would be nice if we could further customize invoices to fit our needs. We still have to use Quickbooks to complete certain invoices. Being able to create Purchase Orders in BigTime would be extremely useful to us. We currently use Quickbooks for this. Read full review Likelihood to Renew When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.
Read full review Its been a huge help in saving time and making billing more efficient. Would like to see the product grow and be able to continue to use it.
Read full review Usability Basecamp is a little tricky to learn. I've used it for quite a while but I feel like there's still so much I don't know. It took me a while to learn but having used it in college definitely helped me integrate it into my work career.
Read full review Staff adapted to the new timesheets immediately. The invoice platform is nice and tracking WIP is great! Color backgrounds still need work. The new vibrant mode is OK. still trying it out.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.
Read full review BigTime is available 99% of the time. At times there are bugs, but most are resolved quickly
Read full review Performance have not noticed a slow integration issue using QBO
Read full review Support Rating For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.
Read full review The support is amazing! They are always available through the chat interface in the program. Each support person has fully answered my questions the first time. I have had a positive experience with each inquiry. It is very important to me that I am able to get instant access to help so that I can make the most of the software and all of its capabilities.
Read full review Implementation Rating Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)
Jenni Waggoner Marketing Content Manager | Social Media | Newsletter | Blog | White Papers
Read full review Monte and Tyler have been helpful with report assistance I called on recently
Read full review Alternatives Considered Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked
Jira 's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking.
Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.
Read full review I liked the client management, but it didn't do time tracking, billing or syncing with quickbooks. It was too robust for my needs. I tried it for the client management and thought I might use it along with bigtime, but it was too cumbersome and would involve too much double entry. And it didn't track time or bill which are necessary functions
Read full review Scalability The product is useful for faster billing and efficient timesheet logs. I do like the report features however there are many options and can be overwhelming for the user. It is most helpful to set up reports speaking to an agent to ensure the right fields are set, etc.
Read full review Return on Investment It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!) The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page. Read full review Before BigTime, we were using Excel to track everything, creating invoices, and run reports. Getting on BigTime has saved us tons of time and effort which equates to dollars saved on labor. From a legal standpoint, BigTime has allowed us to be organized and prepared in the event we would need to present financial details to anyone. Read full review ScreenShots BigTime Software Screenshots