BigTime IQ is time and expense tracking software from Chicago-based BigTime Software.
$20
User per Month
Birdview
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Easy Projects is a project management tool designed for a wide range of businesses (small to mid-sized and enterprise level). It includes both basic features like creating projects and tasks and filling in the calendar, and also some advanced ones, including an interactive Gantt chart, an executive dashboard, time tracking and billing. It provides integration with MS Outlook, is customizable and has SaaS/On-Premise options.
I'd like to start by saying, I rarely give 10's on anything, almost always 9's, the main reason for my 10 rating is the support I've received from this team/company. BigTime Software has been well suited for our company b/c it's giving a window into the project budget and time frames to our Project Managers to proactively manage their projects and look for areas to improve and celebrate with support staff. I would say efficiency in time management. BigTime Software is not an accounting software and I love that about it. We were looking for a tool for staff to manage their projects and stay on budget and track time and generate invoices all in one place and we've found that with BigTime Software.
Each member of our team can choose their own view, so they can see only what is relevant to them. Plus, we can keep track of everyone's progress without bothering them. Our team loves that everyone can have a different view, so they see only what's important to them. In addition, we can keep tabs on everyone's progress without pestering them. The user interface has some nice quality of life features, such as the different views for different members of our team.
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.
Easy Projects has some problems when it comes to accessing the site via different methods/browsers. It is either very slow or never works on a tablet. It is not smart-phone friendly. And it stopped working for us in Firefox -- all we could use is Safari or Chrome (we are a Mac-based office).
Easy Projects' email notifications are overwhelming. I turned them off completely since I was getting messages every time one little detail was added or changed.
While the reports are great, they are somewhat hard to pull. It takes a lot of trial and error -- I would not say the reports are an "intuitive area."
The biggest by far is what we fondly call "the screen of death." When you mark the last open task associated with a job as complete, a screen pops up that asks if you want to close the overall job, as well. The "yes" field is pre-selected, so if you are overzealous and click through quickly, it automatically closes the job. I don't know why they think this feature is helpful. We have so many staffers that complain they suddenly can't find their open job -- well, it's been marked completed and goes into the archive.
EP is great but could be better. EP has been a wonderful tool within our organization, it has helped us control expenses, resources, and the time needed to invest in each project, however when it comes to presenting reports and details it is a bit weak, there are more tools specialized in data visualization, and it would be good to make some kind of integration between EP and the other market alternatives
Overall most areas of the software are easy to use. I tend to spend a lot of time in analytics and reports. Those are not as user friendly, in my opinion, and could use some improvements. I think it just takes time to get familiar with where items are stored in the program and what changes affect what.
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.
In my personal experience, I only needed EP support once and the truth is that they attended me very well and very quickly, they helped me with what I needed, it was a question regarding the use of WebServices, they solved my doubt and then they contacted me another agent to verify that everything was resolved and if they could help me with anything else
I touched on this briefly, in another survey section, but my implementation manager, Kevin, was exceptional. The actual implementation process took 3 months, not 1 before I was comfortable rolling it out to staff. We also had to wait/schedule time and coordinate for our custom xml. invoice to be generated and in a place we felt comfortable sending it out to clients. In the end I was very satisfied, but during the first few months it was challenging.
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
East Projects integrates with other financial systems such as NetSuite and Compass, which allows a great financial view into the existing and future projects and overall financial health of our resourcing. Other systems, such as Wrike and MS Projects, just focus on project/task management, whereas this is a one-stop shop. It also allows us to manage internal resources.
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.
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.
Increased team collaboration improved the results significantly, because we managed to reduce the amount of time wasted on unnecessary iterations, therefore reducing costs.
The reasonable pricing enabled us to enjoy the service we needed with with less impact on our budget than we've expected.
