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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    BQE CORE

    Score8.8 out of 10
    Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
    BQE CORE is a business management solution built specifically for professional service firms. BQE CORE is a combination of a billing assistant, project management, and accounting solution. CORE is designed to do the hard work of delivering actionable insights directly to the user's dashboards or inbox. BQE CORE replaces the products Engineeroffice, Archioffice, and BillQuick; the functionality of these applications is now found in BQE CORE.N/A

    Clearbooks

    Score7 out of 10
    N/AClearBooks Accounting is simple cloud accounting software, from Clear Books plc located in the UK, that is tailored to the needs of small businesses and start ups in the UK, or bookkeepers and accountants. It contains core accounting features like automated invoicing, document / image importing for capturing receipts, VAT returns direct to HMRC and a customizable dashboard (tax management), expense and purchase management with recurring billing capability, basic financial reporting features for…N/A
    Pricing
    BQE COREClearbooks
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREClearbooks
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BQE COREClearbooks
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Clearbooks
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    144 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    106 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    150 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    70 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    82%
    Implementation went as expected
    81 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    BQE COREClearbooks
    General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
    Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of BQE CORE and Clearbooks
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Clearbooks
    5.0
    1 Ratings
    42% below category average
    Accounts payable00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Accounts receivable00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Cash management00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Bank reconciliation00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Expense management00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Fixed asset management00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREClearbooks
    Small Businesses
    Autotask PSA
    Score7.7 out of 10
    QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
    Score4.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Workday Professional Services Automation
    Score8.2 out of 10
    MYOB
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Planview AdaptiveWork
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Microsoft Dynamics GP
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREClearbooks
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (167 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (117 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BQE COREClearbooks
    Likelihood to Recommend
    BQE Software Inc.
    I would recommend this for our industry: architecture, engineering, or construction. I would recommend this for any larger firm with many employees or high number of projects. I would particularly recommend this for a company with projects that have budget constraints and where time tracking and expense tracking is very important. I would not recommend this complicated software for a small firm with a small amount of income or number of projects.
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    Larger companies, multi-currency. Clearbooks is in a competitive environment with Xero, SageOne, FreeAgent, Intuit etc., etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    BQE Software Inc.
    • Invoice Collections within Billing is a great tool because of the ability to take notes and track contact.
    • Invoices are professional looking and easy for our clients to understand the overall progress within each phase of their project.
    • Dashboards are the best tool EVER!
    • The Contact List feature within Clients setup is the perfect way to track multiple project managers within a large company that also has multiple contracts with us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    • SaaS, so accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world via a browser
    • Clear and straight forward navigation
    • Good choice of management reports
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    BQE Software Inc.
    • Customizable Reporting
    • Linking Project to Payment all together
    • Assigning contacts to particular roles - such as Invoicing, Contracts, etc.
    • Accounting Functionality - they are basically a project management accounting software, so in my opinion, they could learn some things from other accounting software such as QuickBooks etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    • Like any SaaS product, Clearbooks is continuously evolving and being improved
    • Some of the reports still need some work
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    BQE Software Inc.
    We have been using Core for a few years now, and honestly started to look at other software systems to see what was out there. What we chose was a nightmare for migration so we never left Core. Now we have added invoicing and payments from Core instead of double entry with QBO. Still only a few cycles in but looks like it will be up to speed soon and working smoothly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    BQE Software Inc.
    The foundation is awesome, like I have said before, however the house being built on it, the educational resources being provided to us (more of sales pitches that don't work), and flexible workflow opportunities, is making us look elsewhere for how much we will be spending on per user. It's crazy to think how flexible they are not when it comes to user settings. Lack of integration with other sources is awful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Reliability and Availability
    BQE Software Inc.
    I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable.
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    BQE Software Inc.
    This is one area that does need some improvement. It can be slow at time, so we had our IT look at it from our side and we had no issues, so it has to be some slowness on their side.
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    BQE Software Inc.
    As a new employee and CORE user, I talk to support on a weekly basis. I have never had to wait for more than 3 min to get connect with a support rep, and all my questions have been answered. The support representatives are polite and eager to help no matter how simple your question is.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    BQE Software Inc.
    It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    BQE Software Inc.
    Deltek Vision is far more advanced, more encompassing and offers more flexibility with what you want to do. However, it's also quite difficult to use, whereas BQE CORE is intuitive and user friendly. The trade off is worth it in some arenas but overall it's not suited for a larger fast paced company. Great for smaller companies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    Clearbooks was chosen 5 years ago as our accountant recommended it. There is an element of inertia in moving accounts packages.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    BQE Software Inc.
    • Quick setup of new tasks under a parent project, with immediate hourly billing to it.
    • Monitoring of details of non-chargeable efforts in appropriate detail
    • Validation of hourly cost, billing cost, benefit cost, profitability by person and role
    • Company tracking of write-off's included in corporate and project reporting, no data is "lost"
    • Can track excessive work time as +PTO in lieu of pay for use as future vacation
    Read full review
    Clearbooks
    • I am not sure that ROI is an appropriate measure for an accounts package. The cost is around £250/year, which is a tiny fraction of the cost of a bookkeeper/finance controller/finance director/CFO.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    BQE CORE Screenshots

    Screenshot of Core powered by BQE SoftwareScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Dashboard ViewScreenshot of BQE CORE 360* Firm Performance ViewScreenshot of BQE CORE Reporting & AnalyticsScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Time EntryScreenshot of BQE CORE Project Expense Tracking