BQE CORE vs. Customer Focus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BQE CORE
Score 8.4 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
Customer Focus
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Customer Focus is solution that includes order management, inventory management, warehousing, CMS, E-mail marketing, CRM, and general accounting functions. E-Commerce web stores are also included in the solution.
$50
# of stores and users
Pricing
BQE CORECustomer Focus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard
$50
# of stores and users
Ultimate
$99
# of stores and users
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BQE CORECustomer Focus
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$249 Site setup and training
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
BQE CORECustomer Focus
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
7.9
21 Ratings
3% above category average
Customer Focus
-
Ratings
Task Management7.913 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management8.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts6.45 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling8.49 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.98 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration8.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology6.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology7.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management7.512 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access8.512 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking9.421 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management9.98 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management7.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
7.7
14 Ratings
1% above category average
Customer Focus
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates7.46 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing8.511 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting7.914 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Customer Focus
9.2
1 Ratings
18% above category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Customer Focus
9.0
1 Ratings
17% above category average
Checkout user experience00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Customer Focus
8.0
1 Ratings
6% above category average
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Customer Focus
9.0
1 Ratings
15% above category average
Shipping00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BQE CORECustomer Focus
Small Businesses
FunctionFox
FunctionFox
Score 9.9 out of 10
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP Ruum
SAP Ruum
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kanban Tool
Kanban Tool
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BQE CORECustomer Focus
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(110 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.9
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(98 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(90 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(7 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 CORECustomer Focus
Likelihood to Recommend
BQE Software Inc.
BQE CORE is well suited for someone that wants to overpay to keep track of time, invoicing, and standard financial metrics. BQE CORE has the opportunity to be a really robust operating system for an architectural practice that wants to understand how projects are going, how they can improve as a studio, and move forward in providing great impact to their clients, all the while, spending less time in a boring software that no architect wants to use. BQE CORE can feel like a necessary thing for a studio to be managing growth well. But it also can be a lot of fun, intuitive, and exciting for an architect that just wants to be an architect. It can be a learning tool. However, it's too clunky, it isn't flexible, only reactive, and backwards looking for KPIs. To integrate with interesting equations of how a firm can look at project success, turn it into a dashboard for the entire studio, that would be fun. The banking cloud feed is one of the worst I have experienced. The lack of reporting customization is awful. And the amount of redundant information that has to be put into a project that you actually want to have phases in, track your allocations, and manage it, is entirely too cumbersome. BQE Core has an AWESOME foundation. But to build the proverbial house, we gotta care about the craft.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
Today, with a globalized competition and without truce, a company must evaluate and take into account its size, and use this to analyze which of the tools available in the market is more suited to their needs. If it is a small company, you can improve your customer service by incorporating a chat. But a company of national level must evaluate other aspects like: marketing, tastes, preferences, tendencies, etc. To achieve the effective management of relationships with our customers, this technology provides us with effective tools and easy access.
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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.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
  • Facilitates the interaction between the company and customers, through various communication channels, thanks to the storage of information of interest, such as the needs and preferences for products or services.
  • Access data of interest (about the clients, their histories, products, prices, etc.,) from any place with access to the internet
  • An extensive knowledge about the clients allows the company to present commercial offers adapted to their needs, so the income is also higher, through a lower sales cycle. The CRM allows to enhance sales and marketing functions.
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Cons
BQE Software Inc.
  • Startup training is available (& you need it so that you get off to a great start)
  • A report that shows the key setups for a project that can be glanced over quickly to assure it is correct
  • A way to set a new start date for the dashboards and data set, or a way to default old bad data to a default so reports run without bad data showing up.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
  • Cost is always an element to consider when purchasing a computer solution, both for the purchase of the software and for its maintenance, many forget about the ongoing support costs that come with software.
  • Many systems are backed up automatically through the cloud or through some other solution, but not all. So there is a good chance that the data will be lost. it is therefore necessary to take the safe backup forecasts in the event of any unforeseen occurrence and cause us an unpleasant surprise.
  • There is a difference between being served by a real person when making a phone call, to an automated attention system. Sometimes it is good to make the tasks more automatic, but it is also good to have a little personalized help to avoid losing the human value of relationships.
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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.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Usability
BQE Software Inc.
Navigating CORE is a breeze as the tool is visually organized well. Improvements need to be made to filtering. A more intuitive approach would help with generating reports and utilizing the resource allocation and forecasting tabs. Filtering by resource groups on these tabs are broken which is a huge inconvenience. Overall, though, the tool is easy to use as a whole, and the support team is very responsive and always available to help when you have a question.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
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.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
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.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
BQE Software Inc.
I have never needed to contact support for this product. Although it is suggested I skip this question if I have no applicable experience with it, I don't have the option to skip it. So I will instead attempt to get 50 words in this box as explanation for that.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Online Training
BQE Software Inc.
Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
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.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
BQE Software Inc.
I am a user and was not involved in the decision making. Tool was already in place when I joined. But comparing to other tools I have used in the past, BQE is by far the easiest to use. You do not need any training to start using this tool immediately
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Customer Focus, Inc.
Sales management is based on the management of customer relationships and must be centralized so that its analysis is effective. The data that is collected must be available for the generation of statistics for decision making by the directory. This tool allows us to generate the necessary data to generate results, save time and production cost. The other products did not fit our objectives.
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Scalability
BQE Software Inc.
This software works on a small and large scale.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BQE Software Inc.
  • BQE Core has allowed our growing business to manage time tracking in an effective and efficient manner. We could not have effectively kept running our operation without it.
  • BQE Core provides all of the reports we need to do our monthly management reporting. This allows us to quickly spot problems such as capacity overloads, receivables problems, budget overruns, or timekeeping issues.
  • BQE Core has supported our business objective of generating more profit from projects that we undertake by allowing us to quickly and effectively monitor budget burn rates before it becomes an issue.
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Customer Focus, Inc.
  • With the information available, about the clients, the company can know and segment the markets and develop effective and successful marketing campaigns.
  • With the information the employee can develop more personalized relationships with the client.
  • This customer service tool facilitated the administrative processes of sales to achieve higher performance and better results in the company.
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ScreenShots

BQE CORE Screenshots

Screenshot of Core powered by BQE SoftwareScreenshot of Core DashboardScreenshot of Core ManagementScreenshot of Core AnalysisScreenshot of Core Mobile