BQE CORE vs. Dubsado

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.

If you are a small service-based business owner looking for a CRM to automate your customer journey then this is for you. This platform is very customizable and can be really powerful once you set it up fully. This is like putting puzzle pieces together. First you need to setup all the pieces like scheduler, lead capture form, proposal, packages, invoices, contract and then setup the workflow automation. It will be helpful if you map your process in a mind-mapping tool first so it’s easy to see on high level what you need accomplished. This platform is not suitable for big companies or SaaS industry because the tagging system is not robust.

Incentivized

• 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

• Invoicing & expense reporting all in one place! I don't have to spend hours poring over my bank account transactions to find my biz expenses anymore!
• The built-in call scheduler is awesome! I can create various appointment schedulers with multiple availabilities, and collect payments right up front, too!
• Dubsado also has a sweet Client Portal where my clients can login and see all their activity with me at a glance.

Incentivized

• 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

• the task list feature is very basic
• the UI is a little clunky
• more integrations with other software such as Clickup

Incentivized

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

There are some similar programs out there that are offering ambassador accounts.

Incentivized

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

There is a learning curve to Dubsado, however, you can create a basic setup easily using the training videos provided by the platform

Incentivized

I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable.

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.

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

The support with Dubsado is outstanding! Always so helpful, prompt to answer and always understands the issue. It always feels like I have talking to an actual person behind the scenes

Incentivized

Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.

It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.

Incentivized

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

Dubsado is more customizable and with robust features. Also, the user interface is visually pleasing but definitely has steep learning curve. Once you get the hang of it, it’s very easy especially with other developers helping users create beautiful form, proposals with ease without needing to know how to code. HoneyBook is not available for people outside USA & Canada. I haven’t used 17hats for a very long time but the user interface is pretty much the same

Incentivized

This software works on a small and large scale.

• 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

• Clients are excited to hire me because my onboarding process is so professional
• Easy of use makes collecting payment from clients easy
• Streamlined process allows me to charge more for my services

Incentivized