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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

    FreeAgent

    Score5.6 out of 10
    N/AFreeAgent is an cloud-based accounting system designed for small businesses and freelancers. FreeAgent supports many core accounting features and bank reconciliation, payroll, tax management, project level accounting, and multiple currency support. It is mobile-accessible, and integrates with many apps.

    $13.50

    per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREFreeAgent
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    FreeAgent
    $13.50
    per month
    FreeAgent
    $135
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREFreeAgent
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    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 COREFreeAgent
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    FreeAgent
    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 COREFreeAgent
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    8.6
    13 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Pay calculation00 Ratings8.012 Ratings
    Benefit plan administration00 Ratings8.56 Ratings
    Direct deposit files00 Ratings8.92 Ratings
    Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings8.86 Ratings
    Reimbursement management00 Ratings8.78 Ratings
    Customization
    Comparison of Customization features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    6.7
    13 Ratings
    12% below category average
    API for custom integration00 Ratings4.59 Ratings
    Plug-ins00 Ratings8.912 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    8.5
    14 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Single sign-on capability00 Ratings9.013 Ratings
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.013 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    6.4
    23 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings7.121 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings7.621 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings4.410 Ratings
    General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
    Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    8.7
    25 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Accounts payable00 Ratings8.020 Ratings
    Accounts receivable00 Ratings8.522 Ratings
    Cash management00 Ratings8.520 Ratings
    Bank reconciliation00 Ratings9.020 Ratings
    Expense management00 Ratings8.924 Ratings
    Time tracking00 Ratings9.018 Ratings
    Fixed asset management00 Ratings8.611 Ratings
    Multi-currency support00 Ratings8.110 Ratings
    Multi-division support00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Regulations compliance00 Ratings8.78 Ratings
    Electronic tax filing00 Ratings9.120 Ratings
    Self-service portal00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
    Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Inventory Management
    Comparison of Inventory Management features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    7.4
    4 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Inventory tracking00 Ratings7.72 Ratings
    Automatic reordering00 Ratings8.21 Ratings
    Location management00 Ratings4.51 Ratings
    Manufacturing module00 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Order Management
    Comparison of Order Management features of BQE CORE and FreeAgent
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    FreeAgent
    8.1
    13 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Pricing00 Ratings8.19 Ratings
    Order entry00 Ratings6.82 Ratings
    Credit card processing00 Ratings8.25 Ratings
    Cost of goods sold00 Ratings9.13 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREFreeAgent
    Small Businesses
    Autotask PSA
    Score7.7 out of 10
    QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
    Score4.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Workday Professional Services Automation
    Score8.2 out of 10
    MYOB
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Planview AdaptiveWork
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Microsoft Dynamics GP
    Score5.3 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREFreeAgent
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (167 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (117 ratings)
    8.5
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.9
    (5 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    CPA Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BQE COREFreeAgent
    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
    FreeAgent
    For micro and small business it is a great solution. The new requirements for MTD for landlords could also be met with this software. Groups and more complex businesses could not use the accounts and tax returns features, however they still could use it for bookkeeping and then export the data to other tax and accounts production software.
    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
    FreeAgent
    • Accounting! As you'd expect. Makes it much simpler andmore cost effective. In-coming and out-goings are recorded and assigned to projects and accounts. My accountant can access my books and reconcile so much more easily than trawling through spreadsheets.
    • Time billing - time spent on projects/client work is recorded and is ready to be invoiced as required. Saves so much time and prevents inaccuracies.
    • Invoicing - again, it should do this well and it does. Non payment reminders are automatic and clients have no excuses for not knowing the status of their account.
    • Account dashboard - gives me an instant overview of the health of the business (am I on track to meet my yearly targets) and my accounts.
    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
    FreeAgent
    • Reporting on financials, time tracking and project status is a little poor. It's adequate for what what we need, but would be great to see more advanced features.
    • API is quite closed so cannot integrate with our other project management tools.
    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
    FreeAgent
    We have used Freeagent for many years now and it serves us well for our needs. To change it would mean a lot of work, and this would most likely only happen if the cost became prohibitive to us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    FreeAgent
    It is a great software that does everything we need for small business clients. It allows to keep the books in a cloud from bookkeeping to accounts production and tax returns, all in one software. There are no major drawbacks and I would highly recommend it for most of our clients.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    FreeAgent
    Based in a cloud and never had any issues with down time. I can access from any device
    Read full review
    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
    FreeAgent
    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
    FreeAgent
    I have never personally used support
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    FreeAgent
    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
    FreeAgent
    Did not participate
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    FreeAgent
    I have used and tested out many other systems. I was looking at Xero for my accounting system but at the time I chose FreeAgent because of the way it handles the recording of dividends and the inbuilt time recording. The others I trialed were good and many of them cheaper. FreeAgent best suited my requirements at the time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    FreeAgent
    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
    FreeAgent
    • Professional and uniform offering providing great confident customer service. My clients love it, whether they use it a little or a lot. It's a great piece of software - while sophisticated, it's straightforward to use.
    • Time saving and efficient use of my team's time. Being able to easily share and compare work / tasks.
    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