BQE Core is a business management solution built specifically for professional service firms. According to the vendor, BQE Core is a combination of a billing assistant, project management, and accounting solution. The vendor’s value proposition is that Core does the hard work for you, delivering the actionable insights you need directly to your dashboards or your inbox. BQE Core replaces the products Engineeroffice, Archioffice, and BillQuick; the functionality of these applications is…
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FreshBooks
Score 8.1 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
FreshBooks is an accounting service for small businesses. The solution enables users to send and manage invoices, track billable time and collect online payments. The vendor’s value proposition this that their solution provides a straightforward service that simplifies the billing process.
I have used BQE Core for time management and expenses only. Tool is super easy to use and generating reports is super easy. This makes tracking project hours/reporting much easier. Auto Save option is excellent as when working on multiple things, it is easy to forget to save data. If you are working on multiple projects, BQE core doesn't give an option to show projects in a certain priority. Filters don't save entered parameters for different projects.
FreshBooks is the perfect tool for businesses who have hundreds of clients and customers whom they invoice regularly. It removes the need to manually send invoices to clients and customers, by streamlining inputted information to create an automated invoicing system which keeps clients and customers up to date with their bills. It is also a great tool for managing expenses, especially for companies with different teams working on varying projects, ensuring these teams do not exceed the budget ceiling.
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.
FreshBooks is pretty intuitive to use. I did have some questions when I first started using the system, but it wasn't a long learning curve.
FreshBooks provides more capability than other billing applications such as PaySimple or BlinkSale. FreshBooks does provide an easy invoicing function. It's easy to create invoices that can be sent via email or snail mail to one or more individuals (for example, the decision-maker and the accounting dept). Clients can pay online or send a check and then I note that the payment has been received. If paid by credit card, the system automatically marks the invoice paid. Your business accounts such as bank accounts can be linked to FreshBooks. Then, the system can automatically draw in expenses and will create simple P&L reports, overdue invoices, client history, etc. If you don't have inventory and complex payroll, etc. FreshBooks provides just the right level of capability to make financial tracking simple.
FreshBooks integrates with a number of credit card companies. I use Stripe, which has fees similar to Paypal, but much more reliable processing. I can accept all credit cards, including American Express, for a reasonable fee.
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.
I can brand invoices with my business logo, but I might like to change colours of the invoices themselves to match the rest of my business documents. That isn't a major point at all, but it's something that I'd like to see.
Freshbooks doesn't remember the categories that similar expenses were previously assigned to. It would be nice if Freshbooks would suggest a category for an already saved vendor, to ensure the consistency of expense reporting.
The home page of a Freshbooks account has a great graph display of expenses and income, but it only shows the last 6 months. This is still very useful, but I'd like to be able to see this kind of graph for different periods of time.
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.
At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.
Generally, the software is very good, easy to use, and intuitive. The search features are extremely useful and the flexibility in filtering reports is a feature that allows you to pinpoint specific data or transactions effectively and efficiently. Sometimes there are frustrating performance issues that can detract from the overall experience.
FreshBooks is very easy to use even for novices. If you're looking for an online accounting software that is full of features, has great aesthetics and is user-friendly, then this is definitely the software for you. I've been using it for several years now and despite being tempted to switch by other vendors, I like the feel of FreshBooks and it's mobile features.
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.
Come to think of it, I've never even had to reach out to BQE Core support--which in and of itself, in my humble opinion, is just what so happens to merit my giving it a rating of ten out of ten on this review scale. See, if I had to reach out to support I might give it a lower score, but the program is so usable that I don't need to! Ha!
I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.
Monograph is the most closely similar platform that would be favorable as it has a better GUI and UX with simpler flexibility for customization on a per-project, per design phase basis, for example, utilizing simple radio buttons and drop-down selections. This can be readily seen in the Project Planner window where it is widget-like and staffing, hourly rates, etc. can be quickly updated, revised, or customized in one location and see the immediate results of the changes. If we didn't have over 15 years invested into the data from ArchiOffice/CORE to move over we would change. OR, it would be nice if CORE simplified its platform and learn from Monograph.
We do not consider other options since our client wants the implementation of this platform in order to use it in the two countries where it has operations.
At the moment, full integration was not possible and we still share the information with a Mexican system to complete everything necessary.
Extra CPA hours - because of the issues with the accounting side of BillQuick, we have had to spent extra hours with the CPA to understand exactly why it does some of the things it does. Over the years it has gotten better but we still have to work extra hard every quarter to make sure it is functioning correctly.
Time and Expense entry - being able to have the staff enter their own time and expenses has allowed for the administrative staff to focus on other items instead of being bogged down with those items.
One system - having all the company information in one system is cheaper than maintaining 2 or more systems. Plus all the risk associated with double entry is gone.
Finding errors in the ledger - this is both a good a bad. Depending on the entry, it is either really easy to find or hard to find because you can't tell if it is a vendor bill, expense entry, or credit card charge. Also, there are no notes that show up which indicate what the line item is. Even if a note was left in the original entry.
Freshbooks saves me time compared to when I managed to invoice without an app.
Freshbooks make keeping my invoices organized which saves me time.
Freshbooks helps me to know who is late on payments. When I was doing this by hand, some invoices would get lost in the clutter and I would not find out I haven't been paid until much later.
