Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BQE CORE
Score 8.8 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
Freshdesk
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Freshdesk (a product of Freshworks Inc.) is a customer service solution with enterprise capability. Freshdesk unifies channels, conversations, AI capabilities, customer insights, and advanced ticketing into the Freshdesk Command Center so agents are ready to resolve. With Freddy, People-first AI, customer service teams can take AI agents live in minutes to fully resolve complex and simple queries, get response and resolution assistance from AI copilot, and stay ahead with AI insights.…
$18
per month per user
Pricing
BQE COREFreshdesk
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Growth
$18
per month per agent
Pro
$59
per month per agent
Enterprise
$95
per month per agent
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BQE COREFreshdesk
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BQE COREFreshdesk
Features
BQE COREFreshdesk
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
8.0
74 Ratings
3% above category average
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Task Management9.156 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management8.955 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts9.028 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling8.836 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.839 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.646 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.621 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology4.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management8.539 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration6.233 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access7.645 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking9.674 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management8.132 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management8.758 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
8.5
56 Ratings
9% above category average
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates8.129 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing8.849 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting8.754 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software8.135 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Freshdesk
8.3
202 Ratings
1% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.2197 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.1134 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.06 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings7.67 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3198 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.9198 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Freshdesk
8.4
179 Ratings
5% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.4162 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.4167 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Freshdesk
8.7
189 Ratings
8% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings8.7160 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings9.159 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.5102 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.0188 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.5119 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BQE COREFreshdesk
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 8.9 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InEight
InEight
Score 8.4 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
InEight
InEight
Score 8.4 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BQE COREFreshdesk
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(167 ratings)
8.4
(260 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(8 ratings)
8.3
(25 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(117 ratings)
9.0
(42 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(1 ratings)
7.0
(6 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
7.2
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(90 ratings)
8.5
(41 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Online Training
6.4
(1 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.3
(6 ratings)
8.1
(192 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.1
(7 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(5 ratings)
Ease of integration
4.5
(1 ratings)
7.7
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
6.5
(6 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
7.4
(5 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
7.4
(5 ratings)
User Testimonials
BQE COREFreshdesk
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
Freshworks Inc
I believe Freshdesk is well-suited for companies that manage multiple accounts, such as those in the Business Process Outsourcing industry. It has all the necessary capabilities, such as ticket management that uses omnichannel to receive ticket requests from service requests (managed internally) in the system, emails, etc. There are also several workflow automations that can be built within the platform/system. What is lacking is the API documentation, which limits the possibilities for further automations. Overall, it is a highly recommended tool for managing employee productivity and timeliness.
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.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
  • No prior experience with similar platforms is required to use Freshdesk. I found its interface to be quite intuitive, at least for the end user.
  • It's easy to connect with other platforms, so you can sync and manage data from other platforms because the integrations work correctly.
  • Freshdesk's technical support is quite responsive, with short and effective response times. They have easily handled my questions and issues.
  • It has tools for customizing automated chats, answering frequently asked questions before transferring to an agent. Its configuration is extensive and highly customizable.
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.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
  • Freshdesk is buggy, full stop. I don't know how many support tickets I submitted related to user login.
  • There can be a language barrier with support and sales.
  • There were a couple of hours-long outages that significantly impacted my company's customer experience.
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.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
New support agents can learn the system quickly, minimizing training time and maximizing productivity from day one. Agents are more willing to use a system that is simple, reducing resistance to change and ensuring all interactions are logged (a common problem with complex systems). The platform is known for being easy to set up and customize, allowing teams (especially smaller ones) to get started with minimal technical expertise.The platform makes it easy to set and monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs), ensuring customers get timely responses and helping managers enforce performance standards.
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.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
Freshdesk is extremely easy to use as implemented it on our own with average technical skills. A lot of the options are straightforward and Freshdesk provides easy-to-understand explanations for some of the more complex-sounding ones. We recently onboarded new specialists and they were able to learn Freshdesk with minimal training.
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
Freshworks Inc
I have encountered a lot of errors in the Freshdesk, however, they tend to resolve it on priority or at least they will share the timeline by when this can be resolved. Most of the time the issue has been from the other partner's end. They take time to resolve their vendor issues and they don't have any timelines in case of developed app errors.
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
Freshworks Inc
The reports take a lot of time to download if the time period is large. Also, the tickets take their sweet time to open and load. It is not fast as Zendesk. Only 30 tickets are visible in a single go and there isn't any option to select all. If we need to change the pages and dashboards it takes a lot of time to open.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
Because I never worked with a company that responds so quickly to their customer! They are always fast at responding and very open to new ideas and quickly turning them around to include them in future releases. They walk us through when we need assistance and are very good at communicating. Overall top notch support
Read full review
In-Person Training
BQE Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
Freshworks Inc
In-person training is provided to all the agents and it is very easy to learn the basics of the Freshdesk interface. Solving tickets via dashboards, replying to the guest queries in bulk via Freshdesk. The training which is a bit hard is creating the logic according to the ticket flow and intergeration.
Read full review
Online Training
BQE Software Inc.
Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
This tool is no doubt easy to learn but in-person training is a lot better than online training. It takes time to grasp things in the online training, however, in pandemic we have done all the training online. Apart from a bit more time we haven't faced any issues with online training.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
BQE Software Inc.
It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
Was a fairly quick implementation for us. However, we are only doing email integration and not some of the more complex integrations that are possible. One clarification on an earlier question. I selected that Freshdesk doesn't have a given feature, but this is not true. I selected this because there wasn't a selection for I don't use the feature. This is a weakness in the survey.
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.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
Compared to Crisp, Freshdesk offers much more organization and is just much more helpful when it comes to having more than one region/team. Not that Crisp is bad, but with Freshdesk, internal communication and collaboration are much easier, which was quite important for our team to grow.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BQE Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
Freshworks Inc
I was not very involved with the purchase/contract (my company purchased Fresjdesk before I was brought on), but I will say that pricing per agent made it difficult to grow our support team. Additionally, we were kind of disappointed after our upgrade because it didn't solve our pain points as much as we expected.
Read full review
Scalability
BQE Software Inc.
This software works on a small and large scale.
Read full review
Freshworks Inc
My company had Freshdesk agents from support and success. It's generally difficult to customize permissions for different agent "roles." We were a fully distributed company, so "multiple sites" doesn't apply to us. We found Freshdesk features lacking as we grew our customer base, and adding agents wasn't easy because price steeply increases with number of agents.
Read full review
Professional Services
BQE Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
Freshworks Inc
- good customer support
- personal contact
- usage limited to basic product features, individually designed solutions seem unlikely
Read full review
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
Freshworks Inc
  • Increased response times - Client Success maintains at 98% SLA for resolution
  • Categorization of feedback and issues - custom ticket fields make it easier for us to review why clients contact us on a high level
  • Standardization of internal procedures via templates, canned responses and automations
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