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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

    Hiveage

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AHiveage (formerly Curdbee) is billed as a simple solution for expense tracking and invoicing for small companies that do not need larger or relatively complex accounting software. Hiveage allows a user to send invoices and estimates and accept payments online, track time and expenses, set up autobilling and charge subscriptions, and manage multiple teams. Hiveage also lets users bill in multiple currencies, apply discount and shipping options, and manage taxes. Additional features include…

    $16

    per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREHiveage
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Free
    $0
    Basic
    $16
    per month
    Pro
    $25
    per month
    Plus
    $42
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREHiveage
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—With the free trial, you can use Hiveage at no charge for 14 days (no credit card required). After your trial is up, you can choose from one of several paid plans or the free plan. If you’re not ready to subscribe, no problem: your invoices, expenses, and other data will be securely stored (and available for export) in case you decide to upgrade later on.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BQE COREHiveage
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Vesess
    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
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREHiveage
    Small Businesses
    Autotask PSA
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Square Invoices
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Workday Professional Services Automation
    Score8.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Planview AdaptiveWork
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREHiveage
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (167 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (117 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 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 COREHiveage
    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.
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    Vesess
    For a very small business or a freelancer this is an excellent billing/invoicing system. Easy to get set up and configured quickly so you can get paid online quickly. It works very well for what it is intended. But for a growing small business it doesn't have the more complex accounting/bookkeeping features you might need. There is some limitation to customization as well.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Vesess
    • Setting up to receive online payments from a number of payment processors was quick and easy, and the range of processors was excellent.
    • Invoicing and recurring invoicing were easy and straightforward to use, and clients liked it as well.
    • The entire system is user-friendly and very easy to use for anyone. It has all the basics you need for billing/invoicing for a small business and is especially ideal for freelancers.
    Incentivized
    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
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    Vesess
    • Mobile app still needed some work, but they were going in the right direction.
    • Would like to see them add more accounting/bookkeeping functions.
    • Preferred the old pricing structure vs the current one.
    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
    Vesess
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Vesess
    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.
    Read full review
    Vesess
    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.
    Read full review
    Vesess
    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
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    Vesess
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    Vesess
    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
    Vesess
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Vesess
    Hiveage and FreshBooks are actually pretty comparable. I tested both before choosing Hiveage. At the time that I chose Hiveage, the reason for choosing it was that the pricing was cheaper with their old pricing structure (you could select what features you did and didn't need as "modules" and just pay for what you used). The pricing is now comparable and both offer the same features, and similar ease-of-use.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Vesess
    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
    Vesess
    • Hiveage was perfect for my small business when I was smaller, and it worked well to get invoices paid online from clients quickly and easily.
    • The invoices were professional-looking, and the ease of use to make payments made clients happy.
    • Keeping track of time for billing to specific projects was advantageous as well.
    Incentivized
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    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