BQE CORE vs. Smartsheet

BQE CORE

Smartsheet

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting 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
Smartsheet	Score 8.3 out of 10	N/A	Smartsheet is an online project management and collaboration tool. It includes automated alerts, instantaneous updating and sharing across team members, resource management, nested tasks organized in a hierarchy, a Gantt chart view, exportable and automated reports, and integration with email.	$12 per month per user (up to 10 users)

Pricing

BQE CORE

Smartsheet

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

Pro: $12
per month per user (up to 10 users)
Business: $24
per month per user (3 user minimum)
Enterprise: Contact Sales
Advanced Work Management: Contact Sales

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
BQE CORE	Smartsheet
Free Trial
Yes	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

—

A discount is offered for annual billing.

More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	BQE CORE	Smartsheet
Considered Both Products	BQE CORE TF Tracy Forai Office Administrator Chose BQE CORE BQE CORE was hands down more user friendly and customizable Incentivized Helpful? KC Kree Champion Office Manager Chose BQE CORE The previous version was pretty similar Incentivized Helpful? MK Mary Kinsley Finance Analyst Chose BQE CORE I have not used other systems. Incentivized Helpful? Nick Deccio Director of Operations Chose BQE CORE I think BQE CORE is far superior Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE Toms Planner gant charts are very easy to navigate and edit. Incentivized Helpful? JS Jess Smith Project Designer Chose BQE CORE I previously used Gusto for both benefits / employee details and also time tracking. It was really nice to have everything in one place, and Gusto felt very simple. However, it did not have as many broken down categories for time allotment. Harvest felt similar to Gusto, and it … Incentivized Helpful? GK Gokul Krishna Support Chose BQE CORE It helps and have a great impact on It employees like me to track and submit my timesheet to my managers and higher officials and make a note that I have spend my working house valuable and resourceful and the managers can take a look at what have I done in my working hours Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE our team uses both the platforms and does not tie very well. bamboo does have a more pleasant to the eye interface comparatively. it is also a bit easier to navigate and not have to click too many times to reach any particular information on bamboo. BQE CORE does do visuals of … Incentivized Helpful? Kayla Derrick Executive Assistant Chose BQE CORE BQE CORE combined numerous products for us. It allows everything to be in one place which cuts down on the back and forth, as well as user error. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE It was an admin desiring to switch. However CORE is easy to manage and calculate timesheet automatic with timer future. In addition I believe the admin stag like the billing aimless function and multiple additional future that monograph does not have. Without mentioning that … Incentivized Helpful? KW Karl Weberg GIS Analyst Chose BQE CORE BQE has more visual tools for determining billable hours and for tracking hours against a project. BQE has a better system for involving employee and simpler methods of tracking expenses. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE Monograph did not allow exporting/importing of data nor did they offer integration with Quickbooks Desktop Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE NA Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE Again, since I'm only an employee, I had no part in choosing BQE for my organization. But it is the best timesheet tracking system that I've used, and I've used 3 other ones in the past. BQE is the simplest to use, yet equally as powerful as the others. When editing my … Incentivized Helpful? JD JORGE DOMINGO Lab Technician Chose BQE CORE It's efficient. Incentivized Helpful? MA Mark Adams Environmental tech Chose BQE CORE It’s the best program I have used to date! It was selected for me through my company. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE They aren't used for the same thing so not able to compare. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE Not used any other software than accounting. This is much easier for my staff to use because it's not a straight up accounting software. Incentivized Helpful? JW Jennifer Ware Senior Technical Writer Chose BQE CORE I didn't take part in selecting BQE CORE; however, our CEO chose it because of its ability to help with invoicing and incorporating other software into the program such as Gantt charts. I like BQE CORE better than BillQuick because it is more user friendly and also displays the … Incentivized Helpful? TB Tyler Bledsoe Engineer Associate Chose BQE CORE N/A, Earth Environmental and Civil only used BQE Core as an hourly billing system. Incentivized Helpful? DK Drake Keese Senior Mechanical Engineer Chose BQE CORE BQE CORE has a much more streamlined process for entering expense entries than Concur. You are able to select which project you would like to charge to and where expense entries are sent for approval, whether that be your manager or the project manager. BQE CORE also is very … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose BQE CORE I have only really used this product. Incentivized Helpful? Desirée Weitzenhoffer Project Manager/Senior Designer Chose BQE CORE BQE CORE is much more in-depth at time tracking than Harvest. Harvest is easier to use out of the gate but BQE CORE is worth the learning curve. I haven't had a chance to use BQE CORE on a mobile device so I can't speak to how it stacks up there against Harvest. Incentivized Helpful? SJ Stephanie Jenkins Interior Designer Chose BQE CORE I don't recall the previous program we used as this was years ago, but we had to put in time manually each week and this was very time consuming. BQE CORE keeps your projects in the timesheet from week to week to you don't have to reinput the project number. Incentivized Helpful? MM Mar Milj Designer Chose BQE CORE monday.com Incentivized Helpful?	Smartsheet DR Dustin Roberts Marketing Associate Chose Smartsheet I use both. Excel for more data/spreadsheet focused tasks and Smartsheet for our event planning and project management. Smartsheet allows for collaboration, has project management features like task tracking and the Gantt chart, and even has some handy automation features … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet I tried Miro for a while and it just didn't have the features Smartsheet does. If I'm going to pay for a "supercharged Excel," I expect to really do a ton more than Excel! Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet It allows team collaboration. Project monitoring is very easy. Dashboards are very good for the project reporting. Incentivized Helpful? TK Tomasz Kowalski Senior Program Manager Chose Smartsheet Asana and monday.com are typical project management tools where resources can be tracked based on the tasks, etc. Smartsheet does exactly the same but additionally allows people outside of PM to automate their data collaboration with other employees. The solutions that … Incentivized Helpful? Syed Ghufran Hassan Project associate Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is user friendly with easy to use templates as compared to Microsoft project. Other thing is collaboration which cannot be achieved in Microsoft project. Smartsheet has different types of pricing for different types of users but Microsoft project only offers … Incentivized Helpful? Ehud Lehavi Quality Assurance Analyst Chose Smartsheet Jira is better on user interface and task tracking. However the dashboard isn't as versatile as on Smartsheet. That being said, it takes maintenance to keep the Smartsheet dashboard updated regularly (not automated). Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Definitely a lot more intuitive and a lot less clunky and confusing. When I have to introduce Smartsheet to other team members who have experience with MS project they are overwhelmed with how easy it is and feel a lot more engaged when developing their own workbooks Incentivized Helpful? Angelo Liriano Cepeda Business Developer & Key Account Manager Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet enable users to build the more custom solutions that can include workflows, reports, dashboards, sheet data, reminders, etc. It allows to create the most complete reports and have available thousand of already built solutions on the Solution Center. Also, has the … Incentivized Helpful? Abigail Selebe Freelance Consultant Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is a dedicated project management tool that is built on spread sheet principles. When compared to Microsoft's own offering, Smartsheet came out on top in some areas like dedicated project management features vs having to build custom features to Microsoft 365. … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Jira and Redmine are much more robust and technologically advanced project management solutions. I enjoy using either when managing a very large project. However, I prefer to use Smartsheet for my smaller to medium sized projects. As for Google Drive - I would say that Google … Incentivized Helpful? David Chamberlain Executive Creative Director Chose Smartsheet It has been my favorite alternative; I can control Smartsheet from my mobile device since, as a manager, it allows me to visualize the files made through it, with the convenience of any time and space. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Price and ease of collaboration was the deciding factor and since we made this decision quite awhile ago, Microsoft Project's collaboration features were not there yet, making Smartsheet the clear winner. Many of our Project Manager were comfortable working with Microsoft … Incentivized Helpful? Duane Thompson Product Development Lead Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet makes it simple to plan and budget on projects, streamline business workflows and improve overall customer service. The pricing plans are affordable and businesses that implement Smartsheet enjoy tremendous long-term value. Employee work performance is boosted and … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet I believe Smartsheet is much easier to use than Asana. There is a better way to collaborate with colleagues and track your progress on projects. There is a better structure on how to set up your system. It has better filters to see what you have accomplished vs what is open and … Incentivized Helpful? Brad Estes Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Chose Smartsheet Functionality is far superior and very easy to use. Incentivized Helpful? GM Gloria Musuli Human Resources Assistant Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is an exceptionally robust and ,offer unique hybrid solution to manage projects and automate workflows that is based on accurate data. It offers better time-saving functions that speeds up delivery of projects on schedule and using the allocated resources. Incentivized Helpful? Ben Pincus Sales Executive Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet has been a positive success; it has been easy to use and quite intuitive. It allowed us to foster collaboration between colleagues. Incentivized Helpful? EC Emily Caplin Senior Project Manager Chose Smartsheet Works more efficiently than MPP as updates can happen in real time in the cloud and be collaborated on with other team members. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Before utilizing Smartsheet we utilized a combination of Quip and an in-house developed task management tool. Even though we did not utilize Smartsheet for all of our project management needs it did provide a useful structure for planning a schedule for routine tasks and … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Other software's are more geared towards the construction process while Smartsheet is more geared to generic Project Management, no specific to the construction industry. We are using Smartsheet to communicate with our client and not to manage construction so from that … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet I prefer the more traditional usability of Smartsheet. It's like Microsoft Project or Excel, but far easier for my organization to access. We don't currently have it set up as our resource manager or integrate it with our timesheets (our problem, not Smartsheet), and I think … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is much easier to collaborate on than Microsoft or Primavera in terms of scheduling software, but lacks the customizability of its competitors. You can also much easier link projects together when master scheduling which is a huge advantage compared to Microsoft … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet We use Basecamp for our day-to-day in-house operations, but need a more "rigid" structure (spreadsheet) for managing projects with clients. Everything is in one place in Smartsheet and clients are able to find and use it easily. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet All the products seemed to perform the project and task management function adequately. The following factors were the keys to our selection: Ease of use - so similar to Excel everyone can figure it out. Flexible architecture lends itself to many different use cases beyond … Incentivized Helpful? Michael Rastall, MBA IT Project Manager Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is a must to companies that are in need of automating key business processes that will save them time and eliminate productivity killers. This software enables teams identify bottlenecks early on tasks and projects that are due so that they are able plan on a course … Incentivized Helpful?

Features

BQE CORE

Smartsheet

Project Management

Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
	BQE CORE 8.2 Ratings 6% above category average	Smartsheet 9.1 Ratings 17% above category average
Task Management	9.40 Ratings	9.80 Ratings
Resource Management	9.10 Ratings	9.90 Ratings
Gantt Charts	9.30 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Scheduling	9.10 Ratings	9.80 Ratings
Workflow Automation	8.20 Ratings	9.20 Ratings
Team Collaboration	7.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology	7.40 Ratings	8.80 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology	4.60 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Document Management	8.70 Ratings	9.20 Ratings
Email integration	6.40 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Mobile Access	7.90 Ratings	8.00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking	9.70 Ratings	9.70 Ratings
Change request and Case Management	8.50 Ratings	8.10 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management	9.20 Ratings	8.00 Ratings

Professional Services Automation

Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
	BQE CORE 8.7 Ratings 12% above category average	Smartsheet 7.9 Ratings 2% above category average
Quotes/estimates	8.40 Ratings	8.10 Ratings
Invoicing	8.90 Ratings	7.50 Ratings
Project & financial reporting	9.00 Ratings	8.70 Ratings
Integration with accounting software	8.40 Ratings	7.40 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	BQE CORE	Smartsheet
Small Businesses	Stackby Score 8.8 out of 10	Stackby Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	InEight Score 8.2 out of 10	InEight Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises	InEight Score 8.2 out of 10	InEight Score 8.2 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	BQE CORE	Smartsheet
Likelihood to Recommend	9.3 (0 ratings)	9.3 (0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	7.0 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Usability	9.5 (0 ratings)	9.2 (0 ratings)
Availability	8.2 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Performance	7.3 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Support Rating	7.4 (0 ratings)	8.1 (0 ratings)
Online Training	6.4 (0 ratings)	7.0 (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	2.3 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Ease of integration	4.5 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Product Scalability	8.2 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale	8.2 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale	8.2 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	BQE CORE	Smartsheet
Likelihood to Recommend	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. SH Sydney Hayes Office Manager Read full review	The Smartsheet platform is extremely similar to Microsoft Excel, so if you are familiar with Excel, you will pick Smartsheet up quickly. Even if you aren't Smartsheet has a relatively simple user interface, meaning just about anyone can learn it. One thing to note is that the interface is that some may consider the interface so simple that they feel the need to look for more robust platforms. If you have a small to medium project that needs to be manages in a central hub, Smartsheet would be a great fit. If you have a very large project, I might consider looking into more advanced platforms. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Pros	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 KF Kat Fair Finance Manager Read full review	The easy to use dashboard has enabled us get comprehensive view of projects across the entire business. It has streamlined internal communication with ease of sharing information across different teams. Smartsheet automates our workflows, enhances collaboration and ensures there are no data silos. I like that it saves time for us and ensures we spend less time switching between apps. Incentivized GM Gloria Musuli Human Resources Assistant Read full review
Cons	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 Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Smartsheet set up is similar to Excel, yet when you upload an Excel file, things like conditional formatting are lost. Smartsheet has its own conditional formatting, and you have to reinstate the rules. It would be great if those would apply automatically once a file is uploaded Some Smartsheet management and access rules can take some tweaking to work properly. This may be a case of offering more info to admins so they can apply these better and with more efficiency Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	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 TF Tanya Foster Office Administrator Read full review	Smartsheet has made my work life easier. Reduced my email *significantly*. Smartsheet and SaneBox have got me leaving the office with 0... Yes 0 emails in my inbox. My inbox would reach 150-250 email per day. Smartsheet brought that number down significantly and SaneBox took it the rest of the way. Do yourself a favor and check out SaneBox, too. Kris Walsh Senior Marketing Manager Read full review
Usability	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 PD Paul Desmond Vision + Design Director, Owner Read full review	Smartsheet is very easy to learn. However, while I have been able to pick it easily, Microsoft Excel and Project super users that I have trained on Smartsheet get bogged down in the differences and can find it frustrating. Explaining the differences ahead of time and why Smartsheet is being chosen instead of a different software seems to counteract those reactions Incentivized Meghan M. Prentiss Program Assistant, Epidemiology Planning and Communications Division Read full review
Reliability and Availability	I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable. FG Felice Geoghegan Office Manager Read full review	No answers on this topic
Performance	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. FG Felice Geoghegan Office Manager Read full review	No answers on this topic
Support Rating	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 AT Andrew Thompson Project Scheduler Read full review	They're a smaller company but they've always given great service when we rarely need to reach out. Pretty good online content but a bigger user base would help to produce more content in a self-sufficient community much as we see with Salesforce. To be fair we haven't needed their direct customer support very often. The sales guys are nice and not too pushy! Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Online Training	Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning. FG Felice Geoghegan Office Manager Read full review	No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating	wont let me skip Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Work with the Smartsheet support team to get the best overall. If no one in your organization has used Smartsheet before, the support team will get things started. We had a couple of people who had used this product before and it was a great help in getting our framework together how we wanted to use it. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Alternatives Considered	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 Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Smartsheet is a dedicated project management tool that is built on spread sheet principles. When compared to Microsoft's own offering, Smartsheet came out on top in some areas like dedicated project management features vs having to build custom features to Microsoft 365. However when you compare them on price, Microsoft 365 definitely has more value than Smartsheet. Incentivized Abigail Selebe Freelance Consultant Read full review
Scalability	This software works on a small and large scale. FG Felice Geoghegan Office Manager Read full review	No answers on this topic
Return on Investment	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 ES Emil Slavik CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Read full review	Our positive ROI has decreased the overall cost in project management as it reduced the amount of MS project licenses we needed. We have also seen a positive ROI on using the cloud storage and it automatically supports proper version control. Incentivized JB Jesse Bickel Sr. Project Manager Read full review
ScreenShots	BQE CORE Screenshots