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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

    Wave Accounting

    Score7.3 out of 10
    N/AWave Accounting is a free, cloud-based accounting platform exclusively for small businesses. It supports double-entry bookkeeping and permits unlimited user access, invoicing, and expense management. Wave Accounting integrates with Wave's invoicing, receipt scanning, payment processing and payroll apps.

    $16

    per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREWave Accounting
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Starter
    $0
    Pro
    $16
    per month
    Pro - billed annually
    $170
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREWave Accounting
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BQE COREWave Accounting
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Wave
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    144 Answers
    53%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    106 Answers
    67%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    150 Answers
    67%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    70 Answers
    54%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    82%
    Implementation went as expected
    81 Answers
    73%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Features
    BQE COREWave Accounting
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    6.2
    24 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Pay calculation00 Ratings7.123 Ratings
    Benefit plan administration00 Ratings7.54 Ratings
    Direct deposit files00 Ratings1.220 Ratings
    Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings7.712 Ratings
    Reimbursement management00 Ratings7.48 Ratings
    Customization
    Comparison of Customization features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    8.5
    13 Ratings
    12% above category average
    API for custom integration00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
    Plug-ins00 Ratings7.011 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    6.4
    45 Ratings
    24% below category average
    Single sign-on capability00 Ratings6.432 Ratings
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings6.436 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    9.4
    73 Ratings
    19% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings9.471 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings9.770 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings9.237 Ratings
    General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
    Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    7.4
    76 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Accounts payable00 Ratings9.659 Ratings
    Accounts receivable00 Ratings9.670 Ratings
    Cash management00 Ratings9.862 Ratings
    Bank reconciliation00 Ratings8.565 Ratings
    Expense management00 Ratings9.664 Ratings
    Time tracking00 Ratings9.811 Ratings
    Fixed asset management00 Ratings9.812 Ratings
    Multi-currency support00 Ratings10.019 Ratings
    Multi-division support00 Ratings7.19 Ratings
    Regulations compliance00 Ratings5.016 Ratings
    Electronic tax filing00 Ratings5.914 Ratings
    Self-service portal00 Ratings8.040 Ratings
    Global Financial Support00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings4.05 Ratings
    Localizations00 Ratings5.23 Ratings
    Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings8.530 Ratings
    Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings4.07 Ratings
    Configurable Accounting00 Ratings5.017 Ratings
    Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings1.03 Ratings
    Standardized Processes00 Ratings7.019 Ratings
    Inventory Management
    Comparison of Inventory Management features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    8.1
    11 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Inventory tracking00 Ratings5.68 Ratings
    Automatic reordering00 Ratings9.95 Ratings
    Location management00 Ratings8.12 Ratings
    Manufacturing module00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Order Management
    Comparison of Order Management features of BQE CORE and Wave Accounting
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Wave Accounting
    7.6
    53 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Pricing00 Ratings9.926 Ratings
    Order entry00 Ratings10.018 Ratings
    Credit card processing00 Ratings2.345 Ratings
    Cost of goods sold00 Ratings10.034 Ratings
    Order Orchestration00 Ratings5.85 Ratings
    End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings8.24 Ratings
    Order exception Resolution00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREWave Accounting
    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 COREWave Accounting
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (167 ratings)
    9.3
    (82 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    7.8
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (117 ratings)
    9.7
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    6.7
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    2.9
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    2.1
    (12 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    4.7
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    CPA Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (8 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    3.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BQE COREWave Accounting
    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
    Wave
    Wave Accounting was used for a small practice without a lot of the accounting considerations a large company would have. For the price, you really can't beat what Wave offers out of the box. All of the basic tools for things like invoicing and expenses are all easy to use. End of year accounting is easy with exports of data.
    Incentivized
    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
    Wave
    • Reconciliation is very difficult with multiple Wave transactions that need to be deleted or merged before it can be matched to a bank transaction.
    • Payroll worked fine for us but took several days to get it set up. We have switched to another bookkeeping system and another payroll system. Canceling with Wave took several days and they charge $6 for something even though the month was paid for in advance.
    • Credit card processing is nice and worked fine for us.
    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
    Wave
    • I know that credit card processing is a way for Wave to make money, but I really wish they offered ACH payment on Invoices.
    • I do cash-based accounting, which means I have to make little journal entries at the start and end of each year to get my books to balance because Wave wants to do everything differently. This should just be a setting to flip, whether you want cash-based or accrual-based.
    • They use Yodlee for bank connection, which doesn't play nice with 2FA. Pretty much every time I log in I have to re-enter credentials, get a code sent to me, reauthenticate, and know that I'm going to have to do it again next week. Not really on Wave, but wish they could get it together nonetheless.
    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
    Wave
    Easy to use for clients with no accounting background and the price is right.
    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
    Wave
    I am a professional bookkeeper and I have no problems using Wave and all of it's features. I can see that certain individuals who have no accounting knowledge might struggle with a few different features and entries, but that is why Wave has an emphasis in connecting users to Wave Pro's who will walk them through things
    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
    Wave
    WAVE is always available when we need it ! Peter
    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
    Wave
    Wave does tend to slow down when filtering your transactions screen especially by date. This is more of an issue when trying to trouble shoot certain transactions or clean-up a set of books.
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Wave
    I never had to call Wave Support as we barely experienced any support-related problems on our side. However, I do know a few people that complained about Wave support. It would be nice as well, though if they could have more in your face tutorials for new users or how-to videos should we struggle to do something
    Read full review
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    Wave
    easy to use and east to train on ! Our WAVE clients enjoy the ease of use
    Read full review
    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
    Wave
    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
    Wave
    Wave is FREE for most functions. Payment processing costs no matter where you go (as does payroll or taxes). Wave rises above tools like QuickBooks Online because they know that for our small firm, being nimble is the name of the game. We don't need exhaustive reporting and management like QB offers and we certainly don't want to pay for it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Wave
    Once they out grow what is ability to move up to a more robust system?
    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
    Wave
    • Wave has been ROI positive for our company. With not having to pay for the service we can use our money for growing our business.
    • The fees on credit card transactions for invoices are reasonable especially as we don't pay a monthly subscription.
    • The invoicing feature has made our lives easier for us and our customers. The invoicing piece and AR tracking has been ROI positive as well.
    Incentivized
    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