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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

    Zoho CRM

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AZoho CRM is a simple, very low-cost CRM option for the smaller end of the SMB segment. The product has several useful integrations with other products, including QuickBooks, and Google Apps and Google Docs. The product also has an integrated project management module.

    $14

    per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREZoho CRM
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard
    $14.00
    Per User/Per Month
    Professional
    $23.00
    Per User/Per Month
    Enterprise
    $40.00
    Per User/Per Month
    Ultimate
    $52.00
    Per User/Per Month
    Plus
    $57.00
    Per User/Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREZoho CRM
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$14 /user/month
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    BQE COREZoho CRM
    Sales Force Automation
    Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.7
    289 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.7280 Ratings
    Workflow management00 Ratings8.6267 Ratings
    Territory management00 Ratings8.9197 Ratings
    Opportunity management00 Ratings8.4254 Ratings
    Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings8.4249 Ratings
    Contract management00 Ratings8.8204 Ratings
    Quote & order management00 Ratings9.0204 Ratings
    Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.9250 Ratings
    Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings8.7193 Ratings
    Customer Service & Support
    Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.8
    222 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Case management00 Ratings8.7214 Ratings
    Call center management00 Ratings8.5173 Ratings
    Help desk management00 Ratings9.3190 Ratings
    Marketing Automation
    Comparison of Marketing Automation features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.5
    267 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Lead management00 Ratings8.8262 Ratings
    Email marketing00 Ratings8.3220 Ratings
    CRM Project Management
    Comparison of CRM Project Management features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.5
    264 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Task management00 Ratings8.3249 Ratings
    Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings8.7181 Ratings
    Reporting00 Ratings8.7243 Ratings
    CRM Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.6
    259 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Forecasting00 Ratings8.7217 Ratings
    Pipeline visualization00 Ratings8.2236 Ratings
    Customizable reports00 Ratings8.8250 Ratings
    Customization
    Comparison of Customization features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.4
    278 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Custom fields00 Ratings8.7276 Ratings
    Custom objects00 Ratings8.1223 Ratings
    Scripting environment00 Ratings9.2179 Ratings
    API for custom integration00 Ratings7.7204 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.2
    267 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Single sign-on capability00 Ratings7.7232 Ratings
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.7262 Ratings
    Social CRM
    Comparison of Social CRM features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.5
    166 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Social data00 Ratings8.7165 Ratings
    Social engagement00 Ratings8.3157 Ratings
    Integrations with 3rd-party Software
    Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.8
    211 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Marketing automation00 Ratings8.9208 Ratings
    Compensation management00 Ratings8.8139 Ratings
    Platform
    Comparison of Platform features of BQE CORE and Zoho CRM
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho CRM
    8.3
    231 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Mobile access00 Ratings8.3231 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREZoho CRM
    Small Businesses
    Autotask PSA
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Salesflare
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Workday Professional Services Automation
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Kintone
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Planview AdaptiveWork
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Oracle Sales
    Score8.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREZoho CRM
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (167 ratings)
    9.1
    (312 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    7.6
    (42 ratings)
    Usability
    9.6
    (117 ratings)
    7.8
    (172 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.8
    (7 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    8.5
    (8 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    6.1
    (69 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    5.5
    (8 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    5.6
    (16 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (114 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (21 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    7.2
    (5 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    5.7
    (6 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (7 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    7.7
    (13 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    7.8
    (13 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BQE COREZoho CRM
    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
    Zoho
    Interfacing with our target clients at the correct minute is crucial in today's society. Another valuable include is its capacity to coordinated with other programs. It helps me in keeping track of the every day work emails I send to my colleagues or get. Zoho CRM makes it straightforward to consequence or send out information agreeing to our needs. Zoho makes a difference keep in mind individuals by means of e-mail and pop-ups, which dispenses with the issue of overlooking follow-ups and reminders. This not as it were helps within the organization of this incredible instrument but moreover within the execution of data.
    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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    Zoho
    • Hooks into our website and can import data from forms.
    • Has great automation tools built in.
    • Reporting features are great.
    • Easy to learn, makes it easy for us to onboard new users onto it.
    • Fairly customizable. We have fine tuned it to work the way we need it to.
    Incentivized
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    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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    Zoho
    • Need some way to switch a field type without losing the pre-existing data.
    • The settings controls should be broken out differently - I don't like that I can't keep some users from exporting all contact records (i.e., the entire Contacts module) because if the export function is turned off, the export function of Reports for those same modules is also blocked.
    • Frustrating that only 3 custom lookup fields are allowed per module in our license.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Zoho
    i have already renewed my subscription twice. I am in the 3rd Year now. I have been using it for a while and have been recommending to my friends as well.. have attended ZOHOLICs the annual program of zoho and it gave me new insights of managing the crm solutoin.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Zoho
    The methodology of the 'out of the box' user interface is fairly easy to learn. In some cases however, the interface is not consistent throughout the software. Upgrades to the interface has certainly improved some of this--- but now we are seeing the same kinds of inconsistencies across Zoho apps, particularly those more recently added to their platform. This issue is not major in that everybody on staff seems able to learn how to work the programs--- it's just annoying and less than efficient when inconsistent user interfaces or inconsistent terms are used in the programs and/or the requisite documentation.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Zoho
    In my many years using Zoho, I think there were only 1 or 2 days when there was something happening and I was not able to log in. Sure, it wasn't fun and we all panicked a bit, but right after that, all was well and work-life continued. Being cloud based, I'm never worried about losing my iPhone, iPad or Laptop as I know I can log in anywhere on any device and workflow won't stop.
    Incentivized
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    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.
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    Zoho
    I don't recall every having any issues with a page not loading due to it being a Zoho issue. Anytime I've had any issues with something being wonky, I clear cache and that has always solved the problem. Or a simply computer reboot and we're back, hard at work. Look, I don't expect any product to delivery 100%, 100% of the time but if I had any consistent ongoing issues, I would have left many years ago. I still keep my eyes open to what is new but after a quick evaluation, I know Zoho will long be my home.
    Incentivized
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    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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    Zoho
    We did the training and that was a huge waste of money. The information provided was basic and the instructor was sloppy (he even forgot to turn off his mic when he used the restroom - no one should ever hear what we heard). I offered up a 9 because we were able to find what we needed on your website.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Zoho
    I attended a Zoho-Holics event in Austin, TX, several years ago, and it blew my mind. So many industries were represented using Zoho in so many different ways. It was unbelievable all that I learned from that experience, as there were features that I wasn't aware of that I immediately started using. Best of all, the trainers were patient and knowledgeable
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
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    Zoho
    There is an endless supply of YouTube videos from Zoho and the many Zoho partners/consultants. Plus, Zoho has it's own library of training videos and webinars to learn from plus an entire community at the ready to answer any questions. While Zoho has been available for many years, there are constantly new training videos and webinars available for the novice and the experienced users.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    BQE Software Inc.
    It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.
    Incentivized
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    Zoho
    When you switch CRMs, you can automatically assume everything isn’t going to match up correctly. We had used Salesforce for 10+ years and had a ton of data and customizations. It was not a clean transfer, but we were able to sort it all out. The only issue that really bothered me was Zoho support. Even simple questions couldn’t be answered over chat, and we would have some team members try for hours to find the right answer
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Zoho
    Free user access was one reason to use it more than any other software. Also, for a mid-size organization, the Salesforce cost was a little higher, and Pipedrive was almost similar to Zoho. As we were already using Zoho, we found no urgency to switch.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Zoho
    I think Zoho CRM is priced at a reasonable amount. Simply put, you get what you pay for and Zoho does not disappoint. My organization is comfortable with what we pay and pleased with continually renewing the software. The billing frequency is just right. There are no complaints on our end
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Zoho
    We're still in the early stages of scaling this across departments. We have high aspirations of doing this, but it takes time to migrate to the new system and to help people get acquainted of doing their work in a different way thru Zoho.
    Incentivized
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    Professional Services
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Zoho
    In addition to being a user of Zoho CRM, we are a reseller as well. Often, at times our Partners request for on-boarding the platform configuration for them. During such requirements, we have utilized the Professional services team directly from the Zoho CRM team. Our partner feedback was quite positive, throughout.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Zoho
    • because we are new to the CRM world, we wanted a product that was reasonably priced, yet had the features we were looking for
    • we have found a much higher customer engagement rate and ROI
    • we used to "lose" customers in our makeshift process. Now, all customers are being attended to.
    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

    Zoho CRM Screenshots

    Screenshot of Deals - Cash in on all opportunities. Close more deals. Great sales management is all about prioritizing, tracking, and monitoring the deals in your pipeline. Zoho CRM gives you everything you need to manage deals across territories and sales structures.Screenshot of Activities - Keep track of all the tasks, meetings, calls, events, or activity records. Neatly organize the numerous records along with the activities associated to them such as follow-up, pre sales and post sales activities, phone conversations etc.