BambooHR® vs. BQE CORE

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR®
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$250
per month
BQE CORE
Score 9.4 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
Pricing
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Editions & Modules
Core
$250
per month
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Features
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.6
Ratings
3% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
6.5
Ratings
20% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Pay calculation7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration5.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management6.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Approval workflow8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.0
Ratings
1% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
Ratings
12% above category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
6.7
Ratings
11% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Report builder6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.7
Ratings
3% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
New hire portal8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.5
Ratings
5% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.5
Ratings
4% below category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Performance plans6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
Ratings
15% above category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development9.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
BQE CORE
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
-
Ratings
BQE CORE
7.6
Ratings
1% below category average
Task Management00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Resource Management00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Team Collaboration00 Ratings5.20 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings4.50 Ratings
Document Management00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Email integration00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Change request and Case Management00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
-
Ratings
BQE CORE
7.5
Ratings
1% below category average
Quotes/estimates00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Invoicing00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Project & financial reporting00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Integration with accounting software00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.2
(0 ratings)
6.4
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
2.3
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®BQE CORE
Likelihood to Recommend
I think if you're a small organization and you're trying to get out of paper, this is a really good first step to doing that. I've heard from other people that are in larger organizations where they have thousands of employees that there may be better platforms, but for smaller organization it's awesome.
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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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Pros
  • BambooHR® allows you to preview as a user in a specific access level. This is VERY helpful for providing instructions to employees or double checking that information is secure.
  • BambooHR® customer support is unmatched. Any time I have a question, I can quickly get an answer as well as additional resources.
  • Employees are able to easily find their information without coming to HR for questions. This cuts down on the questions coming into HR departments, big and small.
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  • 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.
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Cons
  • Notices for approving hours don't always coincide with pay periods well.
  • Payroll reports are by pay period without the ability to combine hours, etc. into a monthly report.
  • There is not an easy way to fix payroll errors. Must get it right the first time.
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  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
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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.
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Usability
BambooHR® is helpful, but I still handle some tasks manually due to missing features relevant to my needs. Certain processes require additional functionality, limiting full automation. While it streamlines HR operations, gaps in usability mean I must supplement workflows with manual efforts to ensure efficiency and meet specific business demands.
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
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I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable.
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Performance
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
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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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Support Rating
The support can be slow as they are a US based company and therefore we often have to wait for them to be online before we can speak to somebody and they are not particularly responsive to emails. The service itself has always been helpful and in most cases, the issue was resolved.
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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.
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In-Person Training
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
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Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
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Implementation Rating
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
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wont let me skip
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Alternatives Considered
I needed a system that was easy to use from an admin level as well as employee level. We run a pretty simple operation as we do not have shift diffs or multiple approval levels. Some of the systems reviewed were too much for us and, as a result, too expensive. BambooHR® fit our needs and budget accordingly.
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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.
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Scalability
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
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This software works on a small and large scale.
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Return on Investment
  • HR team members have been saved thousands of hours over the 3.5 years we've had BambooHR®. It saved me personally several hours a day once BambooHR® was set up. Specifically, onboarding, offboarding, and a formal Hiring system are the major time savers.
  • Employee Information is much easier to access and is all centralized. Employees are empowered to update their information when applicable, and we have designed custom access levels for different positions and managers to ensure every individual is seeing the appropriate types of information about employees.
  • We saved significant money by switching from Lattice to BambooHR®'s Performance Management solution. This solution is less advanced, but the simplicity meets our needs perfectly fine, and it even saves time for managers and employees by BambooHR®'s standard questions, carefully designed to get to the heart of performance and improvement.
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  • 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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ScreenShots

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of Job Info TabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of New Hire PacketScreenshot of Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment

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