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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    BQE CORE

    Score9.4 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

    Brightpod

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ABrightpod is a cloud-based project, task and content management software built with marketing & creative teams in mind. Brightpod helps bring visibility to all the work across teams. With Brightpod, teams can create workflows, delegate tasks, setup their editorial calendar, and manage digital content strategies in the cloud. A few practical uses include i) collaboration on an upcoming social media campaign, ii) keeping a working editorial calendar, iii) creating workflows to help similar…

    $19

    per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREBrightpod
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Brightpod
    $19.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREBrightpod
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    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 COREBrightpod
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    142 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    104 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    148 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    68 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    79 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    BQE COREBrightpod
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of BQE CORE and Brightpod
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    7.6
    73 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Brightpod
    8.0
    2 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Task Management9.255 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Resource Management8.654 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Gantt Charts8.927 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling8.035 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Workflow Automation7.138 Ratings00 Ratings
    Team Collaboration5.245 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology7.321 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology4.418 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document Management7.938 Ratings4.02 Ratings
    Email integration6.533 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Mobile Access8.045 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking9.673 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Change request and Case Management7.131 Ratings00 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management8.957 Ratings00 Ratings
    Professional Services Automation
    Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of BQE CORE and Brightpod
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    7.5
    54 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Brightpod
    -
    Ratings
    Quotes/estimates6.228 Ratings00 Ratings
    Invoicing8.047 Ratings00 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting8.553 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software7.334 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREBrightpod
    Small Businesses
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Microsoft To Do
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Microsoft To Do
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREBrightpod
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (165 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    8.9
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.3
    (115 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 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 COREBrightpod
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    I like Brightpod. We used their previous product, DeskAway, which we actually liked a bit more for our needs (cannot remember why now as we've found workarounds over the last three years!). It is good for us, and we need to organize multiple task lists for multiple clients. We need to be able to monitor task progression and completion, as well as to track time by resource. We need to prioritize and focus our resources, and we need to review time tracking/performance reports. All possible in Brightpod. We especially like the access we can give to clients, which is on a task list basis, so they can see some task lists in their pod but not others, which allows us to not overwhelm them with unnecessary info, but at the same time, accomplish the detailed tracking we need.
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    • A very visually pleasing layout of projects in a Kanban style view.
    • Keeps all communication on a task or project in one place, so that everyone is on the same page.
    • Great template system for recurring projects like onboarding or deploying a specific service that has a defined timeline.
    • Flexile recurring tasks.
    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
    Read full review
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    • Reports.
    • Team Member workload.
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    It's working very well for our organization.
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    Brightpod is easy to use. We have several levels of users, some are from outside the USA and some are here. We needed something that could be used by programmers, coders, technical project managers, marketing individuals, and administrators. We get a thumbs up from all these user types. The system is hardly ever down, so we are able to use 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
    Incentivized
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    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
    Read full review
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    Customer Support was fast and helpful.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    SaaS is the way forward :)
    Read full review
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    Brightpod was definitely the most attractive and we felt like it had the least amount of clutter. We hated how Wrike handled recurring tasks. ActiveCollab just seemed to have some complexity that we didn't need. The Brightpod developers are very responsive and were able to fix bugs quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    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
    Brightpod (DeskAway)
    • Increased employee efficiency
    • Ability to have remote teams
    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