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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

    Emburse Abacus

    Score6 out of 10
    N/AAbacus is a web and mobile application that helps manage employee expenses and reimbursements. Some key features include: Real-Time Expense Submission, Integrated ACH Payments, and Dynamic Custom Reporting. Abacus was acquired by Certify in summer 2018 and is now part of Emburse, formed from the merger of Certify and Chrome River March 2019.

    $9

    per active user/per month

    Pricing
    BQE COREEmburse Abacus
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Starter
    $9
    per active user/per month
    Professional
    Custom Pricing
    Enterprise
    Custom Pricing
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREEmburse Abacus
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BQE COREEmburse Abacus
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Emburse
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    142 Answers
    85%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    104 Answers
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    148 Answers
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    68 Answers
    78%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    79 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    BQE COREEmburse Abacus
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of BQE CORE and Emburse Abacus
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    7.6
    73 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Emburse Abacus
    -
    Ratings
    Task Management9.255 Ratings00 Ratings
    Resource Management8.654 Ratings00 Ratings
    Gantt Charts8.927 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling8.035 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow Automation7.138 Ratings00 Ratings
    Team Collaboration5.245 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology7.321 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology4.418 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document Management7.938 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email integration6.533 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access8.045 Ratings00 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking9.673 Ratings00 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 Emburse Abacus
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    7.5
    54 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Emburse Abacus
    -
    Ratings
    Quotes/estimates6.228 Ratings00 Ratings
    Invoicing8.147 Ratings00 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting8.553 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software7.334 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREEmburse Abacus
    Small Businesses
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Dext
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    BILL Spend & Expense
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Microsoft To Do
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Emburse Chrome River
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BQE COREEmburse Abacus
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (165 ratings)
    6.0
    (17 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.3
    (115 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 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 COREEmburse Abacus
    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
    Emburse
    Emburse Abacus is well suited for mid-market organizations that are open to - or embrace - the concept of real-time processing of expense transactions. Emburse Abacus takes a radically different approach from other platforms that rely on modeling paper-based monthly (or periodic) expense reports containing multiple expenses submitted simultaneously. Emburse Abacus allows each transaction to be very rapidly processed individually so that approving managers and accounting professionals are able to perform review tasks and identify potential problems throughout the entire month, relieving the massive monthly influx of large numbers of expense reports simultaneously.
    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
    Emburse
    • User-Friendly Interface: Reviews from our employees (ages ranging from 20s-70s) are all positive in regards to the ease of submitting an expense and getting reimbursement on Abacus
    • Timely Reimbursement: After final approval, money hits user accounts within 2 days
    • Approval routing: ability to set up multi-tier complex approval routes
    • Syncs with Sage Intacct: pushes entries on a day to day basis in to Intacct and it hits our GL accordingly
    • Abacus is competitively priced compared to the competition
    • Abacus utilizes "by expense" management. Getting rid of expense reports and batch reports (they do have an option where you can batch if need be)
    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
    Emburse
    • When you upload a receipt to abacus it would be great to port in the information from the receipt to the text fields.
    • It would be good to have a more automated way for Abacus to integrate in with other payroll systems.
    • It would be nice to have more levels of permissions, e.g. manager level, administer level and employee level.
    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
    Emburse
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Emburse
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Emburse
    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
    Emburse
    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
    Emburse
    I have never had to contact Abacus support and have not heard stories from any of my colleagues having to do so either. Our accounting department stresses the ease of Abacus and has not voiced any concerns with the software or the product support team or the product support process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    BQE Software Inc.
    Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
    Read full review
    Emburse
    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
    Emburse
    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
    Emburse
    I chose Abacus because of its ease of use and flexible billing. The billing is based on the number of submissions rather than users in the system. Because we reimburse committee members, we have a lot of users in the system, but the activity can vary widely from month to month.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Emburse
    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
    Emburse
    • It is giving reliable services.
    • I am happy with its user-friendly services. Since I have issued the virtual and physical cards, I am getting real-time, and end-to-end control over my employee expenses. They can now easily go to visits and this has built their trust too. Further through receipts and expense details, I can easily control the pre-set budgets and easily configure rules to control spending.
    • I will also like to praise their customer care team they are very helpful and always ready to assist.
    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

    Emburse Abacus Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot