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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

    Podio

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/APodio is a cloud-based platform for organizing team communication, business processes, and reporting in project management workspaces; also it may be used as a light CRM platform. It enables workflow automation and integrations. It includes a free version and paid packages with additional features.

    $14

    per month per user

    Pricing
    BQE COREPodio
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Plus
    $14
    per month per user
    Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BQE COREPodio
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—A discount is available for annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BQE COREPodio
    Considered Both Products
    BQE Software Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Progress ShareFile
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    142 Answers
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    104 Answers
    80%
    Delivers good value for the price
    4 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    148 Answers
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    68 Answers
    80%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    4 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    79 Answers
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    BQE COREPodio
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of BQE CORE and Podio
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    7.6
    73 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Podio
    5.2
    26 Ratings
    38% below category average
    Task Management9.255 Ratings3.124 Ratings
    Resource Management8.654 Ratings8.620 Ratings
    Gantt Charts8.927 Ratings8.48 Ratings
    Scheduling8.035 Ratings1.121 Ratings
    Workflow Automation7.138 Ratings1.125 Ratings
    Team Collaboration5.245 Ratings3.126 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology7.321 Ratings2.115 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology4.418 Ratings9.411 Ratings
    Document Management7.938 Ratings1.122 Ratings
    Email integration6.533 Ratings8.821 Ratings
    Mobile Access8.045 Ratings8.821 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking9.673 Ratings8.213 Ratings
    Change request and Case Management7.131 Ratings8.418 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management8.957 Ratings1.116 Ratings
    Professional Services Automation
    Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of BQE CORE and Podio
    Feature
    BQE CORE
    7.5
    54 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Podio
    6.7
    13 Ratings
    12% below category average
    Quotes/estimates6.228 Ratings1.19 Ratings
    Invoicing8.147 Ratings8.89 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting8.553 Ratings8.09 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software7.334 Ratings8.86 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BQE COREPodio
    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 COREPodio
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (165 ratings)
    2.7
    (42 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (8 ratings)
    9.1
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    9.3
    (115 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.4
    (90 ratings)
    7.2
    (6 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.3
    (6 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BQE COREPodio
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    [Citrix Podios's] customer support is very quick and they provide you an option to convert your
    project into small tasks so that you can better assist your team and extract
    maximum work out of them hence I will totally recommend its usage. I could not think that keeping track of tasks could be this much easier and smart. It is a fully customizable tool that manages my tasks efficiently and deal with them effectively.
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    • Very easy for people without coding or technical skills to set up and maintain information in "Apps".
    • Platform is very easy to learn and adopt--it's intuitive.
    • Project management potential is awesome--instead of having to fit your projects into a structure that is industry specific, you can build an app that tracks what you want, in the order you want it.
    • Has a "relationship" field that allows you to relate an individual item or record to a record in another app. It effectively gives some of the functionality of a relational database.
    • Very useful for information sharing when staff members are in different regions or places.
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    • More filter options for calendars.
    • Customizable views for Relation fields.
    • Full featured Podio mobile App for iPad.
    • A customizable profile status – would love to work with Podio in silent mode (logged in while working, but "not available" for requests when in heavy work mode)
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    Podio customer service is great. The cloud and mobile service is fast (almost instant, continuous syncing). With a solid user base, and backed by Citrix, this is a serious business solution. They're also constantly working on improving and making it more powerful. I anticipate it only getting better
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    It is usable, for sure. Requires a bit of thinking to be really useful.
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    I have not experienced any down time
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    It works all the time and if I have a question, support get back to me ASAP
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    Podio support was always responsive and very quick to provide answers and assistance during the history of using this product, their support team has always been top notch. There have been several cases where calling podio support a feature was not available and they provided either workaround solutions or added the features straight into their roadmap.
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    Could of got more help sooner and mapped out structure after the 1st month. Future planning
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    Compared to Salesforce: Podio is not as robust as a tool for CRM tracking. It also doesn't have the in-email capabilities that SF offers. Compared to Basecamp: Podio is somewhat similar to Basecamp but doesn't offer the same functionality with checking items off and archiving projects. Compared to Zoho Projects: Podio is vastly superior to Zoho Project's lack of flexibility (requiring a development team to build) and accessibility by all members (Zoho Projects requires a very limited number of "owners" of projects which makes it difficult if multiple owners need to assign one or more people to a project).
    Read full review
    Scalability
    BQE Software Inc.
    This software works on a small and large scale.
    Read full review
    Progress ShareFile
    As you business grows, so does Podio. There seems to be no limit to the workspace and apps you can create on the platform
    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
    Progress ShareFile
    • Podio is great for task assignment and tracking. The ability to enter and assign tasks from mobile and track their completion saves me several phone calls a day.
    • Podio outdoes email as my go to place to search for information. The ability to forward emails into the system, organize by projects and contacts, and search it all saves considerable time and confusion.
    • Podio has considerable potential to reduce overall admin time spent organizing information (filing, tracking, etc) The ability to keep a single record of a given piece of information without being tied to email vs file structure works very well.
    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