Based on 7 verified reviews published in the last 18 months
TrustRadius Community Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when relevant, HG Insights data.
Overview
Synthesised from 7 reviews | Last Published June 17, 2026
BQE CORE serves as a comprehensive platform for professional services firms to manage financial and operational workflows, primarily focusing on time and expense tracking, billing, and project oversight. Reviewers consistently highlight its effectiveness in automating manual processes, with many praising its robust time and expense management capabilities, including cloud storage for receipts. In TrustRadius reviews, the platform is also valued for its strong invoicing features supporting diverse billing methods and its ability to consolidate project information.
While some reviewers commend the intuitive user interface and reporting functionalities for project profitability, others note areas for improvement, particularly concerning data export clarity and download times, which three reviewers specifically mentioned. Additionally, some users desire more direct customization options and improved implementation support. Overall, reviewers report significant time savings and a positive ROI, with one reviewer noting a six-month payback period, indicating BQE CORE's value in optimizing workflow and enhancing productivity.
Pros
Streamlined time and expense tracking with cloud receipt storage
Robust invoicing and billing capabilities supporting varied methods
Centralized project management for client and project details
Effective reporting for payroll and project profitability insights
Intuitive and accessible user interface for daily operations
Cons
Issues with data export clarity and slow download times
User interface and general experience can be prone to errors
Limitations in time entry management and integration
We use BQE CORE for practically all administrative and bookkeeping tasks in our engineer firm. Over the past few years the capabilities have expanded greatly. We have junior level drafter and subcontractors log time on specific projects. We invoice and collect payments. We are also able to to create vendor bills and purchase orders which is very useful in keeping up with outstanding items. It also features comprehensive reports that analyze profit etc.
Pros
Invoicing
On demand live customer support
Bookkeeping
Time entry
Cons
When time is received on a purchase order, you are unable to simply delete the the vendor bill and the time received. A new purchase order must be created
Receiving or logging time directly on invoicing screen
Customizable invoicing templates - have to have customer service create.
Likelihood to Recommend
While the bookkkeping is an awesome feature, it is not intuitive and requires some training. I would recommend firms hire a bookkeeper familiar with quickbooks.
We use BQE for our time and entry, expense tracking and client billing. The product manages our time and projects well and gives fantastic visuals to evaluate billable hours and employee utilization. It is effective in tracking and submitting expenses. We are a small to medium sized consulting company in the forestry industry
Pros
Time entry and project management
Expense entry and submission
Dashboards
Cons
improve expense memo function - detail window has most functionality but is hidden
foreign currency conversion
Likelihood to Recommend
excellent at tracking employee utilization. some difficulty in foreign currency conversion. Excellent customer service. strong expense entry system but could use a better UI for adding expense details. Excellent for tracking billable hours on projects and for defining project phases. Visual dashboards are excellent for viewing utilization at a glance
BQE CORE has greatly benefited our small engineering firm over the past six months, streamlining our time tracking, expense reporting, project management, and invoicing processes. We previously tracked time and expenses manually so upgrading to a software where it's more automated has really proven useful for our company. While there was an initial learning curve, we quickly adapted, and the software now operates smoothly. We have not encountered major issues, and the responsive support team and helpful training resources have been invaluable.
Pros
Time Tracking
Training
Expense Reports
Invoicing
Cons
Showing more than one week at a time on the timecard view
Back arrow takes you too far back
Can't fully get rid of project rows from timecard; hit "remove" and it still comes back the next time
Likelihood to Recommend
It's great for our company for time tracking, expense reports, project management, invoicing, billing, and keeping track of project hours and budget.
We use CORE to keep track of our hours that we work, accrual/usage of PTO, using Holiday hours, and billing our clients. It is particularly helpful to see our budget for a certain project that we have, and how much we are directly billing the client for the hours that we work. I have no bad words to say yet so far about CORE, only that the dashboard user interface is a little hard to customize and not super clear on how to edit. Besides that, it is very easy to use, informative, and intuitive.
Pros
Easy to use
Good customer service
Helpful overviews
Cons
Dashboard can be confusing
Editing hours can be difficult
Servers can go down sometimes without notification
Likelihood to Recommend
It is very well suited for people in companies who bill their time. Our whole firm uses this software, so it is very helpful for us engineers, architects, electricians, leads, project managers, to bill time to specific projects based on how much time we work on their job. However, it is not as helpful for some people in our firm to use that just work for the general company, not on specific projects (i.e. Human Resources, IT, Marketing, etc.)
We use it to track time, expenses, and project management. It has made it much easier for us to keep track of time and to submit our expenses to our employer or current PO.
Pros
User-friendly
Good customer support
Quickly improving small bugs or other issues
Cons
Sometimes can be slow
Attachments do not always go through
Sorting could be better
Likelihood to Recommend
It is very good for us because we are always switching between what we are working on and it makes it so much easier to keep track of hours worked
We use BQE Core to log hours, bill projects, keep track of expenses, and for purchases. BQE Core can easily log time and keep track of what's getting done. There are times when we get confused about who did what, and BQE Core helps us clear up any issues. Without BQE Core, we would not be able to effectively communicate to clients how the project budgets are doing or where there are areas that need to be addressed. I use BQE Core to track project budgets and allocate funds for each department. I also use it to bill time for projects.
Pros
Track employee time
Track project budget
Run perfectly
Give users precise control
Cons
Sometimes greyed out lines are confusing
When things are greyed out, you can't click on them, and you dont know why
Can't easily see when you are not on a project
Likelihood to Recommend
When handling project budgets, BQE Core excels. It can show you every charge by every person and that makes it very easy to track where your budget is going. It can also compile all the budgets and serve as a payroll agent. It also takes care of vacation and time off for employees. For example, handling large projects with multiple departments on the job is easy with BQE Core, as you can set up WBS code for each department and its employees to use. BQE Core does this very well compared to other programs.
BQE Core timekeeping platform helps us address past problems of being able to accurately account for earned revenue with no extra administrative cost. Being able to invoice out of our timekeeping platform has helped us address a lot of past issues and keep our aged A/R low. BQE Core's direct connect API into PowerBI is a game-changer as well. We can create customized dashboards that are key to our business operation and can provide live intel to our leadership. BQE customer service support is excellent as well, anytime we have a need or an issue, BQE is quick to address the problem.
Pros
Timekeeping
Invoicing
Accessibility to Data
Customer Support
Cons
Custom Requests
Likelihood to Recommend
BQE Core is a great platform for any services company, the flexibility of the way their infrastructure is built will have an impact on your bottom line. The amount of administrative work BQE Core helps reduce is a huge benefit for any company. It is very cost competitive which is a bonus. The amount of granular detail that can be pushed into business intelligence tools is a huge benefit as well. BQE Core does have some limitations, but there always seems to be a workaround. One of the limitations we've run into is for our customers that have multiple bill rates for the same individual on the same contract, the workaround we are currently utilizing is you can manually change the classification on a "time entries" screen. Thankfully, we don't have many clients with many rates assigned to one individual.
We use BQE Core for time and expense tracking for all of our projects. It has been a helpful tool in monitoring metrics and obtaining more information on utilization to improve company efficiency.
Pros
Time tracking
Expense tracking
Cons
Filters for isolating specific employees or project hours can sometimes be confusing and don't always work correctly.
Likelihood to Recommend
BQE Core is very well suited for an MEP firm to provide precise metrics and time tracking. We are likely only scratching the surface of the available features within the program, but it has been an asset for our firm.
