Bonsai vs. BQE CORE

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bonsai
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Bonsai is a complete project management tool designed for agencies, consultancies, and professional service providers. It enhances project, client, and financial management with features like task management, team collaboration, and revenue tracking.
$25
per month 1 user (+$10 for each additional user)
BQE CORE
Score 9.1 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
BonsaiBQE CORE
Editions & Modules
Starter
$25
per month 1 user (+$10 for each additional user)
Professional
$39
per month 1 user (+$10 for each additional user)
Business
$79
per month 1 user (+$10 for each additional user)
Scale
Custom pricing
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BonsaiBQE CORE
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BonsaiBQE CORE
Features
BonsaiBQE CORE
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Bonsai
10.0
1 Ratings
27% above category average
BQE CORE
7.5
73 Ratings
2% below category average
Task Management10.01 Ratings8.755 Ratings
Resource Management10.01 Ratings8.454 Ratings
Gantt Charts10.01 Ratings8.527 Ratings
Scheduling10.01 Ratings8.035 Ratings
Workflow Automation10.01 Ratings7.038 Ratings
Team Collaboration10.01 Ratings5.445 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology10.01 Ratings7.621 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology10.01 Ratings5.018 Ratings
Document Management10.01 Ratings7.838 Ratings
Email integration10.01 Ratings6.133 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking10.01 Ratings9.473 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management10.01 Ratings8.157 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings7.645 Ratings
Change request and Case Management00 Ratings7.231 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Bonsai
10.0
1 Ratings
28% above category average
BQE CORE
7.5
54 Ratings
1% below category average
Quotes/estimates10.01 Ratings6.528 Ratings
Invoicing10.01 Ratings8.247 Ratings
Project & financial reporting10.01 Ratings8.253 Ratings
Integration with accounting software10.01 Ratings7.334 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BonsaiBQE CORE
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Stackby
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BonsaiBQE CORE
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(165 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(8 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.9
(115 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(90 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
2.3
(6 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BonsaiBQE CORE
Likelihood to Recommend
Bonsai
Great for agency workflows. Maybe not suitable for larger companies with over 200 employees
Read full review
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
Pros
Bonsai
  • Business reporting
  • Client management
  • Automated billing
  • Team time tracking
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Cons
Bonsai
  • Client portal - could have more customization
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
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.
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Usability
Bonsai
It's very easy to use even for non tech savvy people and their interface is very intuitive
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
BQE Software Inc.
I can only remember a couple of times in 4 years that Core has been unavailable.
Read full review
Performance
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
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
Support Rating
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Online Training
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
BQE Software Inc.
Make sure you have someone training you that fits your style of learning.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
BQE Software Inc.
It does take some time to understand the options and to find the best invoice template.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Bonsai
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Scalability
Bonsai
No answers on this topic
BQE Software Inc.
This software works on a small and large scale.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Bonsai
  • It made our daily operations way more efficient and simplified the overall project management process and working with clients.
Read full review
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
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