BQE Core

BQE Core sells to architects and engineers. That is not a criticism, it is the single most useful fact about it for anyone reading this directory. The company's own who-we-serve pages list three verticals, architecture, engineering and consulting, and the marketing copy is explicit that the founders built the platform to run their own architecture and engineering practices. Accounting firms appear only in older blog posts, not as a served market. A CPA practice evaluating Core is evaluating a product whose roadmap is set by somebody else's problems.

The product itself is solid at what it does. Foundations is the base module covering time and expense capture, billing, project management and reporting, with accounting, CRM, HR and embedded payroll sold as add-ons. Project accounting works at phase level with percentage-complete billing and proper WIP treatment, resource planning forecasts staffing against project schedules, and the analytics cover realization, billing multiples and margin per project. For a firm that bills long design engagements against fixed budgets, that is exactly the right shape. For a firm whose year is a wave of 1040s in March and a second wave in September, it is the wrong shape entirely: no client tax record, no return workflow, no organizer, no 8879 handling, no tax software integration, and no ledger integration to QuickBooks Online or Xero.

Buying it is also opaque. Pricing is described as per user with modules on top but no figure is published anywhere, and the only route is a quote request or a phone call. Security documentation is limited: the security and privacy page states GDPR and CCPA compliance and general adherence to industry standards, but names no SOC 2 report, no MFA or SSO capability and no data centre locations. A Vanta-hosted trust centre exists at trust.bqe.com but its contents are not readable without going through the vendor. The public press page has not been updated since a partnership announcement in September 2024.

Accelo is the closest comparison and the better answer for an accounting firm wanting project economics, because it at least integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero and Sage Intacct and still markets to accounting practices. Mango covers time and billing for accounting firms specifically at a published price. Karbon or Practice CS are what a firm actually cross-shops if the requirement is practice management for compliance work.

Dated is the right call for this directory and the tier stands, though the reasoning is worth being precise about. BQE is not a neglected product: it took growth investment from Serent Capital in 2021, changed CEO in 2023 and shipped a new Project Center in 2024. What has gone stale is its relevance to accounting firms, which have been quietly dropped from the verticals it sells to. Firms already running Core can stay on it. Firms shopping now should read the absence of accounting from BQE's own positioning as the answer.