Ofivio vs BQE Core

BQE Core comes at practice management from accounting, and that origin is its strength. Time tracking, expense capture, invoicing, WIP, and professional-services accounting are handled with a depth that most architecture-first tools do not attempt.

So the comparison is not really about features. It is about where your practice's complexity actually sits.

Two kinds of complicated

Some practices are complicated on the billing side: many staff grades, multiple rates, phased engagements, work-in-progress that has to be recognised properly, and a finance team that needs the numbers in a specific shape. For those, BQE Core is a serious and appropriate answer.

Other practices are complicated on the delivery side: several disciplines each with their own drawing set, a bill of quantities that drives procurement, a site team filing daily reports, and a client approving revisions that must be evidenced later. The billing on those practices is often simple — a percentage against stages — while everything upstream of the invoice is where the risk lives.

Ofivio is built for the second kind. BQE Core is built for the first.

Side by side

Where BQE Core is clearly better

• Any practice where the billing model itself is the hard part
• Firms with a finance function that needs professional-services accounting done properly
• Multi-rate hourly billing with detailed WIP reporting
• Practices already running an accountant who knows the product

Where Ofivio is the better fit

• The BOQ is central to how you scope and cost work
• You supervise construction and need site data captured on site
• Drawing revision control is a real risk you are currently managing with filenames
• You want the design fee and the supervision fee measured separately
• You would rather have one system than an accounting product plus a document system plus a site app