Modern practice management, without the legacy.

BQE Core — formerly known as ArchiOffice, and before that, BillQuick — has been serving architecture firms for a long time. That longevity is genuinely valuable. The billing and accounting features are deep and battle-tested, the financial reporting is comprehensive, and many firms have built years of historical data in the platform. If you’re already in BQE and the accounting side is working well, that’s worth something.

Where BQE’s history shows is in the interface and data model. The project structure follows accounting logic — jobs, phases, activities — rather than architecture logic like stages, deliverables, and decisions. The interface carries years of accumulated features, and the learning curve reflects a tool that has grown organically over decades.

Setout takes a different approach. Every screen, every workflow, every data structure was designed specifically around architecture projects. Stages map to your agreement structure. Deliverables track actual drawings and reports. Decisions capture who decided what and why. It’s the difference between adapting accounting software for architecture and building architecture software from scratch.

BQE also has no client-facing portal. Your clients never interact with the system. With Setout, clients get their own beautiful experience — a timeline showing where their project is, a calendar of upcoming milestones, and showcase mode for sharing renders with friends and family.

If your practice relies heavily on BQE’s accounting integrations and financial depth, it may be hard to replace. But if you’re finding the interface dated or the workflows don’t match how your team actually thinks about projects, Setout offers a modern alternative that puts architecture workflows first.