BQE CORE runs the whole firm — projects, billing, accounting, resource planning. Keito takes on the layer that stalls in practice: capturing, reviewing, and approving the billable hours of design and engineering work, with AI drafting entries so project teams are not reconstructing the week from memory.
Illustrative review queue
Illustrative billing cycle
Phases reconciled
Entries reviewed
214
Write-downs decided
5
Phases cleared
9
Studio hours attributed by project and phase
Client, project, and phase context confirmed on entry
Billable-status questions settled
Out-of-scope and write-down calls decided before invoicing
Evidence released
Approved record handed to the firm’s invoicing process
BQE CORE is published as all-in-one firm management for architecture and engineering practices — time and expense tracking, billing and invoicing, project management, accounting, reporting, resource planning, and CRM in one platform, with optional modules added per user as the firm needs them. Keito asks a different question: not what the firm’s back office needs, but what the people recording the time will actually keep up with.
Set up clients, projects, phases, contributors, rates, reviewers, and billing periods in Keito, then let AI draft time entries from the work that actually happened — designers and engineers confirm and correct instead of reconstructing the week from memory.
AI-drafted and manually recorded entries queue for review, where thin descriptions, out-of-scope work, rate questions, AI-assisted delivery costs, and write-down decisions are settled before the billing period closes.
Reviewed hours, costs, and decisions move to invoicing through an export or API handoff the firm designs and tests itself — Keito assumes no automatic BQE CORE import or synchronisation.
Firm management and time capture are different problems
BQE CORE is published as all-in-one firm management built for architecture and engineering practices: time and expense tracking, billing and invoicing, project management with real-time visibility, accounting, reporting and analytics, resource planning, and CRM, with optional accounting, CRM, HR, and payroll modules added per user as the firm needs them. Buyers should not treat BQE CORE as software missing time tracking or billing — both are published, documented capabilities, and its argument is that the whole firm runs better in one system. Keito starts from a narrower observation: a firm-wide record is only as good as the entries feeding it, and the layer that fails in practice is capture. Design and engineering staff juggling phases, site visits, and deadline weeks fill timesheets late and from memory, and the write-offs surface at invoicing. Keito is a standalone workspace where AI-drafted and manually recorded entries, approved AI-agent and model costs, client, project, and phase attribution, descriptions, billable status, rate context, write-down decisions, approvals, and invoice evidence live in one reviewed workflow — with nothing invoiced until a reviewer signs it off. The boundary is deliberate: Keito is not firm management software and does not reproduce BQE CORE’s project accounting, general ledger, payroll, resource planning, or CRM, and it claims no native BQE CORE integration, automatic import, or synchronisation. Before moving live time capture, fix system ownership, test representative exports or API handoffs, preserve historical records under the firm’s retention policy, and agree rollback steps.
Keep BQE CORE when the firm wants projects, billing, accounting, resource planning, and CRM administered in one suite
Choose Keito when the failing layer is capture — timesheets filled late, phases misattributed, write-offs discovered at invoicing
Agree ownership, retention, tested handoffs, and rollback in writing before live capture moves anywhere
Workflow fit
Keito keeps BQE CORE time tracking alternative connected to client, project, billable status, approval, and invoice context before the work reaches finance.
Keep BQE CORE when the firm wants projects, billing, accounting, resource planning, and CRM administered in one suite
Choose Keito when the failing layer is capture — timesheets filled late, phases misattributed, write-offs discovered at invoicing
Agree ownership, retention, tested handoffs, and rollback in writing before live capture moves anywhere
Keito drafts time entries with AI from the work that actually happened and accepts typed, timed, API, CLI, and agent-sourced records, each carrying client, project, phase, duration, description, and billable status into the same review queue.
Reviewers settle vague descriptions, out-of-scope work, rate queries, and write-down decisions in one queue, so every line a client eventually sees has an owner and an explanation that outlives the invoice.
Approved AI-agent and model costs are recorded against the same client, project, and phase as the team’s hours, producing one delivery record per engagement — without implying any automatic feed from BQE CORE or another platform.
The difference is not just recording time. It is whether the record can support billing, project decisions, and client conversations.
Product shape
A standalone workspace for reviewed billable time, AI-assisted delivery costs, billing decisions, and invoice evidence.
BQE CORE is published as all-in-one firm management for architecture and engineering practices — time and expenses, billing, project management, accounting, reporting, resource planning, and CRM in one platform.
Who keeps it current
AI drafts entries from the work that happened; designers and engineers confirm them, and reviewers sign off before anything reaches an invoice.
BQE CORE publishes time and expense tracking designed to keep entries up to date across its project, billing, and accounting workflows.
What adoption involves
A self-contained workspace stood up around clients, projects, phases, rates, and reviewers, with published flat team pricing.
BQE CORE publishes per-user pricing with optional modules — accounting, CRM, HR, payroll — added as the firm needs them, with figures provided through a custom quote.
Data movement
Team-designed, tested exports and API handoffs moved in deliberate stages.
No native BQE CORE import, automatic synchronisation, or automatic reconciliation is assumed in either direction.
It is a different home for a firm’s billable-time record than the time and expense module of an all-in-one firm management suite. Keito is one such alternative: a standalone workspace where AI-drafted and manually recorded hours, approved AI-assisted work costs, write-down decisions, and invoice evidence are reviewed together before anything is invoiced — adopted without moving the firm’s projects, accounting, or resource planning anywhere.
They solve different problems. BQE CORE is published as all-in-one firm management for architecture and engineering practices — time and expense tracking, billing and invoicing, project management, accounting, reporting, resource planning, and CRM, with optional modules added per user. Keito is only the capture-and-review layer behind the invoice: AI-drafted and manually recorded hours, AI-assisted delivery costs, write-down decisions, and invoice evidence that project teams keep current and reviewers sign off.
Stay with BQE CORE when the priority is administering the whole practice in one suite — projects, billing, accounting, reporting, resource planning, and CRM — especially when the firm already relies on its optional accounting, HR, or payroll modules. Keito covers a narrower reviewed-billing workflow and is not firm management software, so it is the wrong choice if the firm is really shopping for project accounting or a general ledger.
It involves a staged move the firm controls end to end: map clients, projects, phases, people, rates, reviewers, and billing cutoffs; pilot a representative set of projects; reconcile complete billing periods against the existing process; and retain historical BQE CORE records under the firm’s retention policy. Keito does not offer a one-click or lossless BQE CORE migration, so every export or handoff should be tested before live capture changes.
Each reviewed record keeps the client, project, phase, contributor, duration, description, billable status, rate context, reviewer, approval state, write-down decision, and billing period, with approved AI-agent and model costs attributed to the same project and phase as the hours. Firm accounting — general ledger, payables, payroll, and resource plans — is not part of this; it stays in the firm’s accounting and management systems.
No. Keito claims no native BQE CORE integration, automatic import, activity ingestion, or two-way synchronisation. Capture in Keito is its own workflow — AI-drafted, typed, timed, API, CLI, and agent-sourced entries that pass review before becoming invoice evidence — and the firm designs, tests, and approves any transfer between Keito, BQE CORE, its invoicing process, and its accounts. A practice can keep BQE CORE for project accounting and firm management and run Keito alongside it as the capture-and-review record for billable studio work.
Solo includes 1 licensed user, unlimited AI agents, Mac desktop and iOS apps, Stripe payments, and standard CSV and Excel exports. Pro adds your team. Business adds integrations, planning, advanced reporting, and stronger controls.
1 licensed user
For independent consultants, freelancers, and small studios running work with AI agents.
Team collaboration
For teams that need shared workspaces, approvals, and team-level project visibility.
Advanced operations
For organizations that need integrations, planning, advanced reporting, and stronger controls.
AI agents do not require licenses on any plan.
Solo, Pro, and Business can use API keys for agent workflows.
Solo, Pro, and Business include standard CSV and Excel data export.
Start with Solo, add people on Pro when you need reviewers or collaborators, and see how Keito turns tracked effort into clearer reports.