How to automate expense management in BQE Core

Key takeaways

• BQE Core is practice management and accounting for architecture and engineering firms.
• Expense entries carry project, expense item, class, billable and reimbursable flags and markup, with a submit and approve workflow.
• CORE Mobile reads receipts with OCR and tracks mileage.
• Vergo proposes project and expense item for card spend, texts for receipts and posts expense entries through the API.

Where should you go next?

• Vergo's BQE Core integration
• What expense management tools integrate with BQE Core for engineering firms?
• Get started with Vergo

How do you automate expense management in BQE Core, step by step?

1. Connect BQE Core. Vergo connects directly through the public BQE Core API, reads your projects, expense items and accounts, and posts coded card spend as expense entries with receipts. It is self-serve.
2. Keep the firm's cards. Connecting your existing cards involves no card applications, no re-issuing and no banking change.
3. Collect receipts by text. Employees handle everything by text message — no app to download, no portal login — and Vergo chases missing receipts itself instead of waiting for a report.
4. Code to project and expense item. Vergo proposes both, plus billable status, from how similar charges were entered.
5. Post expense entries. Entries land in BQE Core for approval and billing.

What does BQE Core need on each card charge?

• Project: so billable costs reach the right invoice.
• Expense item: which defaults the expense account.
• Class: required before invoicing and syncing.
• Billable and markup: for re-billing to the client.
• Receipt: attached as backup.

Where does BQE Core stop and automation start?

BQE Core does a lot for a design firm: OCR fills in amount, vendor and date from a phone photo, and approved reimbursable entries turn into bills or payroll payouts. The employee still picks the project and expense item, often days later. Vergo reads the receipt itself, line by line, and predicts the coding from what was actually bought, not just the vendor name on the header. For firms, that is the difference between a billable cost and a write-off.

A practical example

A civil engineering firm on BQE Core gives cards to project managers. One buys survey supplies and a permit fee for a municipal project. Vergo texts for the receipts, proposes the municipal project with the supplies expense item marked billable at the firm's markup, and the permit fee as a reimbursable pass-through. The PM approves, and both entries are in BQE Core for the next invoice.

How Vergo handles this

Vergo proposes the coding by inference from your own accounting structure and history — no rule library to build, no keyword lists to maintain, and new vendors are coded on first sight. For a BQE Core firm, that means project and expense item history. Approval workflows are optional and fit how you already control spend: route by GL account or by amount — or skip approval flows entirely and let policy flags catch only what breaks a rule.