Base Builders 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

Great experience with software. It generally needs time to get used to.

We have been using Project Management software on the Macintosh for the last twelve years and this is simply the program "You Must Have" if you are in the A/E community. Not only is this a robust solution to Digital Project Management, but it also runs on the Macintosh by using Filemaker as the database. We have been working with BaseBuilders for over a year now and have watched this program blossom into a very robust solution that covers every aspect of a project's life from proposal to closeout. Implementation was straightforward. We where running ArchiOffice and the data generated from that program was easily transferred to the new system. BaseBuilders to this day have always been simply a phone call away and the Owner actually calls you to help you resolve problems. The program allows you to develop proposals, track time and cost and then convert that proposal into a live project. Forecasting of cash flow and the project tracking of payables and receivables has been an invaluable tool for our firm. We recently installed the latest upgrade and where happy to see a few of the upgrades we had requested from BaseBuilders to handle administrative duties during construction. Simply stated, software is only as good as the customer support behind it, and everyone writing and selling software should take a lesson or two from these guys.

I have been using the program for over a year. Admittedly, I do not have an accounting background, but it has taken me this long to feel like I am starting to understand how the program works. There are no contextual help notes; you just have to figure things out on your own as you go. For example, you just have to know somehow that you have to add and refresh any new billable rates and/or staff to each job; why should you have to do that in the first place? Seems like that database would be available automatically. It would be great to have some cancel buttons when you start to set up a job, or an invoice. If you change your mind, you have to delete it, or allow it to be created and then go back and delete it. I almost always get a quick response when I e-mail a question. Doug has been great to get on-line and show us how things work. Some training videos would be nice. We have devoted many, many hours to get the Proposal and Invoice modules to work pretty well, but we still have to remember to check every box, fill in every line, etc., or we get unpredictable results.

As a small engineering firm we handled all of our accounting through QuickBooks but needed something to help our Project Managers manage their project budgets, schedules, and office manpower. We found Praesto AE and after learning more decided Praesto looked like it was written for us. We now use Praesto timesheets for all of our time entry, which allows us to see real time staff utilization, monitor project budgets, easy invoicing, proposal tracking, etc. Praesto has been easy to learn and use. The customer support has by far been the best I have ever seen from any company in my career. Praesto AE has greatly benefited our firm and all of our project managers. Each manager can quickly and easily check budgets so they can spend more time focused on clients and projects.

We are a one-person design office that receives a mountain of email and phone calls each day on many projects. Praesto AE allows us to record, manage, and keep on top of all the information. Nothing gets "lost"! Apart from information storage, we now have control over our time, costs, fees and profitability. Having a thorough centralized record of our projects means we also satisfy our PI insurer with our record keeping procedures. Start-up and implementation went smoothly. It took us about a month to work out what we needed and how to do it. Customer Support has been excellent. We are in Australia, and we either get an immediate email or phone call to our requests, or it is there the next morning.

Preasto AE is the replacement for another Filemaker based accounting and management system our design firm had used for years. As we were already familiar with Filemaker, the transition was easy. The Preasto team has been very diligent in helping move all our data to the new system and extremely helpful in showing us the myriad of new accounting and management tools at our disposal. We look forward to populating the central database with past and future project data to help identify project costing; in the past it was scattered throughout office computers. Also, from an accounting standpoint, being able to push all entries directly into Quickbooks from Praesto AE will eliminate duplicate entries.