Praesto AE Software

Pros

It is easy to set up projects and have multiple people log their hours. Far easier than doing it manually. Makes end of the month timekeeping and billing much easier. Being able to link Praesto with Quickbooks is a huge plus.

Cons

The program tends to slow my computer down when using the software. It would be nice if the software was cloud-based rather than server-based

Likes Best

The staff at BaseBuilders have been so easy to work with! After spending 16 months unsuccessfully trying to implement a different software, we were leery of investing a lot of time and money into yet another product. I made an online query about price and within an hour we got a phone call. We were able to schedule a webinar for the next day and a second the following week for our owners. We were already using QuickBooks (QB) prior to the unsuccessful launch so Praesto seemed to be a natural fit for us. I created a new QB file so it would be easy to track how Praesto integrated with QB. With BaseBuilders support and the tools they have available, I was ready to go live in less than 6 weeks. It would have taken less time if I started the process before the 1st of the year and not 6 weeks after. That 6 weeks included the time it took to create the new QB file with all year-to-date transactions. The software is easy and almost fun to use, the data it provides is very useful and it all just makes sense! If we have questions or problems, the staff at BaseBuilders is super responsive! They regularly reach out to us if they haven't heard from us to make sure we are happy with the program. A huge selling point to this program was that we got all of the features WITH unlimited technical support for one very affordable price.

Likes Least

After 5 months, I haven't found anything I don't like about BaseBuilders or Praesto. I might be a little biased after the experience with the product we were unsuccessful in implementing, but any issues we've had have been quickly and successfully addressed.

Recommendations

I would highly suggest asking if the company has a demo file or if they will allow you to test the program with minimal investment. Our first program was VERY cumbersome and nothing about it was easy, including running reports. A huge factor in looking for a program besides QuickBooks was that the owners and project managers should be able to access project data without waiting for the bookkeeper/accountant to generate bunch of reports, out of a software or Excel. QuickBooks is a great accounting program but isn't able to do direct/overhead at the project level. Once I got the projects set up, got the fees in and timesheets year to date in, the owners could see their projects and were highly impressed. I would also do research to be sure your network can handle the new software. Make SURE you search for customer reviews! We found a number of options before deciding on Praesto but quickly dismissed them after reading reviews.

Likes Best

I found the software to be logical and easy to use (after a learning curve, of course!). We replaced software we had used for 28 years with Praesto and Quick Books. Moving the necessary data to Quick Books is very easy - even more so after this last update. I have called for technical support several times and the attitude is always "I can help you with that." We were able to get our data imported in easily and began to use the program for basic functions. We have used it for several months now and are beginning to utilize more of the functions as we become more familiar with the software

Likes Least

I don't have any complaints about the product or the vendor.

Recommendations

Take advantage of a money back trial period. We subscribed on a monthly basis to be sure we wanted to continue to use it. After 3 months, we purchased the annual subscription to save money.

Likes Best

We looked for years to find a product that would fit our small firms. We had trial copies of the Delteks of the world, but for a small company, we needed a product that was easy to implement, had great service help, and integrated completely with Quickbooks! Praesto did all that for us. It's priced right for the small business and gives us the reporting that we need to be profitable.

Likes Least

I would like for it to be web-based instead of server-based.

Recommendations

Use the team at Praesto to help you get up and running. That is what they are there for.

Likes Best

The product does what it says it would. The vendor is helpful.

Likes Least

This software is slow. As we use it a lot during the day, it slows down more until it freezes.

Recommendations

Pay more attention to transfer of data. Ask lots of questions.

Likes Best

It stores a lot of information and has lots of functionality. We're just starting to use the more in-depth features. It's a great addition to our company.

Likes Least

It's difficult to navigate to the information it stores and tracks. It's not the most intuitive and user-friendly.

Recommendations

If you're willing to learn how to use it, it's a fair amount of bang for not a lot of buck.

Likes Best

It's easy to use and set up.

Likes Least

It takes a few minutes to start up, but that could be the PC I'm using.

Recommendations

This is the one. No need to look elsewhere. The time tracking portion of this software is great.

Likes Best

Praesto keep track of my project hours and ordinates on how I am to bill my clients. Also Praesto allows me to smoothly edit time on my time sheet.

Likes Least

The software can be very slow at times, and it is hard for me to multitask with it open on my computer.

Recommendations

I would have to recommend that you put in effort to set up all the preferences and billing types early on to save time later on.

Likes Best

It easily tracks my time, and I love the ability to add comments on each task.

Likes Least

When searching for a specific contact, I have to remind myself to select between "Companies & Contacts" after I enter something in the search toolbar.

Recommendations

I always type the time I start and end a task with a brief description in the comments portion of each entry. It helps tremendously when going back to enter my time for IDP.

Likes Best

I like that we are able to see if we are profitable or not on a project. It allows us to see how much we are actually paying versus what we are charging.

Likes Least

It is not user friendly. There are a lot of things you are not able to manipulate, and therefore we are not able to get a real reading of profit or loss.

Recommendations

Make sure you ask a lot of questions. You need to be sure you are getting what you are paying for.

Likes Best

Praesto has helped us transition from keeping track of projects and time entries in Excel workbooks to software. It has been a tremendous help.

Likes Least

I have come across issues with running certain reports.

Recommendations

If you have problems, the Praesto team is willing to help.

Absolutely LOVE Praesto and now that we're a few months in we're really leveraging some of the information that we always had scattered through 10 different locations and multiple software problems. Our projects are more profitable simply because I, as the project manager, have immediate access to the projects' status. The customer support is top-notch. Have a question, or need help? Call them up!

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.

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.

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.

I work for a Civil-Site Engineering consulting firm with about 12 people. We were looking for software that would track our projects from inception to completion, including billing and time/task capabilities. We currently use an old DOS based database to track our projects and do our billing by hand. We have been very pleased with the customer support and help in getting all of our existing information transferred over. It took a little longer than we expected, but we didn't exactly have the template. We are still in the process of fully integrating the office to this system, but so far it has been very intuitive to use.

I am more of the technical support person in our office, I installed Praesto AE, do the updates, and trouble shoot. For the most part we really like the system and when we have questions or concerns, Doug himself usually addresses them right away. That is probably the biggest advantage over our previous software; we had a very hard time getting answers or things fixed. We have been running Praesto AE about 2 years.

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.

We are a mechanical engineering firm and are an original user of Praesto AE, maybe even the first one! It solved a lot of our project organization woes, and assembled all of the data, both project and billing, in a single, easy to use format. Promotional material and job history is easier than ever to compile, and we don't forget relevant projects anymore. We have over 1,000 projects on our database now, with easy access to any information on them. I highly recommend Praesto AE as a simple to use, cost-effective database tool to manage a business. We still use Quickbooks for tax and accounting purposes, but Praesto AE does everything else! Call me for a reference anytime.

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.