Likelihood to Recommend I think Harpoon works best for freelancers, consultants, self employed people and smaller companies with less client to bill. For larger enterprises with hundreds or thousands of clients, there are larger, more intricate platforms in the market that are better suited for those needs.
Read full review Harvest is ideally suited for a variety of scenarios, particularly in the realms of freelance or consulting work, where accurate hour tracking for billing is crucial. It excels in small to medium businesses managing team projects, allowing for effective resource allocation and time management across multiple concurrent projects. For budgeting and forecasting, Harvest provides valuable data, aiding in accurately estimating the duration and cost of future projects based on past data. It's also highly beneficial for remote or distributed teams, thanks to its cloud-based platform that facilitates seamless coordination. Additionally, its detailed reporting features enhance client transparency, fostering trust through clear communication of time spent on projects. However, Harvest may be less suitable for larger enterprises with complex integration needs or specialized industries requiring more niche features. Small startups or individuals on tight budgets might find the cost challenging, especially if they don't fully utilize all its features. Lastly, for those needing only basic time tracking, simpler or free tools might be more appropriate, making Harvest an unnecessary expenditure for basic needs.
Read full review Pros Makes Sending Invoices & Collecting Payment Easy, for Freelancers Tracking Financial Goals (Monthly & Annual) & Projecting Future Results Provides Insights On AR, Earned Income, Top Clients, and other helpful but highly relevant data points. Read full review Offers several options on using the tool, for example, you can use the app on your phone, the app for desktop, or simply have the website open. The timer integrates with other platforms. For example, our team uses Asana as our project management tool. Now, in real-time, I can know which projects my team is working on and whether we're implementing good time management strategies to meet our goals. The summary break downs are wonderful! You can view an individual's hours as well as project hours. There are even notifications you could receive when your team is getting close to reaching the allotted time for a client's project. Read full review Cons Sometimes expense reporting bring up duplicate transactions, which may be more of a fault of the API that connects my account, which is Plaid Would be nice if in the future, they can offer ACH as one of the payment options for invoices There are some redundancies that pop up when setting time frames for client work and the projects attached to them. If they aren't aligned, it can cause inaccurate reporting. If it just sent it once and it took care of both functions, it would be easier Read full review I’m still trying to figure out how tasks best associate to a specific project. There’s a couple different places to edit that and I’m a little confused as to best practice. Does not integrate into basecamp which is our project management system Read full review Support Rating The few times I've needed help or had questions about the platform, the founder got back to me. And fairly fast. The extra effort resonated well with me
Read full review They're very responsive and do their best to answer whatever questions we've had. Sometimes, the question or request we've made is for a feature that doesn't yet exist, however in most cases those features have been built later and did eventually address our need.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I've used Less Accounting and & Quickbooks Online. After Less Accounting was acquired, its development was mostly stopped. While the tool was a simple way to manage invoices and expenses, its directional philosophy changed with the new owners. Quickbooks Online was a solid tool, but the company support was unhelpful and hard to work with at times. Harpoon provides a great tool, with a company that cares about its users.
Read full review Harvest is significantly better than Jira. I think Jira's is not originally intended to be used as a time logging/management system, but we had been previously using it as that. It was much clunkier, and many employees had a difficult time using it as a user interface goes. Harvest is much more user friendly and has simplified the daily time-logging process for everyone in our office
Read full review Return on Investment Clear and precise visibility of my financial status. Projections of how I'm doing today, this month, and this year. Clarity on what needs to happen with client development to reach my goals. It shrinks the amount of time I spend on getting clients to pay my invoices. Read full review Harvest has improved our payment schedules. Since we switched, we get paid for projects much sooner. Harvest has saved us a ton of time with payroll. We are able to track our users time and pay them appropriately based on their billable hours. Harvest is becoming a lifesaver around tax time. The reporting features have allowed us to pull reports for our tax accountant. Read full review ScreenShots