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Harvest

Score8.9 out of 10

206 Reviews and Ratings

What is Harvest?

Harvest is used to track time, gain insights from past projects, and get paid for work. Dedicated apps and integrations with popular tools like Asana and Slack allow Harvest to fit into a team’s workflow. A selection of visual reports are offered to keep projects running smoothly and an organization's team supported. Harvest also helps to turn a team’s tracked time and expenses into professional nvoices and collect payment quickly with integrated online payments.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

the time tracking experience in Harvest
project progress tracking, with budgets and costs
team capacity tracking
a visualization displaying where a team's time is going
Harvest invoicing, that turns tracked time and expenses into invoices so users can get paid online

1 / 5

Hooray for Harvest!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Harvest to do all our client project time tracking as well as internal time tracking and expense management. It's widely used and adopted in our organization.

Pros

  • Expense Tracking
  • Project Time Tracking
  • Utilization on Project
  • Time Management on Projects

Cons

  • Task Time Tracking
  • Detailed Reporting
  • Dashboards

Return on Investment

  • Reduces time to reconcile expenses
  • Keeps vision on our project profitability
  • Helps keep projects on time and on budget

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Asana, Pipedrive, Vena, Pigment and Alteryx

Other Software Used

Alteryx, Vena, Pigment

Robust project time tracking

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We tie Harvest time tracking in with our Basecamp project management software to keep track of individual team member's time spent on projects so that we can bill our clients accurately, as well as having a record of project time spent so we can more accurately estimate similar projects the next time.

Pros

  • Built-in timer to use while working. Easy start & stop functions.
  • Ties in well with other project software to have all connected.
  • Breaks down team member's time for the day, week, etc and shows capacity.
  • Allows users to put in note for their work sessions.

Cons

  • Some browsers make it harder to create a Harvest project directly from a tied Basecamp project and you need to go in to Harvest directly, create the project there, and then link to Basecamp.

Return on Investment

  • The best part is having a week-at-a-glance project hours per person in order to see their productiveness and efficiency.
  • Being able to determine where problems and work bottlenecks may be occurring and address any issue.
  • Having project hour notes at the tip of your fingers for quick and easy access, especially awhile after job completion.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Clockify

Other Software Used

Basecamp, QuickBooks Online, HubSpot Marketing Hub

Reliable Intuitive and Great for Growing Teams

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Harvest as a time tracking tool, which in turn helps us manage our projects (keeping them on time and on budget). We also connect to Forecast which helps us with our resourcing and forecasting, and to send invoices to clients at the end of the month. It's an integral process to managing our people and pipeline.

Pros

  • Flexibility in how we are tracking time and budget
  • Easy linking to Forecast
  • Report pulls for where time was spent

Cons

  • Including profitability in reporting
  • Custom dashboards with widgets to help us know what our top projects were, or by specific tasks within a project
  • Overtime alerts (for full days or specific tasks within a project)

Return on Investment

  • We can make better decisions when we have improved time visibility (pricing, scope, etc.)
  • Streamlined invoicing helps us reduce admin time
  • Detailed time exports are helpful when we need to report for transparency

Usability

Other Software Used

Asana, Forecast, HubSpot CRM

Great tie tracking software

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Harvest has been a staple in my business since at least 2008 for time tracking and project management. My team uses the timer option to help them see quickly how long they've been working on something and it helps them to stay on track. For me, the reporting makes it so simple to see if things are staying within budget and when it's time to invoice. This software has never been glitchy or problematic in any way which is very refreshing. It's the only software I use that never gives me any grief. Highly recommend.

Pros

  • Timer time tracking is very easy to use
  • Reporting of tracked time on projects
  • Ability to easily assign different team members and their billable rate
  • Great customer support

Cons

  • The invoicing portion isn't suitable for all businesses
  • Invoicing process forces you to got back to the main page to create your next invoice vs their being a button when an invoice is finished to create another
  • The integration with Quickbooks has never worked well for me

Return on Investment

  • Reduced paper usage
  • Can be used in the office or remotely
  • Very cost effective so keeps overhead in check

Usability

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Online, Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe InDesign, Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Dreamweaver

Using Harvest for Construction Businesses

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Harvest application is used within our organization for Quote/Estimate entry, tracking and approvals, as well as Monthly Invoicing and Project Tracking.

The application makes it easy to work within a team to ensure all Estimates are billed in a timely manner through the reporting function.

It also makes it simple to look within a project and track historical billing and paid-to-date amounts for each customer.

Pros

  • Create Estimates
  • Track Invoices
  • Review open balances for each customer
  • Create reports

Cons

  • Time tracking - we use a different application for time tracking (GPS Enabled), but would like to enter each employees time in Harvest without having to create new access employees to do so. Perhaps even just be able to upload a report.
  • Missing search function on Estimate Tab (like on the Invoice & Projects tab)
  • Be able to copy project to Quickbooks for the initial setup instead of waiting until an Invoice is created to link to the QB software

Return on Investment

  • Due to the "accepted/declined" function in Estimates, as well as the easy export function to Excel, we have been able to create and track all approved estimates to ensure that they are billed monthly. This has been extremely impactful as we can now be positive that we are billing for all works performed.
  • The "Late" Invoices are easy to view within the dashboard, and vibrant with their colouring which makes it simple and easy to remind the team to follow up on open balances. This in turn ensures there are no outstanding balances owing for a long period of time.
  • Dashboard allows for an easy to read month-over-month alanlysis which helps project managers stay on top of finding new business when we begin to see a decline.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online and SalesPro Leads

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Online