Harvest Erfahrungen

I learned about Harvest through the integration with Asana. Although my team doesn't use it for billable time, we do track hours for projects so that we can understand what portions of our product pipeline are consuming the most time, so we're utilizing just one small portion of the overall functionality, which includes different clients, rates, and other features consultants or freelancers would need. That said, what I like the most is the slick integration with Asana right in the app, and the clean clear reporting in the Harvest tool itself. We don't tend to use the mobile app our our usage, but it seems quite good as well.

The biggest drawback about Harvest is the price for what you get. For a product that does basically one thing, it costs about as much as the Google office suite. The hardest part is that they added a new forecasting tool as a separate product and then that costs an additional monthly fee per user, so instead of extending the capabilities of Harvest itself and giving you more value for your money, they froze the Harvest feature and decided to charge more (fortunately it's an opt-in instead of just raising the prices for all).

I started my marketing agency in 1999. I used manual, paper solutions for time tracking for the first few years. After much research we found Workamajig in 2004 to switch to an online solution. It served its purpose for many years but everyone struggled with it and found it not user friendly at all. After many attempts we found Harvest in 2018. I played with it for a few days at the end of a month then ripped the bandaid and switched to it on the 1st of a month. It was SO user-friendly everyone loved it out the gate and we have never looked back. It's so great for time tracking and quick insight into projects and budget status at the client, project and task level. I love it!

It's very hard to complain about Harvest. I really love it. I do wish it had the ability to set budgets for staff by clients/projects so we can see how booked up our team is and better manage their time allocation. There is a second-party project Harvest syncs with to try to do this, but it does not work the way we needed it to so we dropped it after a brief trial.

The chrome extension makes this really easy to track the time you spend working on a particular client. With the click of a button you can select the client you are working on via a dropdown menu and you just hit 'start timer'. When you stop the timer you can also add in some extra details that are great when you're trying to report back on where your time has been spent.

When you log into the desktop version you can view week by week and day by day. You also have access to a dashboard which visually represents where you spent your time.

Sometimes you leave the timer running - it's really easy to forget that it's running in the background. You don't get a notification until the next morning and so I often have to log back in to correct my time logged.

I like how employees can track time based off of categories, so it is clear during week-end review where all their time has been allocated. Categories can be broken down by department and project, so billable hours are also clear. Time sheets and project-based hours can easily be exported which makes payroll very seamless. I also like the expense tracker feature as well.

It is a bit tricky to get used to at first, employees also agree that navigating Harvest as a new user can be a bit overwhelming. I wish there were also more integrations with expense tracking, so accountants can directly receive the expenses for their upcoming payroll. I also wish time off had more integrations, because integrating our HR software to time off tracking would make it more consistent with our records and eliminate the need to check both applications.

Working in a creative field, I am a person who detests tracking time and invoicing. It takes me out of flow and into a space that doesn't really foster creative ideas or spark the imagination. Harvest makes the process about as painless as possible (let's be real, tracking time will never be entirely painless) and frees me up to focus on what I do and how I best deliver value to my clients and team. For clients that prefer to pay by credit card, it allows you to deliver the invoice via a web portal with the ability to pay via PayPal with your cc.

I still feel that the project setup scenarios could be simplified and / or streamlined. I've used Harvest for over 10 years and they have consistently added features and addressed certain gray areas that the software couldn't really account for, but I do think that if they were rebuilding the platform knowing what they know now, they would make it even more straightforward and simple from that standpoint.

I started using it because I did not find the timekeeping functions of Quickbooks easy enough to use. On that point, Harvest is much better--it is excellent at keeping track of time. In addition, Harvest makes it quite easy to bill clients for time and to follow up with repeated billings if needed.

I'll mention two things. First, the method of dealing with retainers needs some serious work to be useful for lawyers. If I have an outstanding invoice and a client sends me a retainer, I cannot have payment toward the invoice taken out of the retainer without a fairly convoluted process. Second, it is hard to integrate with Quickbooks. I need Quickbooks (or I suppose, something similar) to keep track of all my financial records. But when I am using Harvest for timekeeping and billing, I wind up making many of the entries twice.

Exceptionally easy to use. Intuitive interface design that's obviously been user tested and refined. Every button and feature is exactly where you'd expect it to be.

This software does one thing really well – timekeeping. We've tried using solutions that try to do more and have gone back to Harvest because there's nothing we don't like about it.

Lots of great features and the UI makes Harvest nice to use. It's easy to pull time reports for specific resources and projects.

It's definitely expensive. We are exploring other, more cost-effective solutions in what is now a crowded marketplace.

For my new consulting company, this provides exactly what I need. Totally intuitive startup. Customer, contact, projects, and functions concepts allow good segmentation. Robust, no glitches. Great looking invoice template. Good integration with QuickBooks.

I have not yet found major irritants .

Harvest is a super-simple app which manages all our client payments and invoicing/reminders for our clients and integrates with Stripe for a seamless payment process. We use it every day and can bill clients in $ or other currencies easily, and provide them downloadable pdf's, payment portals and other functionality (using external app integrations) with ease.

The in-built feature set is quite limited. To get integration with contract software, proposal software etc. you need further subscriptions with other companies. It would be ideal if it was all built-in. Also, it's missing a huge feature which should be standard on all invoicing apps - The ability to send automated client statements. At any time we may have 5-20 invoices outstanding for some client accounts and, even after 4 years using Harvest we have to manually send links and individual invoice reminders. It's by far the biggest downside of the software and is a big limitation.

Number 1: great value for the money. So much capability in one product, for a very low monthly fee.
Number 2: They are constantly adding new features, but not half-baked ones. I get the impression the the product and engineering teams are very good at what they do.

Could use more customizing of expenses and taxes - I'd like to be able to add fees to invoices that are not taxes - like markups for Stripe fees.

I love the interactive and tech-savvy feel, everything about this product is functional and enjoyable.

It is way too expensive, competitors like Clockify have been way more cost-productive for our student team.

Harvest certainly offers a very user-friendly interface. When you log on, it's immediately apparent how to use the software for the basic need of time tracking. The interface is set up to reflect the current week, with the days of the week displayed left to right, and the time you've tracked for each day displayed below it. Each day is broken up into time tracked according to a specific project. If using Harvest in the way our company does, you can create project codes to reflect different projects, so you'll be able to track how long you or your employees are spending on individual projects, or even separate types of tasks within that project.

I do wish there was a a sort of "Week So Far" tracker feature, that appeared as its own tab in the top menu bar, or perhaps was totaled at the bottom of the screen on the current day's time sheet. At the moment, if you'd like to see the hours you've spent on different projects summed up so far in a given week, you would have to either click into each day, and add up the hour totals yourself, or you go to the "Reports" tab, then click on "Team," then click on your own name under that, where then you would be able to see the total number of hours you've spent on different projects that week. This seems like a simple feature that should be more accessible, or at least more clear to navigate to.

It's really easy to use and set up. I've been using it for a few years now and it always works great. Harvest has a web platform and also a mobile app, both of them work great with no issues so far. The mobile app is very well done and has most of the features you can find on the desktop version.

It has a great feature that notifies you by email when you've forgotten your timer on for a long period of time. It also notices when you're not at the computer and asks you if want to add the time that you were away or subtracted from the current count.

You can edit previous counts and you can group them based on different categories you set up. It also works great with Asana. You can start a timer directly from within Asana, linking the Asana task to the Harvest timmer. It works very well.

I had two things to mention here that are not bugs or issues, just things that my current workflow would require for a smoother process.

1. I've been using Harvest with two teams / companies and I have to switch back and forth between their accounts which is a bit cumbersome.

2. I wish you could filter more precisely the weekly / monthly overview. I can't separate task and groups as much as I need, in order to get a better understanding of how much time has been tracked for a specific category.

Harvest is straightforward and easy to use. First-time users find it easy to learn navigating the platform. It can also be seamlessly integrated to project management programs such as ClickUp. It also has a built-in Invoicing feature for bout hours and expenses. Another awesome feature is being able to set budgets for every project, so you can have a quick overview of how much you have spent and can still spend on a project.

What I liked the least about Harvest is that once a person or a project has logged hours, the only option you have is to archive them, and not delete them. It seems to just clutter the workspace. One improvement that can be done is having a prompt whenever the tracker has been on for more than 5 hours, just to check if the timer has been left on, because sometimes we still forget to turn off the tracker.

Harvest is perfect for tracking time, especially on a project by project basis. It is great for marketing agencies that work under retainer and have to report time spent on specific projects. It is pretty simple to track hours and view hours tracked by teammates and be able to report directly to the client. It is an easy way for managers to track other employees. The invoice feature is great if you use it.

It almost has TOO many features. Ease of use is great for employees who are simply logging hours, but is very complex and sometimes difficult for the project managers to keep up with. It would be nice if others could add projects (and possibly have to have manager approval) and not have to be added solely by the project managers. It would also be nice to have more of a warning prior to renewing membership. In my instance, we no longer needed to utilize the software, but randomly received a charge on our credit card without prior notification that the program was up for renewal.

Harvest is affordable, and easy to use. As a freelancer, I find it fantastically simple to track time and expenses, bill, follow up on invoices and receive payment. Harvest integrates with Stripe and PayPal, so clients can pay online easily. I literally run my business on this software, and it's so intuitive. Best of all, as an American living in Canada with clients in both countries, I can bill and accept payments in both USD and CAD. Harvest is one of the few solutions that lets me do that in a single account.

I wish there were more reports. It would AMAZING if Harvest offered P&L reports for simple businesses like mine, but it doesn't. Really, improved ability to produce any reports my accountant can use at tax time would be fabulous. Unfortunately, you have to tie into overpriced Quickbooks or another accounting package to do this. For simple freelancers like me, this just seems silly. I'm hoping the reporting features improve, since Harvest gets better every year overall.

Prior to using Harvest, I tried several different options for time tracking and invoicing clients. All of which didn't quite fit my needs for my graphic and web design business. Harvest has been the perfect fit for me. It allows me to organize items by client and individual projects under that client. I can easily start and stop timers to track my time on projects and then quickly create invoices to bill clients. You can run reports to track how your business is doing on invoices for the month, quarter or year. You can also track expenses. It has the capability to integrate into quickbooks as well.

I can't think of anything that I don't like about this software really. If I absolutely had to name something, setting up information/logo for invoices in the very beginning was a little tricky but easily solved by reading tutorial.

Harvest is incredibly easy to use, and doesn't try to be more than it is. It is perfect for tracking time (the iPhone app is great, too, as it allows you to start and stop time on the go) and expenses, and conducting billing. It also has a surprisingly great reporting section, which is helpful for understanding your own productivity and opportunities. Harvest is also wonderfully customizable to fit your office's individual needs.

This is so nitpicky, but that is because Harvest is so great, and has so little to improve upon: I wish there were multiple pre-set messages you can send. The current system allows for a thank you message and a "balance due" message. Our office, like many law firms, I imagine, has two balance due messages: money due for work performed, and money due to maintain a required trust deposit. Currently we have to manually change this. Not at all a deal breaker, but it would be a very welcome update in the future.

I've used Harvest for years and I can't imagine switching to another tool. It's by far the easiest, best tool for agencies who work on multiple projects with multiple budgets. Being able to visualise your margins and where your team is spending their time is an absolute game changer. The invoices are attractive and always send reliable. The integrated payment options are intuitive and simple.

It's a bit more expensive than other tools but if you're using its full functionality it's absolutely worth it.

I'd like to see more flexibility around budgeting and retainers. It has definitely gotten better with new support for fixed-fee budgets, but I would really like to see recurring retainers handled better. We currently create a new project every month for our clients on retainer, which works but is a little tedious.

Harvest tracks my time with the click of a button. I select the project and hit go. Then I stop the timer when complete. Invoices are made at the end of the month very quickly. It takes less than a minute to create and send each invoice to my clients.
Never once have I had an issue with the site being down, or any other inconveniences.
The Chrome extension helps a lot.

I have little use for most of the reports, however, they may be geared towards larger companies. Otherwise, this software is great.

What I liked most about this software is that it has a ton of features for time keeping, budgeting, and payroll. This is one of the more comprehensive time keeping programs I have seen. It has different levels for employees and managers to log in. It is super easy for employees and contractors to log in adn out to keep accurate track of time and hours. It has budgeting functions for payroll, projects, etc. I really liked this program!

The one big negative I can say about this program is the cost. They charge per person using it and it can get pretty pricey when you have a lot of employees or contractors using it. It would be better if they offered it for a flat rate or monthly flat rate.

Sometimes its the simple software that provides the most value. In this case, while Harvest does provide some features that we do not use, it is incredibly simple to understand and use on a daily basis. We feel that we are really utilizing the software to the fullest extent even though we only use it to track time for internal purposes. We don't feel like we are wasting money paying for a software that is only partially utilized.

I am sure that for some companies the simplicity may not be practical. It really does stick to the basics so it is for a company that doesn't need all of the bells and whistles that I am sure some time tracking software has.

I used Harvest to track my project and time spent working on them, then I'd generate invoices for my clients to pay. I really enjoyed how easy it was to set up new clients and new projects

What I liked least about the product was probably the rigidity. If you had something sort of off the wall that you do for your clients, it may be interesting trying to get Harvest to work properly for you.

Our company utilizes the free version of Harvest for all of our employees. I love how this is inexpensive to have, and since we're a smaller company, we don't need anything too complicated to track our time.

Our employees have told us that it is easy to use to track time, send invoices, and generate reports. There isn't any learning curve, and it is an organized system.

I personally enjoy how I can organize the time into separate categories so I can see how my employees utilize their time, and generate a report to see where all the time is going into.

I have no complaints! It would be nice to generate an overall report for the year, but Harvest only does weekly reports for a set period of time, not 1 report for the whole year.