Harvest Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
1) Clean, simple, easy to use interface for daily time tracking. 2) Ability to monitor team's time real-time 3) Ability to track real-time billable Revenue 4) Invoicing features 5) inexpensive

Cons
1) No real-time phone support. Originally, Harvest had real-time phone support, but a while back they (suddenly) changed their phone support from real-time to only scheduled appointments. We've often found that support appointments are not usually available until a while later in the same day, or often the next day, which has been difficult because there is no way to get quicker phone support if needed. Appointment blocks are limited to 15 minute, and in our experience, once 15 minutes is up, the rep will say they have to go because the appointment is over, even if the issue has not been resolved yet. 2) Unfortunately, we've found that so far, Harvest's features have not been keeping up well with the industry's transition to fixed-fee pricing. Though the did add fixed-fee features (thank you!), unfortunately, we found that they did not really work well for tracking fixed-fee projects: - There is currently no way in Harvest to have recurring, monthly fixed-fee projects (so that you can track time/expenses against these.) - There is currently no way in Harvest to track actual time/costs against fixed-fee project fees - There is currently no way in Harvest to add a one-time fixed-price charge for a project (i.e. one day of Bookkeeping at $ amount.) Support told me that the only way to do this is to add these charges as expenses. However, expenses are not included in the revenue reports that we rely on to run the practice, because they are seen as expenses and not revenue.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10

Pros
Harvest fits my business model. I'm a consultant who also does installs, repairs, and remote support. It's simple to set up Harvest with your client list, hourly rates, products and services. Once set up, tracking time and expenses is even simpler! They have a web interface and a mobile app. The mobile app duplicates most of the web features and is very handy when on-site - a couple taps selects the client and starts the clock. Creating invoices is a matter of running an Uninvoiced report, clicking the customer you want to invoice, and editing the items, descriptions, prices and tax rates. Then save the invoice and either email it directly to the recipient or save as PDF to print or attach later. Harvest can connect to Trello, Quickbooks, Xero, Stripe, PayPal, and about 80 other online applications, and has a programming API if you are so inclined. It only took me an evening to write a script to insert all my Harvest-tracked time into my CRM app's notes.

Cons
Everything is tracked as a project. To enter time, you first have to create a project to track it. Even if you are doing a one-off visit, you cannot track that hour or two until you have created a new project for that customer. It would be helpful to be able to log billable time directly to a customer.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
-Intuitive user interface -Cute motivational quotes and illustrations -Great native desktop experience on the Mac -Wonderful integrations with other software, including Harvest's Forecast, Xero accounting and Stripe -A multi-functional API and mobile apps (IOS and Android)!

Cons
- No automated sales tax - or integration with automated sales tax providers (Avalara, Tax Jar, etc.) on invoices -Team pricing could be better and also would be great if there were a tier between free - two projects and unlimited projects. -No offline functionality on the desktop

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Especially after a recent update, I like how easy the timer is to work with. Simply select the project I'm working on and start the timer. While I'm working it stays on in the background. If I get called away from my desk for some reason, and I forget to stop the timer, it recognizes the inactivity and checks in with me upon return. That's super handy - if I was off the computer on a call related to the project, for example, one button click and it will continue timing including the 'inactive' time. If I got called off to a different project, I can easily put the minutes/hours of 'inactive' time on the appropriate project. If I got called away by something totally unrelated to work, I can toss the accumulated 'inactive' time and either keep working or stop the clock when I get back. It also sends an email reminder after several hours of inactive time - like when I quit working for the day and forget to clock out. No more guessing!

Cons
There is sometimes a disconnect between the desktop app and the website. I can't remember why but once in a while I'll have to check on the site while the app is running (like to read notes associated with a project) and there were some discrepancies. They always sorted themselves out, but for a couple minutes it was confusing. It's not a huge issue so long as you remember to give the site time update with the app.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10