Harvest Reviews

Pros
Harvest makes it super easy to track time and expenses, invoice clients, and collect payments via Stripe or ACH.

Cons
Because it is such a stable piece of software, they are very slow to add new features, and certain areas of the user interface feel dated. That being said, it is rock solid, fast, and extremely reliable.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
So overall I'm not a fan. That said, documenting expenses is the best I've ever seen in Harvest. It's really well done and simple. Nice and clean, get your photos, get your monies and go. Big fan. That is where my love affair ends with this app. From an administrative point, maybe there are incredible advantages over other offerings. The world may have never experienced such a revolutionary piece of software and I, in turn, am a simpleton; stuck in a world of misunderstanding.

Cons
If you write a app which tracks hourly time and tries to put it into buckets for easy expensing, the time-tracking app should be simple for the multitude of non-admin users. Simply put, it's cumbersome and annoying.... and I say that because someone is going to take stronger language less seriously. Forget the fact that you have to enter in time _Daily_. When I say daily, I don't mean that you click on the day, you do the thing and save. I mean that it shows you one day per page at a time. No calendar to quickly go through a week, no monthly review where you can quickly fill in gaps. One page == one day. You can bring stuff over from the last-entered day, but the hours aren't filled in... just the buckets. This leads to an incredibly slow, painful, and frankly uninteresting experience. For a bunch of users who want to do their job instead of fiddling around with tracking how long they've done their job, asking them to use Harvest is basically asking them to make none of their time billable unless threatened with homelessness. It's incredibly painful to use. To be sure, I'm not a fan of time-tracking apps anyway. I akin them to asking your employees to lie to you and giving them a form in which to do it... but Harvest makes the fun of lying to your employer the low-light of your day. It's not fair.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 1/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
You can track your time and expenses from literally anywhere with relative ease. Harvest provides: Desktop apps for Windows and Mac, browser extensions, and mobile apps for Android/iOS.

Cons
There are few small things here and there which don't impact the performance of the product but would be nice to have. For example you can create and send estimates but you cannot convert estimates into invoices. Also, some reports can be very long and they can't be filtered.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
The ease of use is what sold me. It allows me to check in on my team to make sure they're tracking their time appropriately. The two in one invoicing is the other feature that streamlines our process. Plus, the in-depth reporting really helps us understand how we're doing revenue-wise.

Cons
I wish there were a way to put a limit on time tracked in a particular task or project. This would stop some of the issues we have with going over budget. Or a way to see how many hours are left in a task without having to go into the project.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Not only can you track your time for freelance projects and clients, but Harvest also has its own invoicing system so you can easily convert your billable hours to an invoice for the client, rather than using a separate invoicing system.

Cons
The pricing for an individual is really reasonable. It can add up once you go beyond two people, but for many organizations it is still probably worth it.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

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 was great when our company had 3-5 employees and we were a band new start up. The billing features are simple and time tracking is very easy. The software conveniently allows for more sorting and filtering of invoices that other programs I have used.

Cons
Harvest was great when our company had 3-5 employees and we were a band new start up. As we grew, our projects got bigger and more complex and our expenses grew. We tried to integrate Harvest with Quickbooks but the two softwares were hardly what I would call compatible and it made a huge mess. We are having to phase out Harvest now as it just doesn't offer the complex features we need as a growing company.

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

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
There is so much to love about Harvest! First, it works, really really well. You set up your project - and YES projects can have sub-projects - and you start your timer. As long as you can remember to start and stop your timer, this is perfect. Every two weeks, or every month, when you need to send invoices, all you do is "create an invoice" and the software auto-generates the invoice, in as much or little detail as you'd like, taking all your time and translating that into a professional invoice. I love the graphics that help track how much money you are making. AND you can even input what you are spending versus what you are charging, in order to ensure that you are actually charging enough to cover all your costs. There is a great place to input expenses and receipts -- this software does it all, for a quite affordable rate.

Cons
The most challenging thing about this software is that you MUST set it up correctly. Take the time at the beginning to get your rates set, ensure that what is a 'billed' and a 'not billed' expense are correct. At the beginning, I was often accidentally putting time into 'not-billed' tasks, when it was just my mistake in setting up my categories.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Harvest is an ideal time tracking and billing platform for small- to mid-size companies. Individuals track their time in the desired increments, and then can sub-track their time to particular projects or disciplines. For instance, if tracking time for Client A, time can be segmented into "Client A > Project Review," "Client A > Web Development," "Client A > Business Development," etc. It can flex to accommodate multiple professional disciplines, and provides tallies / time breakouts for each user. On the backend, fairly rich data can be gathered from the platform to analyze time distribution and analysis.

Cons
It requires time to setup and administrate multiple users, especially if it's one person doing this job. Additionally, to do it well, it requires a thoughtful plan to provide the necessary taxonomy of clients / projects / billing to be used across the organization. It is not as robust as other big, enterprise-caliber time tracking platforms (like Salesforce), but for an organization <50 users, it's a great solution.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The most important factor is Ease of Use and Harvest shines, the second is its integration with 80 of the top of the line of today's work tools. There are tons of features - we use Forecast and find it invaluable for Team Leaders to scope out their week's work-load and delegate. Thirdly, their customer support is brilliant - no muss, no fuss. The added bonus is that adjusting time at task once the timer has been closed is easy, and did I mention they send a friendly reminder when you've left a timer running? Oh Yes - we do that sometimes too!

Cons
It's hard to think of a really thorny issue - these guys have worked everything together slowly over the years. It's a a balanced appraoch - the Forecast Add-On is slowly expanding and deepening and there will no doubt be features added that a user would like, for example more zoom in and out to break down to week and day. That is about it really - this is solid Dev-Product, not some rushed-out-to-get-Trials company.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
It does what it does and it does it best! Time tracking on projects has never been so easy for our organisation. We have used multiple time trackers, but were never pleased with the wat we neede to register the hours we make for our clients. The mac, windows and iOS/Android apps work great. New projects are available instantly and starting / pausing the time tracker is wonderfully done. Managing the projects, budgets and tasks is really easy and if you like, you can integrate it with Harvest Forecast and plan your team ahead.

Cons
Harvest lacks decent support of monthly retainer 'projects'. It's not a show stopper for us, but it makes us do manual checks of the hours we make for our clients. I would love Harvest Forecast to be part of Harvest by default instead of the invoicing functionalities, since we use other software for that.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I really enjoy using harvest because I do have a team of subcontractors who I need to keep reports of their time. Harvest makes it easy to report time used and set limits on projects.

Cons
I would love it if I could set up monthly recurring projects by date and not just month to month. Sometimes I have a retainer client that starts in the middle of the month and the monthly recurring feature resets at the end of the month, not when it's been 30 days.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10