User Reviews Overview
About Harvest
Harvest is a cloud-based time tracking tool designed for businesses of all sizes. The solution provides timesheet and invoicing features for small businesses and freelancers. Key features include time and expense management, team...
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- Industry: Design
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Industy-leading Time Tracking and Invoicing
Harvest has benefitted our business since inception. I tested all the tools, and this is the one we use and recommend to everyone we know with a SMB.
Pros
Harvest has the best time-tracking in the industry, their Mac app is perfect for capturing time throughout the day (and even has a built-in notification if it thinks you've left it running and will auto-adjust accordingly if you let it). It also has deep integrations with other Project Management tools that mean you can easily track time wherever you are. And then you have estimates and invoicing - which again, seamlessly integrate with the time tracking functionality to make your life easy.
Cons
It'd be great if they had an estimate to project function that could auto-setup a job when an estimate is approved. Currently this is the only manual feature. Retainer reports are also a little confusing as they don't obviously isolate actual payments from retainer balance updates.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Weekly for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Harvest -Cutting Through the Noise of Time Tracking software
I was searching for something different from the usual behemoth of time-tracking software that we've used and become familiar with over the years. I wanted something new—smart and efficient—that would suit a small team while covering the fundamental needs we cared about. That's when I first discovered Harvest.It's overwhelming to think about the sheer number of apps and software options available, and it’s easy to get lost in the process of choosing one. You could almost need a separate suite of tools just for that purpose alone. But once you cut through the noise, you can find something truly great amidst the whirlpool of options.
Harvest excels in its simplicity and intuitive design. The interface is clean and user-friendly, making it easy to navigate and start tracking time right away. One feature that stood out to me was the ability to track time across multiple projects simultaneously. This is particularly useful for those juggling various clients or tasks and was one of our requirements.
Pros
The integration with other tools like Trello, Asana, and QuickBooks is seamless, allowing for a more streamlined workflow. Additionally, the reporting feature is robust, providing detailed insights into how time is spent, which is crucial for billing clients and managing productivity and what not.
Cons
While Harvest is great overall, it has a few drawbacks. The most significant one for me was the limited functionality of its mobile app. While it works well for basic time tracking, some of the more advanced features, like detailed reporting and invoice generation, are better suited for the desktop version. Depends on what year are you reading this things ofcourse might have gone better.
Additionally, the pricing structure might feel a bit steep for freelancers or small teams, especially when compared to other time-tracking tools that offer similar features at a lower cost. However, comparing features alone doesn’t always capture the full experience of how smoothly the software works in practice.
Response from Harvest
Thank you for your kind words! We're so glad Harvest feels intuitive and that you're getting good insights out of our reports. I've also noted your feedback on our mobile app and pricing for the rest of the team.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Simple tool to get started but lacks potential to scale
Its a simple product that can be quickly setup and used for simple time tracking and invoice generation.
Pros
Ease of use. Theres basically nothing you can do wrong.
Cons
The small amount of functionalities and the lack of customization possibilities.
Response from Harvest
Thanks for the compliments on our ease of use! I've noted your interest in more customization for the rest of the team.
Top Harvest Alternatives
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
A great time tracking/invoicing platform for people new to freelancing – or seasoned pros.
I've been using Harvest for well over a decade now, and I have no plans to switch. It's been with me through my first steps testing the waters of freelancing to going freelance full time. I make heavy use of the macOS app, which makes it easy for me to track my time throughout the day. And I rely on its invoicing and reporting features to get paid quickly and easily. What's not to love?
Pros
Harvest is easy to use, streamlined, with just the features I need and none of the features I don't. I primarily use it for time tracking and invoicing for my freelance business. There are enough configuration options for me to customize my time tracker and invoices for every client, and it takes just a minute or two to set up clients and send invoices.
Cons
Recently I've moved toward a monthly invoicing cycle, and there is no way for Harvest to automatically generate an invoice on the first of the month for all of the time tracked in the previous month. It's a small annoyance to make/send the invoice myself but a little more automation here would be welcome.
- Industry: Computer Software
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
High quality timesheet tool
Pros
Quality. The UI is very slick; they've really gone deep on how people use the product. Things like keyboard shortcuts and supporting regular vs decimal time when entering timesheets are a real time saver.
Cons
Some of the month-by-month project reporting requires paging through each month. It would be nice to see several months in one view.
Alternatives Considered
Toggl TrackReasons for Switching to Harvest
At the time, down to integrations with Xero.Response from Harvest
Thanks for the compliments on our UI! I've noted your feedback on our reporting for the rest of the team.
- Industry: Design
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
The interface looks a bit dated
Harvest is a great choice for freelance graphic designers looking for a simple and effective tool to manage their time and billing
Pros
Intuitive interface for tracking time on each project, eh? Powerful tools to generate professional invoices, and the price is right, bud
Cons
The interface could be a bit more modern, hey? And some advanced features require a paid subscription
Response from Harvest
Thanks for the kind words! I've noted your feedback on our UI for the rest of the team.
- Industry: Telecommunications
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Easy to Use!
Overall, I enjoy the platform for how efficient and easy to use it is.
Pros
It is easy to use and user friendly, even to those who have never used the platform.
Cons
There is currently no way to link tasks to specific user roles, however that is not a major issue.
Response from Harvest
We're happy to hear it's been so easy to use Harvest for you and your team! I've noted your feedback on tasks and teammates for the rest of the team.
- Industry: Accounting
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Easy to use - custom reports makes it easy to generate internal insights
I find Harvest easy to use, we use it to track time working on clients' files. Internally I use the reports to analyze how I use my time, and give myself benchmarks to improve.
Pros
It's easy to use. Time stamps can be adjusted. I LOVE the reports functionality, you can pull reports in a lot of different ways.
Cons
I can't think of any drawbacks to Harvest.
Response from Harvest
Thanks for the kind words! We love to hear how people leverage their reporting insights.
- Industry: Real Estate
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Great Platform for Self-Employed
Overall, Harvest has been great! I’m glad I found it for tracking my contracted time.
Pros
I love the invoicing option within Harvest.
Cons
Wish I could name projects the same name just with different codes
Response from Harvest
Thanks for the kind words! Harvest started as a tool to help our founders track their time and invoice clients for their two-person business, and we love hearing about other small businesses and self-employed folks finding us.
- Industry: Public Relations & Communications
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Weekly for 1+ year
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Review Source
Really helpful tool
Great experience, really helpful way to track time spent against different clients, workstreams or projects. Fantastic for teams with billable hours or looking to understand where team time is being spent.
Pros
Really easy to track your time against multiple clients and projects.
Cons
There is a limited amount you can do on the free version, but would recommend the paid version as it is really helpful for tracking.
Response from Harvest
Thanks for your wonderful review! We love hearing how Harvest helps keep work running smoothly. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback via https://www.getharvest.com/contact.
- Industry: Graphic Design
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Timetracking and Invoicing Made Easy
In general, I have been very happy with this product. When we originally were researching time tracking and invoicing software this one rose to the surface and it has remained one of the leaders in this space. Having said that, it's not cheap, particularly if you need multiple people on it, so there are definitely options out there that cost less and or are free if that is what you are looking for. It does also provide some integration with Quickbooks that others likely don't have.
Pros
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.
Cons
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.
Alternatives Considered
QuickBooks OnlineReasons for Switching to Harvest
Harvest was simply the best and cleanest designed and most intuitive and user friendly of all of the options that we researched with all the necessary features but not a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles that would be meaningless to most individuals.- Industry: Oil & Energy
- Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Good information about time worked
It was a fairly fluid collaborative experience, but I think we needed more development on the part of the program, in fact we like that the program can do time tracking things and serve as a collaborative space so that we can have more development in the team.
Pros
We spent a long time using Harvest with the development team, it gave us an order of the order of time that we carried out in the work group, it had a good way of measuring what we did, it had real tracking in which you started by turning on the PC and finished turning it off. This somewhat automated the records.
Cons
Extremely basic reports, we believe that it was necessary to obtain more than just time and tasks in the report but rather to obtain access indications of collaborators and in the parts when entering each collaborator who made it, perhaps we needed a little more from harvest.
- Industry: Information Services
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Time and expense tracking and billing
I used Harvest stand-alone when I started my business. A few years ago I took my accounting online with Xero so I explored many of the time-tracking apps that integrate with it. After less than a year, and countless other apps, I returned to Harvest because I've found nothing easier. I create invoice drafts in Harvest and copy them to Xero for final billing. It's simple, fast, goes deeper if you need it, and is reasonably priced.
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.
- Industry: Financial Services
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for Free Trial
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Review Source
Harvest Review
My experience with Harvest software has been positive. The software provided robust time tracking and invoicing capabilities, which greatly aided in project management and billing processes. The intuitive interface made it easy to track time and generate accurate invoices, ensuring transparency and accountability. The seamless integration with other popular productivity tools enhanced the overall efficiency of our workflow. Although there were limitations in the reporting capabilities of lower-tier plans and occasional performance issues with the mobile app, the overall value and usability of Harvest software were commendable. It played a significant role in streamlining our time management and billing processes, contributing to improved productivity and client satisfaction.
Pros
One of the things I liked most about Harvest software was its comprehensive time tracking and invoicing features. The software provided a user-friendly interface that made it easy to log hours and track time spent on different projects. The ability to assign specific tasks and set project budgets helped in managing and allocating resources efficiently. The invoicing functionality was also impressive, allowing me to generate professional-looking invoices based on the tracked time and expenses. The integration with popular payment gateways made it convenient for clients to make payments online, streamlining the billing process.
Cons
One thing I liked least was the limited reporting capabilities in the lower-tier plans. Advanced reporting features, such as custom reports and deeper analytics, were only available in the higher-priced plans. This made it challenging to analyze project data and generate in-depth reports for detailed insights. Additionally, the mobile app had some occasional performance issues, such as syncing delays or occasional crashes. However, these issues were not frequent and did not significantly hinder the overall functionality of the software.
- Industry: Market Research
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Good for time tracking purposes
Overall I found the software very straightforward and easily navigable - was able to use it for its intended purpose, and found that it made time tracking a lot more efficient and simple.
Pros
I used Harvest mainly for time tracking purposes at a past place of employment, and found the interface to be very easy to navigate. We were easily able to integrate corresponding tasks to the specified amount of time (ours was tracked on a minute by minute basis, so 0.7, 0.22, 0.59 etc). I also found it extremely handy to be able to have a stopwatch feature to track time when there are longer tasks (such as a meeting or a project that will take several hours in one stretch).
Cons
As mentioned above, though I found the stopwatch feature to be very efficient, it's not extremely practical for any role where you're touching multiple different projects at any given time (ex. an account or project manager). For a designer, this feature would be perfect. It would be interesting to see whether the same concept COULD be applied to a project management type job. Additionally, I found that it is extremely easy to forget to actually STOP the stopwatch feature, so more often than not I found myself with a task that ran over 500 minutes long because I forgot to manually adjust the feature. It may be helpful to implement some sort of feature that has a pop-up effect after 30mins or an hour, asking the user if they're still working on the specific task (like they do with some movie streaming services).
Response from Harvest
Thanks for taking the time to leave a review.
I'll take note of your feature suggestions as our product team is consistently assessing how the product can improve. I definitely can see how a popup timer would be useful.
Thank you for your trust in Harvest!
- Industry: Financial Services
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Effective and reliable time tracking
Harvest has helped us simplify and streamline our processes while maintaining security and organization. This platform is a solid choice for any company looking for an easy to use and secure platform for time tracking.
Pros
I like its intelligent approach and the ability to track our time, expenses and billing in detail. Harvest gives us a clear view of our resources, allowing us to make informed decisions and stay in control. I also value the security it offers, with measures such as two-factor authentication and data encryption, giving us peace of mind in protecting sensitive information.
Cons
It needs to improve its ability to generate customized reports. Sometimes, we run into limitations when we want to customize reports to fit our needs exactly.
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great Tool for Tracking Time & Resources
Positive - they were a great solution for a company at our size at the time.
Pros
We used Harvest at our company for multiple years - it provides a great option for the team to track time across multiple projects and ensure project management and billing have hours for billable reference. It's cost is accessible to many organizations and the functionality works as expected.
Cons
Their native reporting didn't meet our needs so it required us to pipe this data into our data warehouse to then create our own visualizations, insights, dashboards, BI systems, etc. We began to outgrow Harvest due to additional needs outside of Harvest's core offering. Our financials were also in a different system which didn't allow us to utilize the billing features to their full potential
Reasons for Switching to Harvest
Cost- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Harvest is great for time tracking and billing within small/mid-size companies
I've used Harvest as an employee to track my time. Additionally, I have done data analysis on exported information from the platform to predict time requirements and resource allocation across a mid-sized workplace.
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.
- Industry: Computer Software
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for Free Trial
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Review Source
Elegant, Clean and Valuable Time Tracking App - A Staple Product
This is a very clean, simple appearing, a non-intrusive app which is actually a very solid and powerful platform. It has the potential to be an indispensable part of modern project-based businesses.
Well, the answer is, this basic time tracking app solves several problems all at once. First of all, Harvest is available on all your devices and computers so, whenever you need to track time...voila there it is. It is super easy to set up and use, zero learning curve needed. It's nicely organized by client, so each project gets placed where it belongs. It has idle time detection to prevent inaccuracies. There are several options for arranging your time-based fees and you can even include your billable expenses. The information is not trapped in Harvest platform so you can import and export clients, invoices and other info to your other systems easily.
You can easily send email invoices directly from your time-keeping records and accept payments online with integrations. In addition to budgeting time, you can also track expenses for each project in order to stay on track, both financially and time management-wise. This software plus Forecast gives you the potential to be increasingly accurate with time estimates for your clients.
Once you take into account all of the software integrations and the API, you really have a valuable central point to manage your business. It helps that this software was developed by a team that had to solve these problems themselves. The company also seems to have good stewardship of the business in social justice and community arenas. I have not yet used the mobile app or API but I am definitely a fan of Harvest!
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
- Industry: Accounting
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Harvest ypur time accurately and simply
We like the Orange and White - I know its petty, but in a world of grey-ed out infinitesimally small typeface UIs, Harvest is blunt and to-the-point. After all, who needs Team Members making errors with your TIME!
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.
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Best for Simple Bookkeeping and Time Tracking
I literally couldn't run my business without Harvest. It makes bookkeeping so easy, even in two currencies.
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.
- Industry: Computer Software
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Data and information is power, and Harvest helps capitalize on better understanding company...
Working with Harvest has been an overall positive experience because it helps us keep track of billable/nonbillable hours and analyze how our company time is spent. This data has already given us insights into policy changes that maximize performance, profit, and output.
Pros
* The API is easy to work with and works well. * We use Harvest for billing/invoicing, and it saves HR/accounting lots of time.* It gives us data on billable/nonbillable work hours we have been able to examine to restructure the way we work on projects to reach our financial goals. We've already seen progress towards these goals and we could not have made these realizations without Harvest.
Cons
The 'payment type' (i.e. net 15, net 30, custom, etc.) is set static at a default--having the ability to customize this per client would be very helpful.Its sales tax functionality is quite limited, even with Quickbooks integration.The desktop Harvest app is a little 'buggy', but nothing that we can't work around.
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Tracking Time is a Breeze
For our small agency, this helps us manage our time and budgets, and makes it easy to pull reports, run detailed invoices, etc. We've been using this app since 2014 and have never had a reason to look for another.
Pros
Harvest is extremely easy to use. It requires no special training in order to get in and get to work. It's easy to edit your entries (i.e. start one project and hop to another, add and edits notes, etc.) I appreciate that it lets me know via email if I've accidentally left my timer running, so I can fix it. I get weekly time summary reports so I can see where my billable time has been spent. And I can run reports to see how much time overall has accrued on each project. I used to be spotty at completing timesheets, but this app makes it easy to do. Our small marketing agency does a great job now of tracking time, which has enabled us to negotiate project costs with clients more accurately.
Cons
There is nothing that is difficult to use.
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Excellent price & functionality was exactly what I needed
My experience with harvest was exceptional. The only reason I turned it off (recently) was because I wanted an all-in-one solution and went to Quickbooks - that eliminated some cost and centralized everything. I also no longer had the need for time tracking, which was a huge value and reason for me using Harvest.
Pros
Easy to use. Very intuitive and was easy to track my time with clients & then to issue invoices. It was reliable, I never had any problems with it not working as expected. It integrated with Quickbooks nicely, which was a huge plus.
Cons
I didn't love the cost to add additional users. In general, the cost for 1 person was quite low, but it felt expensive to then add on additional users.
Alternatives Considered
Zoho Expense- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Time tracking that fits perfectly with Asana
The fact that it is only in English made the learning progress a little less fluid. I think the UX leaves room for improvement, already. But I find it useful and we use it steadily.
Pros
The integration with Asana saves us much time: Harvest recognises the project, task type and name of the task and introduces them on the tracking for you.
Cons
I’m using Mac and this doesn’t work on Safari (it does in Chrome, however).