Harvest
Time tracking and invoicing tool for service businesses.
About Harvest
Harvest is a time tracking tool with invoicing built on top of it. Each day, team members log hours against specific projects and clients; at billing time, those hours convert directly into invoices without manual re-entry. Expense tracking with receipt capture sits alongside time logs, so a single project record captures both labor and out-of-pocket costs. Profitability reports then compare budgeted hours against actuals, showing which client engagements are generating margin and which are quietly losing it. It fits solo practitioners and agencies of up to roughly 50 people who bill primarily by the hour and want one place to run timers, review team utilization, and send invoices. Bookkeeping firms with straightforward retainer or hourly billing structures get real value here. Syncs with QuickBooks and Xero so invoices posted in Harvest appear in your GL without duplicate entry. It is not a practice management system. There is no client portal, no task or workflow management, no document storage, and no engagement letter tooling. Firms that need those features alongside time tracking will find Harvest too thin and will end up running it next to a second tool. It also lacks trust accounting, WIP reporting at the depth that larger accounting firms require, and any kind of staff scheduling beyond basic capacity views.
Best for
Service businesses and agencies wanting to track billable time and invoice clients from one platform
Key Features
- Billable hours tracking with project allocation
- Automated invoice generation from tracked time
- Project profitability analysis and reporting
- Team capacity planning and utilization tracking
- Expense tracking with receipt capture
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Timer runs in the browser or mobile app and allocates hours to a specific project and task in one click, reducing the end-of-week time reconstruction that kills billing accuracy.
- Invoice generation pulls tracked hours directly into a formatted invoice, eliminating manual hour tallies before client billing.
- Project profitability reports compare fee budgets against hours spent in real time, so you can spot an over-serviced engagement before it closes.
- Two-way sync with QuickBooks Online and Xero posts invoices and payments to your GL automatically, avoiding duplicate data entry.
- Team utilization dashboard shows capacity by person across active projects, useful for spotting who is under- or over-allocated before a deadline crunch.
- Expense tracking with receipt photo capture keeps project costs consolidated in one record alongside labor hours.
- Free plan supports one user and two active projects, giving a solo practitioner a genuine no-cost entry point before committing to paid tiers.
Cons
- Free plan caps at two active projects, which is too restrictive for most practicing accountants within weeks of onboarding.
- No workflow, task management, or client portal features — firms that need those must run a second tool alongside Harvest, increasing total software cost and context switching.
- Reporting depth is limited: WIP aging, realization rates, and write-down tracking are not available, which disqualifies it for mid-size accounting practices that report on those metrics.
- Per-seat pricing adds up quickly at the team level; at 10 or more users, the monthly cost becomes comparable to full practice management platforms that include the features Harvest lacks.
- No native trust accounting or retainer management, so firms handling client funds need a separate system.
- Data export is basic CSV; migrating historical time and project data to another platform later is a manual, time-consuming process.
Ledger Brief Take
This is fundamentally a time tracking tool that happens to generate invoices, not a comprehensive practice management system. Works well for firms billing primarily by the hour, but lacks the deeper accounting workflows and client management features that most practices need. The project profitability reporting is genuinely useful for understanding which engagements actually make money.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions accountants ask about Harvest.
How much does Harvest cost, and is there a free plan?
Harvest offers one free plan for a single user with up to two active projects. The paid plan runs $12 per seat per month (billed monthly) or $10.80 per seat billed annually. There are no tiered paid plans — every paying user gets the full feature set. At 5 seats that is $60 per month, at 10 seats $120 per month.
How does Harvest integrate with QuickBooks and Xero?
Harvest connects directly to QuickBooks Online and Xero without needing Zapier. Invoices created in Harvest sync to your accounting ledger, and payments recorded in Harvest update the corresponding invoice status. The sync is one-directional for invoice creation — you manage the invoice in Harvest and it posts to QBO or Xero, not the other way around.
Is Harvest a good fit for accounting and bookkeeping practices?
It works well for sole practitioners or small bookkeeping firms billing purely by the hour who want clean time-to-invoice workflows. It is not a fit for practices needing client portals, engagement management, WIP reporting, or workflow automation. Those firms should evaluate dedicated practice management tools like Karbon, TaxDome, or Canopy instead.
How does Harvest compare to Toggl Track?
Toggl Track is a closer competitor in the pure time tracking category and costs less at lower seat counts. Harvest's edge is the native invoicing and QuickBooks or Xero sync, which Toggl Track does not offer natively. If you need invoicing from time logs without a separate billing tool, Harvest is the stronger choice between the two.
Is time tracking data in Harvest secure?
Harvest uses TLS encryption in transit and AES-256 at rest, with data hosted on AWS. It supports two-factor authentication and has a SOC 2 Type II report available on request. For most small firm use cases this is adequate, but firms with strict data residency requirements should confirm AWS region settings directly with Harvest sales before committing.
Can Harvest handle project budget tracking, not just time logging?
Yes. You can set fee or hour budgets per project, and Harvest tracks spend against those budgets in real time. When a project hits a configurable threshold — say 80% of its budget — it sends an automatic alert. The profitability report then shows budgeted versus actual hours and fees across all projects, which is genuinely useful for identifying which client engagements are and are not profitable.