Harvest
Key Info:
Harvest is a cloud platform for tracking project time, monitoring budgets and turning approved work into invoices and operational reports. It is designed around project-based businesses and provides web, desktop, mobile and integrated timers without positioning employee screenshots, website monitoring or GPS surveillance as part of the product.
Details
Recording project work
Team members can run timers or enter hours in timesheets against clients, projects and tasks. Notes and billable status add context, while reminders help address missing submissions. Harvest applications cover browser, desktop and mobile workflows, and integrations can start timers from project or communication tools. The vendor explicitly states that it does not record screens, websites, messages or GPS activity.
Budgets, capacity and profitability
Project budgets can be expressed in hours or fees and compared with recorded work. Managers can review who is over or under capacity and use cost rates to examine project profitability. The separate Forecast product extends resource scheduling, so buyers should distinguish native Harvest controls from capabilities that require that companion service.
Invoices and reporting
Time and expenses can be converted into invoices, sent to clients and tracked through payment workflows. Reports summarise hours, billable value, costs and team utilisation across projects and clients. Accounting and payment connections can reduce re-entry, but finance teams should test tax, currency, write-off and reconciliation requirements rather than assume an invoice handoff equals a complete accounting process.
Who should evaluate it
Harvest is a strong candidate for agencies, consultancies, studios and other professional-services organisations that link hours with budgets and client billing. It is intentionally more focused than a workforce-monitoring or payroll suite. Field-service companies needing geofencing and organisations with complex labour compliance should evaluate those requirements separately.
Evaluation notes
Set up a live-like client with a fixed-fee project, a time-and-materials project, several rates and an expense. Have users track from their normal devices, submit corrections and create a draft invoice. Reconcile reports with a manual control sheet. Verify permissions around cost and billable rates, approval or locking behaviour, currencies, integrations, API, data export, SSO, retention and the boundary between Harvest and Forecast.
Decision evidence
Record the tested workflows, measured data gaps, plan-specific dependencies, policy decisions and named operational owner in the selection file. This turns a short demonstration into evidence that can be revisited during implementation and renewal.