Overview
You want your clients to trust that you are putting in the effort and not just squandering the time you bill them for. By tracking your time accurately, you not only bill more accurately, but you focus your energies, and get more done. It’s just a proven fact that when you start keeping track of time, your efficiency goes up. You can send your clients invoices without any guilt, or worrying if what you’re billing them for is justified.
The Claim
The main claim to fame for Harvest is that you’ll be able to keep track of employee and contractor time more easily, and more accurately, getting more done, wasting less money, and getting more for your money.
The Hype
The hype for Harvest comes from how quickly they are rising, and how many different companies they interact with to help use their service. Most of the products and services you might already use in your business are compatible with Harvest, making it seem like a no-brainer to have them as your time tracking solution.
The Cost
You can try Harvest free for a full month, and if you’re a one-man or one-woman organization, with just one client, you can stay on their free plan indefinitely. If after a month you find that it’s working out for you, and you want to stay on, they have pricing plans that start at just $12 a month for a small-sized business, and go up to $80 for the whole shebang.
The Commitment
Evaluation
We started up our own account to track how much time we spend on our own projects. In fact, we are tracking how long it takes to create this page, as we are creating it. The interface is really intuitive so far. We were able to get signed up, create a project, and start timing in, well, no time. What we’re most interested in is seeing the graph of how much time we spend over the coming days and weeks, and getting a visual representation of how effective we are compared to how much time we’re spending.
They’ve really got a lot of different ways for you to manage your Harvest account. The iPhone app will work for many people, but they also have a Chrome Add On, Google Apps integration, as well as syncing up with Basecamp, an Android app, and even Twitter integration so you can tweet your time on and off.
What People Are Saying
Harvest is getting good reviews from multiple sources, which is creating a buzz about it. They keep making improvements on it, and you can expect they will continue to do so as new technologies emerge. For example, their smartphone app keeps getting new versions released with fixes and extra features added. All of the reviews for their different functionalities are well-received, getting 4 and 5 stars from most users.
We’re impressed with Harvest and have to say it works. Clean interface, intuitive controls, and just the right amount of bells and whistles to make it powerful but not cluttered. The apps for it make it really handy to track time from just about anywhere, and you can use their website as your command center and everything is all synced up with it. In just a few seconds you can scan things and get a quick idea of how things are doing, and what trends are occurring. You’ll get a snapshot of your business’ pulse and it can help you make strategic decisions.
Our Recommendation
Give Harvest a try, definitely. It might revitalize your business, if time tracking has been slowing you down. If you like it, the prices are pretty reasonable, especially when considering the alternatives, and when keeping in mind that tracking your time should actually save your business money, or help you make more of it. It scales with you, so as your business grows you won’t have to panic when you start adding more employees.
If you have problems with saving money and keeping track of your spending habits then…
When you are looking for space-saving multi-purpose shelving products, you may want to purchase the…
Today's innovative advanced technologies have created many conveniences. The ability to read on the go…
Experiencing the luxury of owning a wireless speaker is a favorite of many people. The…
Home decor is a very individual and personal choice. A new product like Chasing Paper…
Keeping track of events and goals may be difficult for some people. Purchasing a product…
View Comments
As someone who works online, this is an interesting product to me. I usually work so that I get paid by what I produce, not how much time I spend on it, but there are a lot of hourly online jobs that I always wonder about. One website said it would take pictures of your screen as you work, so monitor how much time spent is actually on the project, but that creeps me out. Something like this would be a great idea, and it would allow people to be more productive when they know they're on the clock. I would definitely think about trying this product.
I'm a web developer and have been using Harvest for a few weeks now.
Not only has it helped my productivity, but by tracking my time properly i realised i was actually undercharging some clients.
I've signed up to one of their paid plans and won't be looking elsewhere. Easy to use and saves a lot fo time (that's what it's all about isn't it?)