Harvest Review 2020

Item: Harvest
Rating: 9.4
Author: Jonathan Kerns

Founded by Danny Wen and Shawn Liu in 2006 in downtown New York, Harvest was originally conceived for the couple to find a way to easily track time and services, since they were running a web design studio called Iridesco. They tried to search for an existing program that is well designed and took user experience to a serious level, but to no avail. Finally, they decided to create one themselves, and thus, Harvest was born.

Today, Harvest boasts of thousands of customers in over 100 countries, with over $13 million in invoices sent and paid thru their service. With 40,000 businesses giving their trust to this brand, you know you can't go wrong in giving it a try. If you want to learn more about Harvest, read on!

See Our Other Top Picks

Jonathan KernsFebruary 24, 2019

Pros

Superb time-tracking features: More than an invoicing program, Harvest is primarily a time-tracking software, which is why you will find their functions in this category more in-depth and extensive than other billing software. Once you have selected a project, you can already start tracking the time you've spent without having to fill-up form after form of information. You can also add notes on your track while it is still ongoing. The greatest advantage of this feature is that it records time up to the last minute- other invoice softwares simply tag this hourly since this is the rate most businesses charge by.
Send invoices from your smartphone: Nowadays, most businesses aren't necessarily contained within the four walls of an office. Harvest understands this, which is why they are offering their services in mobile app form. You can continue creating and sending invoices, tracking project timelines and managing expenses from your smartphone. Their free downloadable app is available both for iPhone and Android users.
Referral program: Sharing is caring, and Harvest gives a lot of value for this. They are offering a reseller program where in you spread the good word about their time tracking and invoicing software to your clients and both of you will receive discounts. Once your referral signs up for a subscription, they will get a custom coupon code from you for 50% off their first month, while you will earn a 15% revenue share for the first year of each customer’s subscription. Amazing, right?

Cons

No saving option for products and services: Other invoice software brands give you the ability to save a specific product or service so you can just select it from a drop-down menu when creating your invoice. Unfortunately, this feature is not available in Harvest. You can only pick either product or service from the list, and specify the details in the description field. It would have been more convenient to have this option to give the client an idea on the specific item in one glance, rather than having to read the whole description.
Single invoice template: Another disadvantage of Harvest is that they offer only one kind of invoice template, which is utilized for all their plans. It would be nicer to have other options in your sleeve just to have diversity and creativity in your invoices, since they are also one way of corresponding with your clients. However, their invoices still carry simplicity and professionalism with its standard look, which is really the main requirement for any decent business which sends out invoices.

Pricing and Features

Harvest offers three kinds of subscription plan: Solo costs $12 per month and includes access for 1 user (with up to 2 additional accounts), unlimited clients, projects, and invoicing. Basic plan costs $49 a month and offers all the same unlimited services as with the previous plan with access for 5 users (with up to 5 additional users). Lastly, the Business plan costs $99 per month and starts with 10 users, with the same unlimited services plus unlimited additional users. For Solo and Basic plans, each additional user entails an added cost of $10 per month.

Aside from the previously mentioned features, all the plans include multi-currency support, enhanced security (SSL encryption), available customer support, importing and exporting of data, mobile apps and widgets, and daily back-ups. You can also create cost estimates for your clients for easier transaction processing, and they can instantly approve them online so you can get going with their requested task right away. In case of extra expenses incurred for a project, you can attach receipts and other documents to each expense for a more accurate and reliable monitoring. There is no option to attach these into your invoice, though. It is strictly for you and your team’s benefit.

Ease of Use

Creating an account at Harvest is easy as 1-2-3. Just enter your name, company, email, preferred password, and company size, then set your preferences for currency, date and number format, and specify your company’s industry, and voila! You are ready to make your first invoice or project set-up.

Making an invoice is pretty simple and straight-forward. Upon clicking New Invoice, you will be prompted to enter your client’s name, and whether you will be basing the invoice on your tracked time and expenses (where you can incorporate your monitoring and go straight to the other details) or have it in free-form. You will then enter the usual details like invoice number, issue date, due date, currency, tax, discounts, and of course, the breakdown of fees.

Unfortunately, Harvest does not offer a products and services storage where you can save a specific item early on and have them listed in the drop-down menu so you can just click away. You can only select between product or service and manually enter the details in the description section. There is no specific terms and conditions section, but they do have a notes field where you can add any additional remarks applicable. Lastly, you can save the invoice to have a quick preview, from which you can continue editing, mark as sent, duplicate, create recurring, delete, or send the invoice. This is the tricky part though, clicking send will prompt a new page for the email contents, only upon clicking Send Invoice a second time will it truly be sent.

Customer Support

If you need certain questions and clarifications about Harvest’s features, you can check their support page which contains categorized topics discussing the ins and outs of each service. They also offer video tutorials in this section. Should you need further assistance, you can leave a message on their contact page, send them an email, give them a call, or connect with them via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Their customer support team is available from Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM EST. An indicator showing whether their office is currently open or closed can be seen right beside their schedule.

Free Trial For 30 Days

Do you want to have a peek of Harvest to check the full experience but don’t want to spend yet? They are offering a 30 day free trial that opens all of their services in project management, report generation, and invoice creation. The restrictions for the trial is that there can only be one main user, 4 saved clients, and up to 2 projects. Nevertheless, you can still enjoy adding other people into your team, and you can opt to assign all listed projects, or only selected ones. Also, they don’t require your credit card information upon signing up for this trial, so you can be sure that it is absolutely free. Plus, for more assurance, you won’t find any footnotes stating automatic charging when the period has expired. You really won’t find any excuse not to give it a try, so sign-up up now!

What's the Verdict on Harvest?

Worth It, Some Issues