When it comes to managing your business finances, two popular software options are Harvest and QuickBooks.
Both platforms offer powerful features that can help you streamline your accounting tasks, but there are some key differences to consider.
In this article, we’ll take a detailed look at Harvest vs QuickBooks and help you decide which one might be right for your business.
Overview of Harvest
Source: Harvest website
Harvest is an online time tracking and invoicing software that’s designed to help businesses stay organized and save time. It offers a variety of features, including:
- Time tracking: Harvest allows you to track the time you spend on different projects and tasks, making it easy to bill clients accurately.
- Invoicing: You can create professional invoices in Harvest, customize them with your branding, and send them to clients directly from the platform.
- Expense tracking: Harvest lets you keep track of expenses related to your projects, such as travel costs or office supplies.
- Project management: You can use Harvest to manage your projects, assign tasks to team members, and track project progress.
Overview of QuickBooks
Source: QuickBooks website
QuickBooks is a comprehensive accounting software that’s designed to help businesses manage their finances. It offers a range of features, including:
- Invoicing: QuickBooks allows you to create and send invoices to clients, as well as track payments.
- Expense tracking: You can track expenses related to your business, such as office rent, utilities, and equipment purchases.
- Financial reporting: QuickBooks provides a range of financial reports, including profit and loss statements and balance sheets.
- Payroll management: You can use QuickBooks to manage payroll, pay employees, and track taxes.
Comparison of Harvest vs. QuickBooks
Now that we’ve covered the basics of each platform, let’s take a closer look at how Harvest and QuickBooks compare in terms of features and functionality.
1. Time tracking and invoicing
Both Harvest and QuickBooks offer time tracking and invoicing features, but there are some differences to consider. Harvest’s time tracking feature is more robust, allowing you to track time by project, task, and team member. It also offers a timer feature that makes it easy to track time as you work.
In terms of invoicing, both platforms allow you to create professional invoices and customize them with your branding. However, Harvest’s invoicing feature is more streamlined and easier to use, making it a good choice for businesses that don’t need advanced invoicing features.
2. Expense tracking
Both Harvest and QuickBooks offer expense tracking features, but QuickBooks’ expense tracking is more comprehensive. With QuickBooks, you can track expenses related to your business, including office expenses, travel expenses, and equipment purchases. Harvest’s expense tracking feature is more focused on project expenses, making it a good choice for businesses that need to track expenses related to specific projects.
3. Project management
Harvest is designed to be a project management tool, with features that allow you to manage projects, assign tasks, and track project progress. QuickBooks doesn’t offer the same level of project management functionality, making it a better choice for businesses that don’t need these features.
4. Financial reporting
QuickBooks is a more comprehensive accounting software than Harvest, offering a range of financial reports that can help you track your business’s finances. Harvest doesn’t offer the same level of financial reporting functionality, making it a better choice for businesses that don’t need advanced reporting features.
5. Payroll management
QuickBooks offers payroll management features, allowing you to manage payroll, pay employees, and track taxes. Harvest doesn’t offer these features, making it a better choice for businesses that don’t have employees or don’t need payroll management functionality.
Looking for Another Alternative? Try Time Analytics!
Time Analytics is a newer addition to time tracking software solutions. This lightweight and user-friendly platform manages to offer a rich toolset for businesses of all sizes.
The application makes time tracking as simple and quick as possible, without distracting the employees’ workflow. Hence, their focus can be on completing tasks, rather than the time tracking process.
The platform offers high-quality reports capable of helping any business go forward in its endeavors. It also has a time off tracking suite that enables teams create schedules based on availability.
Time Tracking
Time Analytics’ time tracking suite features two methods. The first one is manual, and the second includes an automatic time clock.
Managing time manually is comprised of creating time entries for each task the employee is interacting. This will prevent the company from ever missing out on a billing opportunity again.
The time clock is extremely simple to use. All the employees have to do is choose a task from a list and click the Start button. Once they’re done with that task, they can simply click Stop.
In both cases, the logs are transferred to timesheets. These documents represent an accurate proof of work for all employees.
Timesheets
Timesheets lie at the application’s heart. These documents contain all collected information, both from the manual entries and automatic time logs.
You can move, copy, and edit entries to keep accuracy at the highest level. they are meant to help all organizations reduce the time they spend on repetitive administrative tasks.
You can make the timesheets even more effective by creating templates. Namely, the application allows users to curate their own reports by marking their most important metrics as mandatory.
The documents can be filtered. In other words, the managers can find any specific piece of information in a matter of seconds as well. The app offers two timesheet views – daily and weekly.
Project and Client Reporting
Are you looking for a way to understand all the components of your company’s operations? You can’t do that without considering your contrasts.
Time Analytics allows you to do just that by delivering client and project reports. these visual charts show exactly which contracts are more favorable than others.
Check profit generation and discover high and low-performing clients and projects. Then, you can find a way to renegotiate the terms of their respective contracts to become more profitable.
Keep an eye on the billability charts to find demanding clients. Then, depending on the situation decide whether you’d like to keep collaborating with them or not.
Performance Reports
Of course, you cannot keep your business afloat without understanding how your team works. That is why Time Analytics offers employee performance reports.
Using these reports will help you understand your team without hovering over your team members’ shoulders. In other words, the system is micromanagement-proof.
The employee reports can point you to the actions you need to take to keep your team members happy. For example, you will immediately see if an employee is struggling with their workload.
Then you can distribute the work a bit differently, or transfer an employee who has some free time to help their coworker. This way, you’ll be able to avoid burnout.
A Billing Assistant
Sometimes, our clients can forget what we actually do for them. Our services can seem like another item to pay for, while they don’t see the effort and expertise behind them.
This is why Time Analytics offers a way to remind them. Namely, you can create an invoice appendix that will account for all activity that went into any project.
These documents can contain as much or as little information as you’d like. Simply edit the reports to show only the relevant data. This prevents you from overwhelming the clients with an abundance of unnecessary information.
Export the documents in a matter of seconds and send them to the clients along their bills. Each time entry includes the employees’ hourly rates, which helps justify your pricing as well.
Time Analytics Pricing
The platform offers two convenient plans for any organization’s budget.
- Project and client time tracking, timesheets, time utilization and automatic cost allocation – $5.99 per user per month with the Starter plan
- Invoicing assistant, revenue reports, personalized onboarding, and email reminders – $8.45 per user per month with the Optimum plan
Which one should you choose: Pricing Overview
