In this buyer’s guide, we compare Harvest with two other best time tracking software tools, Mavenlink and Toggl. We decided to compare these 3 firms due to their excellent customer reviews and solid reputations as good tools for business.
Please note that this program is best for freelancers and specialist businesses like design companies and advertising businesses. For scheduling hourly employees, you’d be better served to look at our Employee Scheduling Software guide. Or look here if you need a completely free downloadable period sheet sheet template.
Best Time Tracking Software For Small Businesses: Harvest
Harvest is the overall best option for small businesses because it offers top-of-the-line features at a reasonable price. It’s over 80 integrations, advanced reporting capabilities, client invoicing, and a considerable amount of support and assistance.
Go to Harvest
Best Time Tracking Software Comparison Table
Harvest |
Mavenlink |
Toggl |
|
---|---|---|---|
Price
Learn More |
$12/month per user | $15/month for up to 5 users for Teams $29/month per user for Project Management with Financials |
$9/month per user $18/month per user for staff time management $49/month per user for company intelligence with Advanced reporting |
Benefits of Use
Learn More |
Easy | Medium | Easy |
Free Trial? | 30 Days | 10 Days | 30 Days |
Records Exact Times?
Find Out More |
No. Harvest records time like a stopwatch and by job, although not with time daily. | No. You are able to devote hours per resource, job, or task. There’s also a punch clock that records time like a stopwatch. | Yes. Toggl records exact start and stop times. |
Reporting
Learn More |
Advanced reporting capabilities – filter by user, customer, project, or subtask. Integrates with sister product Forecast, real time or post mortem. | Advanced reporting capabilities – blockers plus you can run reports in real time or post mortem. | Advanced reporting capabilities – filter by user, customer, job, or keyword label; dash and weekly reports automatic. |
Send Invoices to Clients?
Learn More |
Yes | Yes | No |
Integrations
Learn More |
Integrates with high accounting & project management software, including QuickBooks and Xero (over 80 integrations) | Integrates with Google elements like Drive, Contacts, etc.. | More than 50 integrations, including Salesforce, Freshbooks, Asana, Basecamp, and QuickBooks |
Support
Learn More |
Free email and phone assistance from 8 am-5 pm CST | Free email & live chat 24/7 | Free Twitter and email service |
Website | www.Harvest.com | www.Mavenlink.com | www.Toggl.com |
Best Time Tracking Software For Small Firms: Harvest
Harvest is the complete best choice for small businesses because it is reasonably priced while using top-of-the-line features, including:
- More than 80 integrations, Which Makes It Effortless to work with the systems you already have
- Advanced reporting capabilities, giving you the insight you really need
- Client invoicing, so you don’t fall behind on accounts receivable
- Ample Quantity of support and help
Employing Harvest, you are able to monitor your time and the timing of your assets (e.g. workers, contractors, and freelancers) such as a stopwatch using start and stop times. You can then use that information to make an invoice directly inside the program and ship it to your customers.
Harvest has built in reporting to examine your data so that you don’t have to. You can set hourly and fee-based budgets to monitor your projects’ progress, and you can run reports on billable and nonbillable time for specific employees, tasks, customers, and projects.
Harvest has both digital and live individuals as part of its customer care group, allowing you as the business owner to find out in how that you wish to (online or using a voice guiding you). Harvest’s interface is also easy to read, cheerful in its own vivid orange and orange interface without being tough on the eyes also enables a virtual tour before you sign up for whatever. It also has a free 30-day trial, no credit card required, meaning no hidden fees.
The downsides to Harvest are a few. However, it can lack 24/7 live service, which might be an issue if you’re a small business owner who is a night owl, and in addition, it lacks the capacity to track time daily (it operates like a stopwatch). If you have teams throughout time zones, both of these could be issues.
Go to Harvest
Best All-In-One Time Tracking Software: Mavenlink
Mavenlink is just as it’s explained –a maven or expert–in being a complete small business software system. It allows you to do All the following in 1 program tool:
- Time Tracking
- Project Management
- Accounting
- Business Intelligence Reporting
- Get templates, such as for monitoring PTO
While Mavenlink supplies a complete platform for companies, Harvest focuses on businesses that already have bookkeeping software, project management software, etc.. You can just use the Mavenlink Project Accounting feature if you would like to really hone in on just time-tracking and invoicing.
An all-in-one tool such as Mavenlink has pros and cons. On the other hand, it lets you quickly, effectively, and conveniently complete all business tasks without ever leaving one instrument. On the downside, if you’re trying to find a more incremental approach and already have systems that you prefer for accounting, project management, or business intelligence reporting, Mavenlink is not the ideal choice. It is best for a newer company or a company proprietor who is fully ready to change over to everything being in one area. The biggest advantage is for users who intend to use the software to get all of its features, including accounting. Should you have to brush up on your own accounting, check out our Small Business Bookkeeping and Accounting Guide.
Mavenlink also has exceptional live customer service 24/7 and has a fantastic onboarding procedure; you truly feel like they really roll out the red carpet to help you succeed.
The downsides of Mavenlink are a higher price tag also, of course, it’s a bit harder to understand thanks to all of the bells and whistles. It will also lack time tracking by day, very similar to Harvest, also operates like a stopwatch as well. Finally, Mavenlink lacks any integrations which Harvest offers.
Visit Mavenlink
Best Time-Tracking Software for Ease of Use & Setup: Toggl
Toggl keeps it simple — easy pricing, simple exact time-tracking with start and stop times, and it integrates with over 50 additional systems, making it easy to set up with everything you already have. Toggl is also amazingly easy to learn and won’t take hours away from your team in order to get on board and monitor their time.
However, Toggl will lack the ability to bill, which means that you must integrate some sort of invoicing program or accounting software like QuickBooks. It also has the simplest customer support alternatives and primarily caters to the online learner who can use email or Twitter to get what they need.
But if all you want is a means to keep track of your employee, if they are next for you or across a sea, Toggl is a good alternative and you are able to implement immediately.
Stop by Toggl
In-Depth Overview: Harvest vs. Mavenlink vs. Toggl
This buyer’s guide covers the best time-tracking software from the dozens of options out on the market. Time-tracking software can provide excellent insight into wherever your business dollars are going, with uses which range from decreasing resource inefficiency to exact client billing. While time-tracking applications might appear difficult to set up, these three companies make it easy, and the benefits to your business and bottom line are abundant.
Price
Price will be the most crucial problem for many small business owners, and for time-tracking software, the array of prices accurately reflects the program’s capabilities. While assessing your budget is important, matching the software to your requirements is also.
If you’re the only user, your cost will be reasonable across the board; it is once you put in on users where you may need to do some math.
Ease of Use
Ease of use is a challenging area to write about for this software as it correlates directly to the intricacy of the qualities. We’ll elaborate on the ease of use out of a business owner’s standpoint and from an end employee’s standpoint.
Time-Tracking Ability
The whole purpose of time monitoring software is to monitor your own assets’ (i.e. workers, contractors, freelancers) time (and your own) and to then evaluate if your organization is functioning effectively, if your projects are getting done on time, and if you’re accurately billing your clients for their time.
Note: Not one of our options include place stamping so you can understand where your employees are while they log moment. If you want some choices with that, have a look at this table under.
Report Generation Characteristics
Report generation, although not the sexiest feature, may be the most valuable from the long term for your small business owner. Having the ability to see patterns in how your time is used (and also the time of your resources) lets you make critical changes that impact your bottom line.
Invoicing Capabilities
In the long run, the simple aim of all time monitoring software is to enable you, as the business owner, to see reports about the hours worked by your staff and also to use those reports to invoice clients. You can watch the productivity of individual workers or of your business as a whole. You may also see a breakdown on time spent on each project, which is useful for invoicing.
Integrations
Depending on how long you have been in operation, you might have many other applications elements in place, ranging from accounting software like QuickBooks to project management software such as Basecamp. If you have systems like these in place, you are likely to have to integrate them together with your time-tracking software to prevent double-billing and other troubles.
Mobile App
If you have remote resources, young employees, or a mix of both, you will certainly want a time-tracking software that links to their smartphones, so that employees can track time anywhere. Employees can then also subtly track time whilst on the move or in a client meeting, making your invoicing more precise for time actually spent with a client.
Client Service & Onboarding
Customer support is always important when choosing applications. If you’re paying for a system, somebody should be present to assist you along if you have problems or a fire alarm catastrophe with it. Luckily, all these software tools offer excellent customer service, but in varying forms.
All Time-Tracking Software Options
Harvest, Mavenlink, and Toggl represent the range of the greatest time tracking software currently offered. In our view, they are great examples of the kinds of software available, which range from simple like Toggl to complex capacities like Mavenlink.
There are a number of cases though where using a more specific time-tracking software may better meet your requirements. Or if you’re looking for applications which also helps with scheduling employees, have a look at our article on Best Employee Scheduling program.
We looked at several different kinds of systems when exploring this guide and found that some may meet your company needs better than others.
Here’s the full list of time-tracking software systems we looked at:
Full Time Tracking Software Table
Finest For | Description | |
---|---|---|
Harvest | Overall Use | Intuitive user functions, analytical reports and invoice clients. |
Mavenlink | New Business | One-stop store, includes bookkeeping, project management, time tracking and invoicing. |
Toggl | Simple To Use | Get employees monitoring time ASAP with small training. |
TSheets | Shift-Based Employees | Includes job scheduling, shift swapping and simple payroll. |
ActiTIME | Simplicity | Finest for QuickBooks users because of ease of integration. |
Hubstaff | Freelance-Based Staff | Perfect for companies distribute all over the globe. |
TimeSheets | Time & HR Option Together | A full size solution; HR, time tracking, payroll. |
Paymo | Conventional Project Management & Techies | Perfect for software or web development teams. |
TimeCamp | Remote | Track websites and applications users are spending time on (productivity). |
TrackingTime | Teams Who Need Organization | For teams who need a ladder. |
SpringAhead | Organizations With Varying Time-Tracking Requires | For teams who need multiple time-tracking Modes |
ClickTime | Firms Who Require Straightforward Time-Tracking | Fundamental time-tracking software good for time sheets and real time management |