Making the Move to Harvest

After I just talked about making a big move last month, it looks like I'm doing it again.

Last month I talked about a client who I was moving from QuickBooks desktop to QuickBooks Online. I'll be writing more about that in the future, but now I'm facing another move.

One of my clients is moving from FreshBooks to Harvest. I very briefly tested it out a year or so ago, but otherwise I have no experience with it. It's focus is similar to that of FreshBooks. They specialize in time tracking and invoicing. So, the question is; why are they making the switch?

The move has nothing to do with the bookkeeping side of things. This is a very project-focussed business, and apparently Harvest has better project management than FreshBooks.

My initial reaction was to throw a tantrum like a 4 year old. Apparently I'm getting into the grumpy old man stage of life. I've spent a long time tweaking the system to work just the way I need it to, so I wasn't looking forward to a change.

But here we are.

I did a bit of research into Harvest. There are a couple things I don't like about it, but at the end of the day the benefits for the team far outweighed any minor complaints I had.

< rant >Fellow bookkeepers, let me talk to you for one quick second. It doesn't have an AR Aging Report. A friggin' AR Aging Report! How do you build an invoicing system and not include a way to display a simple report of what clients owe you money...broken down by age? It just doesn't make any sense. < /rant >

Ok, deep breath...

So, in the next few months I'll be reporting back with my impressions. My initial thought is that it's going to be different. Not better or worse, just different.

If any of you have used Harvest before, please let me know your thoughts. If you have been wanting to check it out, feel free to ask me questions. I'm happy to guinea pig this for you, so just leave a comment with "Hey, does it do __?" and I'll find out.

Wish me luck.