For small agency owners, there’s often too much to do and not enough time to do it. Particularly when there’s a team to manage, owners become multi-tasking machines. 

But are you always confident you and your team are spending your time wisely? Are your projects moving along at the right pace — and are you billing enough for the time that’s truly being spent on them?

Fortunately, there’s an easy, effective way to track your time and bill your clients accordingly —  Harvest software! 

Integrating Harvest time tracking software into your workflow processes allows you to easily capture the time spent on each project. With Harvest, you can gain valuable insight into what’s running smoothly, what’s not, and where you might be losing your most precious resource — time. 

Harvest has built a massive customer base of more than 70,000 businesses spanning several industries including creative services, web development & IT, and management consulting. Well-known brands and businesses like VaynerMedia, Columbia University, and Hashrocket all attest to the value Harvest tracking has brought to their workflow.

What Is Harvest Tracking?

You may have built a great team that stays on task and produces quality work. But even the best team can lose valuable time jumping from task to task without a way to track their movement or improve their processes. 

Harvest’s time tracking feature is the solution to overcoming this exact challenge.

When you have multiple projects underway simultaneously, the software allows your team to log their time spent on each project. With data compiled from both current and completed projects, the software enables you to generate reports that provide insight into:

• How to pinpoint the scope of work and pricing for future projects

• Which projects are profitable and which aren’t

• When your team is running too lean for your workload and it’s time to expand

Consistent data allows business owners to learn from past projects, stay on track with current projects, and more accurately estimate and tackle future projects. As you’re aware, knowledge is power. This knowledge empowers not only you as the leader of your organization, but also the team members you count on.

Features of Harvest Software That Help Your Team

Harvest software is so much more than just a time tracking tool. The program enables you to interpret your data to make high-level decisions about budgets, capacity, efficiency, and systems. Built-in invoicing and payment processing make it a breeze to bill your clients accurately and collect payment right from the software. 

The key features of Harvest that benefit any small business include:

• Time tracking

• Reports and analysis

• Invoicing and payments

Time Tracking

Tracking your time is a habit that takes some getting used to just like any other new habit. With that in mind, Harvest has made it as easy as possible for multiple team members to incorporate time tracking into their routines. 

Harvest can be used across devices allowing your team to keep up with time-tracking via desktop, browser, and mobile. Wherever they’re working, Harvest gives your team the real-time tracking support they need, no matter what kind of device they’re working on. 

Plus, built-in custom reminders are available as a backup for team members to remember to track their time until the habit becomes second nature.

Reports and Analysis

Collecting data is useless if you can’t discern what the data actually means. Harvest generates easy-to-read visual reports so you can see exactly how your budget is impacted by the time and expenses allocated to a particular project. This helps ensure you’re protecting your profit margin. 

And in cases where you see that profits aren’t what you had projected them to be, you can make adjustments to your process for future projects. Harvest’s data analysis features provide valuable insight such as: 

• What tasks are negatively impacting your costs

• Team members who may be stretched too thin and others who are being underutilized 

• Which projects bring in the highest profits and which aren’t worth pursuing in the future

With the data you glean from Harvest tracking, you can use those insights to make more informed decisions about pricing, team members’ roles, workflow processes, and more.

Invoicing and Payments

Harvest has even gone one step further than tracking time and generating valuable reports. With all that data in one place, you can easily take that information and create accurate invoices to send to your clients when you’ve hit a milestone or completed a project. Your clients get to see exactly what time and expenses went into the work your company provided.

Online payment options make it quick and easy for your clients to pay their invoice once they receive it. A streamlined process you can follow from the very beginning of a project all the way through to the end is a game-changer for workflow.

Getting Started With Harvest

With robust integration capabilities, Harvest makes time-tracking effortless for your team members. Asana, Slack, Quickbooks, and Paypal are just a few of the many popular tools Harvest can seamlessly integrate with.

Extensive member services and customer support are available through the website to help new users every step of the way. Harvest also offers expert tips and has written several guides to help you determine things like how to price your projects, using time tracking to avoid burnout, and more. 

You can get started with a 30-day free trial to see how the Harvest software works for you. Once you see how easy it is to incorporate the software into your workflow, affordable monthly payments are available. The pro version is a steal at $12 per month and allows for unlimited users and projects.

Partner With Lamplight Advisors to Help You Make Important Decisions for Your Small Business

At Lamplight Advisors, we help small businesses and creative agencies save time and increase productivity by implementing the right systems to collect and analyze data. If you want to nail your numbers and make informed decisions so you can grow your business with confidence, click here to schedule a conversation today.