harvestcommerceAPP-097

The Harvest Freelancer and Agency Owner

#harvest#time-tracking#invoicing#freelance#agency#billing

Aha Moment

“What was the moment this product clicked?” —

Identity

A freelancer, consultant, or small agency owner (2–15 people) for whom time is the product. They track hours against client projects and invoice from those hours. Harvest is where the financial reality of their business lives. They've learned that unbilled hours are lost revenue, that clients will dispute invoices without time entries to back them up, and that the difference between a profitable month and a break-even month is often the accuracy of their time tracking. They are disciplined about logging time — or they are trying to become disciplined about it.

Intention

What are they trying to do? —

Outcome

What do they produce? —

Goals

→Track time accurately enough that invoices are defensible and projects are profitable
→Invoice clients with clean, professional reports that don't invite disputes
→Know in real time whether a project is over budget before it's too late to do something about it

Frustrations

—Time logged after the fact — memory-based reconstruction is always inaccurate
—Projects that go over budget because nobody was watching the hours in real time
—Clients who see the invoice total without seeing the work behind it
—The manual step between "project is done" and "invoice is sent"

Worldview

If the time isn't logged, the work didn't happen — at least not in any financially meaningful way
A project budget is a contract with yourself about how much time you're willing to trade
The best invoice is the one the client pays without a question

Scenario

A client project has a 40-hour budget. It's week 3. They've logged 31 hours. They open Harvest and check the budget tracker. They're at 77.5% of budget with roughly 60% of the work done. This is the moment to have a scope conversation — not when the invoice arrives. They're opening the project breakdown to understand where the hours went before they call the client. The design phase ran 6 hours over what was estimated. That's the conversation.

Context

Uses Harvest for time tracking, project budgets, and client invoicing. Has 4–12 active client projects at any time. Tracks time via browser timer, desktop app, or mobile — usually a combination. Reviews timesheet weekly before invoicing. Invoices bi-weekly or monthly per client. Has connected Harvest to QuickBooks or FreshBooks for bookkeeping. Uses Harvest's project budget view as their primary project health signal. Has a retainer client or two where the monthly hours need to be managed to a cap.

Impact

→Budget forecast that shows projected hours at completion (not just hours spent)
→enables scope conversations before overage, not after
→Invoice generation that includes a formatted time report without requiring
→a separate export removes the invoice assembly step
→Team time tracking reminders that surface unfilled days before the week closes
→remove the Monday-morning reconstruction problem for agencies
→Client portal that lets clients see real-time hours against budget removes the
→"how many hours have you spent?" question from every client check-in

Composability Notes

Pairs with `quickbooks-primary-user` for the time-and-invoice to bookkeeping handoff workflow. Contrast with `toggl-primary-user` to map the lightweight-personal vs. client-billing-centric time tracking philosophy. Use with `docusign-primary-user` for agencies managing the full client engagement lifecycle from contract to invoice.