Harvest vs QuickBooks Time: Full Comparison
Harvest turns tracked hours and expenses into a client invoice you can get paid on. QuickBooks Time tracks hours with GPS and feeds them into payroll.
Free to start. No credit card needed.
Our quick verdict on both tools
Pick Harvest if you bill clients by the hour and want time, expenses, and invoices in one place with online payment built in. Pick QuickBooks Time if your team already runs payroll in QuickBooks and needs GPS-verified hours to feed straight into a pay run and job costs.
Start tracking freeWhat this comparison covers
Harvest and QuickBooks Time are both time tracking tools, compared here side by side so you can see how they differ.
If neither tool fits, TimeTracker is a third option worth a look for teams that want budgets, approvals, and invoicing tied to the same tracked hours.
Compare the two products at a glance
Both tools solve time tracking. Here is what each one includes, side by side.
Harvest
Ties time tracking directly to invoicing: timesheets turn into client invoices with one click, built around the agency billing workflow.
- Best for
- Small to mid-size agencies and consultancies that bill clients hourly and want invoicing built in.
- Pricing
- Free for 1 seat and 2 projects. Paid from $9/seat/mo ($108/seat billed annually) and $14/seat/mo ($168 annually), both with unlimited seats. Harvest's pricing page notes that some features carry usage fees. 30-day trial.
- One-click timers and weekly timesheets
- Auto-converts time and expenses into invoices
- Online payments via Stripe and PayPal
- Two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero
- Project budgets and profitability reports
- 70+ integrations (Asana, Trello, Jira)
- Free plan for a single user
QuickBooks Time
Owned by Intuit and built to sync natively with QuickBooks Online and Payroll, so timesheets and payroll share one data source.
- Best for
- Small and mid-size field service or construction businesses already running QuickBooks Online or Payroll.
- Pricing
- No free plan. Time Premium $20/mo base + $10/employee/mo; Time Elite $40/mo base + $12/employee/mo. Intuit now also sells Workforce Premium and Elite alongside these.
- GPS time tracking with location breadcrumbs
- Geofencing to remind staff to clock in (Elite)
- Scheduling by shift or job
- Mileage tracking for field staff
- Job and project costing
- Native two-way QuickBooks sync
See how they stack up
Pricing, best fit, and top strengths for both tools, side by side.
Pricing checked 2026-07-30. Confirm current pricing on each vendor's site.
Which one fits your team
Choose Harvest when…
You bill clients by the hour and want to send an invoice with the fewest steps.
Harvest turns a tracked timesheet straight into a client invoice, so billing takes one workflow instead of exporting hours to another tool.See how
You want clients to pay their invoice online without a separate step.
Harvest accepts payment through Stripe and PayPal right on the invoice, so a client can pay the moment they see the bill.See how
You want to see if a project is on budget while the work is still running.
Harvest's project budget and profitability reports show planned hours against actual hours, so a losing project shows up before you send the invoice.See how
You track billable expenses alongside hours on the same client project.
Harvest lets you attach an expense to a project and roll it into the same invoice as the tracked time, no separate spreadsheet needed.See how
You already use tools like Asana, Trello, or Jira and want time tracking inside them.
Harvest connects to 70 plus apps, including the project tools your team already runs work through.See how
You want a plan with a free tier before you commit to a paid seat.
Harvest offers a free plan for a single user, so a freelancer or a very small team can try real invoicing before paying anything.See how
Choose QuickBooks Time when…
Your team already runs payroll in QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Payroll.
QuickBooks Time syncs natively with QuickBooks Online and Payroll, so tracked hours flow into a pay run without re-entering them.See how
You manage field crews or job sites and need proof of where staff clocked in.
GPS tracking with location breadcrumbs shows where a clock-in happened, useful for construction and field service teams.See how
You want scheduling by shift or job site included at every plan level.
QuickBooks Time includes scheduling on every plan, so you are not paying extra just to assign shifts.See how
You need job costing tied to hours worked on a specific project or site.
Job and project costing rolls tracked hours into what each job actually cost, useful for construction and trade businesses.See how
Your staff drive between job sites and you need mileage logged automatically.
Built-in mileage tracking for field staff removes the need for a separate mileage log or spreadsheet.See how
You want geofencing that reminds staff to clock in once they reach a job site.
Geofencing on the Elite plan nudges staff to clock in at the right location, cutting down on missed punches.See how
Popular features
Employee time tracking your team will actually use
One click starts a timer, or people type hours in by hand. Every entry ties to a client, project, and task, so the record stays clean.
Explore Time Tracking→Bill for every hour you earn
Mark each entry billable or non-billable while you work. Approved hours roll straight into reports you can bill from.
Explore Billing→See where the time really goes
Break hours down by client, project, and team member. Find the work that pays off and the projects that run over.
Explore Reports & Dashboards→Use cases this solves
Invoicing From Tracked Time
Turn approved hours into a client invoice without re-entering numbers.
Explore→Project Profitability
See if a project is still making money while the work is still going on.
Explore→Billable Expenses
Mark an expense billable, add a markup, and bill it with the tracked hours.
Explore→
Frequently asked questions
- Is Harvest cheaper than QuickBooks Time?
- It depends on team size. Harvest runs about $9 to $11 a seat a month. QuickBooks Time charges a base fee plus about $10 per employee a month, which can cost more for a large field team. See the billing page for how billing plans usually compare.
- Which tool is better for sending client invoices?
- Harvest wins here. It turns a timesheet into an invoice with one click and takes online payment through Stripe or PayPal. See how invoicing from tracked time works. QuickBooks Time is not built for client invoicing at all, it is built around payroll instead.
- Does QuickBooks Time sync with QuickBooks payroll?
- Yes, and that is its main selling point. Hours tracked in QuickBooks Time flow straight into a QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Payroll pay run. Harvest connects to billing tools like QuickBooks Online and Xero too, but for invoicing, not payroll.
- Which tool has GPS tracking for field staff?
- QuickBooks Time does. It logs GPS breadcrumbs on every clock-in, useful for construction and field service crews checking time tracking by task. Harvest does not track location at all.
- Can I track billable expenses in both tools?
- Harvest lets you attach an expense to a project and bill it with the tracked hours, see billable expenses. QuickBooks Time tracks mileage for field staff instead, which is a different kind of expense.
- Which tool shows project or job profitability better?
- Harvest compares budget to actual hours per project, so agencies can see project profit as work happens. QuickBooks Time offers job costing that rolls hours into what a job cost, more suited to construction than agency billing.
- Is scheduling included in either tool?
- QuickBooks Time includes scheduling by shift or job on every plan. Harvest does not offer shift scheduling, it focuses on reports and dashboards around billed hours instead.
- Does either tool have a free plan?
- Harvest has a free plan capped at a single user, enough for a freelancer trying time tracking and invoicing before paying. QuickBooks Time has no free plan at any team size.
- Which tool fits a construction or field service business better?
- QuickBooks Time usually fits better here. Its GPS tracking, mileage logging, and job costing were built for crews moving between sites, see time tracking by task for how that kind of tracking works.
- What if neither Harvest nor QuickBooks Time fits my business?
- Both are solid choices for their use case, but businesses that want budgets, approvals, and invoicing built around the same tracked hours sometimes look at TimeTracker as a third option. Our alternatives page covers more tools to weigh beyond this one comparison.
Still weighing your options?
Harvest and QuickBooks Time both do their jobs well, just for different businesses. See how TimeTracker handles budgets and invoicing instead.
See TimeTracker