How to switch from Harvest without losing your history

Your time entries and invoices are your billing record. Moving them to a new tool is safe if you treat it like moving accounts: back up first, protect what has been billed, and check the totals before you let go of the old system.

Take a full backup before anything else

Before you change a thing, export what Harvest lets you export: clients, projects, tasks, people, time entries, expenses and invoices. Keep the files somewhere that doesn't depend on the old account. If you ever need to answer a client query about work from three years ago, this is the copy you'll rely on.

Count what you have

Write down the numbers: how many clients, projects, people, time entries and invoices, and the date range they cover. Note archived projects, people who have left, projects billed in more than one currency and any with a fixed fee. These are the places a move goes wrong, and you want to know they exist before you start.

Protect everything that has already been billed

The worst result of a switch is invoicing the same work twice. For every time entry that Harvest has already put on an invoice, make sure the new tool knows it has been billed. Ask any tool you're considering how it handles this, and how you can check it did.

Keep old figures as they were

An invoice from last year was calculated with last year's rates. A new tool shouldn't recalculate it with today's. Keep each project's original currency and the rates that applied at the time, and treat any tool that reprices history as a risk.

Choose a cutoff date

Pick a date, usually the start of a billing period, when everyone starts tracking in the new tool. Before then, finish and invoice the old period in Harvest. After it, nobody enters time in Harvest. A clean cutoff is easier to check than a gradual change.

Check the totals against the source

After the move, compare the two systems rather than trusting that it worked:

• Hours for each month, for each project and for each person.
• Billable and non-billable hours.
• The number of invoices, and their totals in each currency.
• A handful of old entries, picked at random, found in both places.

Any difference should be explained before you rely on the new records.

Run both for one billing cycle

Keep Harvest read-only for a full billing cycle after the switch. If a total doesn't match, or a client asks about an old invoice, you can look it up. Cancel only when you've reconciled one cycle and you're holding your export.

Where Hourcove will fit

Hourcove isn't built yet. It's planned to read your clients, projects, time entries and invoices from Harvest without changing anything there, show you how they will map, keep invoiced time marked as billed and compare hours and billed totals with your source before you switch. Join the early-access list to hear when it opens.