Getting Started with Harvest: Setup
This guide will walk you through setting up your Harvest account for your business's specific needs.
This guide is for Harvest administrators and project managers and takes approximately 10-15 minutes to go through.
1. Adding Tasks
The first thing you will want to do is to set up some tasks for which you want to track time for. Tasks in Harvest should be high-level, for example: Design, Flash, Front-end Programming, Sales.
To add tasks, click on Manage > Tasks. Note that you can make a task a "Common Task" so that it will automatically be added to any new projects. Go ahead and add a few tasks that are relevant to your business.
2. Adding People (optional)
Harvest really shines when you aggregate timesheets from multiple users. The hours are effortlessly recorded and reported. To add additional users to your Harvest account, click on Manage > People and then the "Add person" button. Follow the on-screen instructions and you will be able to get your team on board in no time.
Note: Harvest will automatically send welcome emails with login instructions to new users upon creation.
3. Adding clients and projects
Next, create a project to track time on. Navigate to Manage > Projects and click on "Create project." Note the dialogue here will allow you to also create new clients on the fly should you need to add a new client while you create your project. The project code field is optional and is handy to use if you use a project code currently. Once you submit, you will be presented with the project detail settings screen.
Basic information: Change the settings for "Bill project by" and "Estimate by" if you want to take advantage of Harvest's rate calculation and estimates features.
Tasks: The tasks you added as common will show up here as part of the project by default. If you want to create additional tasks for the project, you can do so right here.
People: Here is where you assign any users you have in the system for this project.
Remember to click on the "Save project settings" button when you are finished editing.
4. Additional Settings
To wrap up your quick set up process, jump over to Manage > Account Settings. Here you can set some account-wide settings such as the format of date and number displays.
If you have any further questions about this section, please contact us and we'll be happy to help.