A custom alternative to Harvest

The starting point

The company used Harvest for time tracking and invoicing. Heading into the next year, they were looking at a license fee of just over 30,000 SEK. So they asked whether I could build something equivalent instead.

What I built

We built a system of their own for time tracking and invoicing. It mirrors what they were used to in Harvest. At the same time it’s tailored to their business and the way they work, something an off-the-shelf product could never give them.

The difference shows in the details. A standard tool is built to fit as many companies as possible, and you adapt to it. A system of your own can be built the other way round, around how you already work.

The result

The yearly license cost is gone. On top of that, they now have a developer who can maintain the system and build special features as their needs change, something Harvest could never offer. And they save time in their day-to-day work.

This is the same trade-off I write about in the article on Jobber vs custom software. Renting a ready-made tool used to be almost always cheaper. With AI as part of the build, that has changed, and for many businesses software of your own ends up cheaper over a few years than the subscription they already pay for.