Management Software

How It Works

Harvest is a simple, nicely designed app for tracking time and sending invoices. You sign up, log in, and start using it. Nothing to install, nothing to maintain. It organizes things by Project first, with Clients and Tasks underneath.

The Fit

• Easy to learn, easy to use. You could be up and running in an afternoon.
• Invoicing included. Create and send bills right from the app.
• Nothing to install or maintain. It just works.
• Your data can be exported anytime.
• Built in reports with custom filters: hours by project, by client, by task. Can be scheduled to run and send automatically.
• Reports follow Harvest's structure, so you can't report by property or by stay separately. It's all grouped by project.
• It has Client → Project → Task, but there's no way to add a Property or Stay level. It's one level short of how your business is organized.
• You can't add new fields or customize the structure. What you see is what you get.
• It's organized by project, not by client. There's no way to pull up a client and see everything underneath them at a glance.
• No subcontractor tracking at all. Sub costs go in as expenses with their name in the description. There's no way to pull up a sub and see everything they've done.

Making It Work

You'd use Clients for property owners, Projects for properties or stays, and Tasks for job types like "Plumbing" or "Cleaning." Subcontractor names would go in the notes. It works, but you're squeezing a four level structure into three levels, so some things won't line up perfectly.

Daily use is simple. The tradeoff is that reports and organization won't quite match how you think about your business.

What It Costs

Honest Assessment

Harvest is a genuinely good app. The time tracking is best in class, invoicing works out of the box, and you could be up and running today. Day to day effort stays flat and predictable. The tradeoff is that when you hit something it can't do (filtering by sub, reporting by property), you work around it manually, and that workaround stays manual forever.

How It Works

ERPNext is a business management app. "ERP" stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, which really just means it tracks clients, projects, subcontractors, costs, and invoices in one place instead of using separate apps for each thing.

It runs online through Frappe Cloud, so there's nothing to install on your computer. You log in through your browser, like any other website.

The Fit

• Clients come first. Pick a client, see all their properties, stays, and costs in one place.
• Deep enough for your structure: Client → Property → Stay → Task.
• Subcontractor management included. Keep track of who you work with, what they charge, and manage their work through work orders that stay connected to properties and stays throughout the app.
• Tracks what subs cost you and what you bill clients, so you always see your margin.
• Standard services (cleaning, inspections) can have preset rates that fill in automatically. No retyping the same number every time.
• I can add bespoke screens for Property and Stay that feel like they've always been part of the app.
• Built in timesheets with a weekly entry view for batch logging. When you're ready for live tracking, quick tagging by property or a connected timer app are both options.
• Reports that match your structure. Hours by property, costs by stay, sub spend over time. I can build whatever views you find yourself wanting.
• It's a bigger app than Harvest. There's more to learn upfront.
• It has features you'll never use. I'll hide those so they're not in your way.
• It's not "sign up and go" like Harvest. I'm more than happy to handle setup, but technically you would be hosting your own site on Frappe Cloud. Their system is very well tested and automated, there should be zero maintenance on it.

Making It Work

I've already set up a test version to make sure this approach works. The basic flow of stays, properties, tasks, costing all works. What's left is building the real thing: polished, permanent, and tailored to you.

From your homepage, click "New Stay," pick the property from a dropdown, and it fills in the owner for you. When you add a task, you pick the subcontractor and the rate, and the cost flows through to the client's bill. Invoicing is simple, and will be custom built for you.

Your homepage will only have what we put on it, and it could be anything from properties and owners to add a new stay or invoice all owners. Once I'm confident the bespoke work is stable, we'll sit down and go through your whole workflow. What do you need to see? What can go? The system gets tailored to exactly how you work.

What It Costs

Honest Assessment

ERPNext asks more of you upfront. There's a learning curve, setup takes time, and it's a bigger app than you need out of the box. But every new problem can be solved once and stays solved. Need to filter by sub? I build it, it's there forever. New report? Same thing. The effort spikes when something new comes up, but it doesn't stay manual.

The flip side of Harvest's simplicity is that its limitations are permanent. ERPNext's complexity is front loaded: it gets easier over time instead of staying the same.

You'll have your own account at $5/mo. Frappe Cloud handles backups, updates, and all the server stuff. I'll do the initial setup and stay available if anything needs adjusting down the road.