Move from Harvest to Hourbun
By Fred Wu, maker of Hourbun · Checked · Report a mistake
The short answer
Hourbun imports a Harvest account in one step. An owner or an admin pastes a Harvest Personal Access Token in Settings, Import. Hourbun reads the account, checks the whole import and shows a preview, and the import brings the teammates, clients, projects with their budgets, time, expenses with their receipts, invoices with their payments, and estimates.
Steps
- Make a token in Harvest. In Harvest, open Developers and create a Personal Access Token. Use the account of a Harvest Administrator: a token of another user cannot read the company, and Hourbun stops before it reads anything else.
- Open the import. In Hourbun, open Settings, then the tab Import, and choose Harvest under "Import from".
- Connect. Paste the token into Harvest Personal Access Token, then press Connect. If the token has several Harvest accounts, choose the one to import, then press Continue.
- Choose what comes. To take only the newer records, set an Import from date: the time entries, expenses, invoices and estimates before it stay in Harvest, and open or draft invoices come anyway. Keep Import past invoices on to bring the invoices, drafts and payments; with it off, the time that Harvest billed comes over as billed elsewhere.
- Check the account. Press Check the account. Hourbun reads the account with read-only requests, then runs the whole import and rolls it back. You can close the page: an email says when the check is ready.
- Read the preview. It shows the verdict, what comes over (in Harvest, added, already here and left out), the money check by currency, what does not come over, and what needs you. A Must fix item stops the import: correct it in Harvest, then press Start again.
- Import. Press Import and confirm. The result lists what came over, with links to the clients, the time and the invoices.
After the import
- The teammates from Harvest are Not invited and get no email. Invite each one from Team when you are ready: an invitation needs a free seat of your plan.
- Hourbun deletes the token after its last read, and the result says when you can revoke it in Harvest.
- Hourbun copies no imported invoice to Xero by itself.
What stays in Harvest
- Recurring invoice series: the import doesn't bring Harvest's schedules, so set each one up again as a recurring invoice in Hourbun. The preview names each series.
- The balance of a retainer: Hourbun keeps no retainer balance, and the preview names each one.
- Reminders that Harvest has scheduled: Harvest still sends them, so turn them off there.
- With an Import from date, the open billable time and the open expenses before the date: bill them in Harvest first.
Questions
Questions and answers
Does the Harvest import change my Harvest account?
No. Hourbun reads the Harvest account with read-only requests and writes nothing to it. Do not change Harvest during the read: a record that is deleted during the read can be missed.
Can I move only my recent Harvest data to Hourbun?
Yes. Set an Import from date: Hourbun then imports the time entries, expenses, invoices and estimates from that date, and every open or draft invoice. Clients, projects, tasks and teammates always come in full.
Does the Harvest import email my clients or my team?
Hourbun sends no email to the teammates that it imports. While the invoice reminders of the workspace are on, Hourbun sends its reminders for the unpaid invoices that it imports, and the preview says how many get them.