Ok, I’ve been using TimeSlips for project based billing since the DOS days before the web existed and we’ve always had a love-hate relationship. Actually usually it was usually hate-hate. The interface felt clunky. Even after 15 years of use there were things I could never remember how to do. Maybe it’s me, you say? Well Barb hated it with a passion as well. Back when LineSight, Inc. was using TimeSlips Remote it caused us a never ending stream of pain, but we couldn’t find anything better. We dropped TSRemote for the desktop version, but billing day never rose to the happy day it should be.
I just got a new machine and vowed not to defile its pristine drive with the dreaded TimeSlips. The hunt was on. We weren’t asking for much:
- A Simple, clean interface.
- The ability to define clients, projects and timekeepers who are either employees or consultants without sitting through training and changing our business model.
- The ability to enter time after-the-fact, or in a "meter is running" fashion from whatever device we happen to be on.
- The ability to easily see how much un-billed time we have.
- The ability to easily create invoices.
- We're cheap. This needs to FLOSS or pretty darn inexpensive.
A couple of years ago we helped a client with about 120 remote employees select Journyx, but that was also far to complicated for our needs. Same for Replicon. We did a quick survey of the FLOSS options available and churned through the Wikipedia comparison chart.
Ultimately we stumbled on Harvest. It seems to fit the bill perfectly. Within about 1o minutes we had all of our clients, active projects, tasks, and timekeepers entered. Ok, Barb is going to go back and cut-and-paste client addresses, but really we’re good to go.
We both installed Windows 7 desktop widget installed and Voila ! We’re in business & all set on our 30 day trial. More as the trial progresses…