If you have been with us for a while, you know that Harvest supports a timesheet approval workflow. This means timesheets submitted by employees can be approved by project managers or administrators to ensure the time is properly recorded. While this is an invaluable feature for some operations, this can be extra noise for smaller teams and solo users. So starting today, you can navigate to Manage > Account details to turn this feature off if it’s not necessary for your business. If the approval process is working great for you, you don’t need to worry about a thing.

We hope some of you will find this new option helpful, and let us know if there’s anything else we can do to further improve your Harvest experience!

Note: If you’re on our new Solo plan (i.e. you became a subscriber in March of 2008), the approval feature has been automatically turned off for your account.

We’ve released some major additions to the Harvest API this morning: you can now access, add, or update your expenses and invoices via the API. Check out the latest documentation for more details.

On a related note, if you are working with the Harvest API in Ruby, you may want to take a look at Brian Cooke’s Ruby wrapper for Harvest. Thanks for creating a convenient Ruby wrapper for Harvest, Brian!

If you’re working on projects with the Harvest API, we’d love to hear about it!

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One of our goals here at Harvest is to make sure we build a service which plays well with the other services your business might use. Our extensive API allows businesses to plug their existing infrastructure into Harvest’s time tracking and invoicing capabilities while also allowing third-party developers to also integrate their service with us. Recently, we’ve seen some wonderful integrations from third-party services which can add to your Harvest experience: from help desk service, to source code repository, to accounting services and more. Take a look at the new Harvest Platform page dedicated to software and services that work with Harvest.

We recently re-launched the Harvest blog to align its design with Harvest site’s new look. Under the hood, we moved the entire blog over from Typo (a Ruby on Rails blog engine which has seen better days) to the brand new WordPress 2.5 engine. This means you can now comment on our posts to let us know what you think about the tidbits we bring you here on the Harvest blog.

You can expect more small business stories, productivity tips, behind-the-scenes scoop, and general Harvest announcements. Sign up for our feed via RSS or subscribe to these updates by e-mail on the right-side of the screen.

Thanks and stay tuned for exciting announcements in the coming weeks.

We’re proud to release an integration with the popular messaging service, Twitter. You can now log expenses and stop running timers on Harvest while on the go right from your mobile phone via Twitter.

Read about the Harvest and Twitter integration.

If you’re already a Twitter user, follow Harvest on Twitter for off the cuff updates from Harvest headquarters.

Upgrade your free or trial Harvest account during the month of April and save $5 off the first month of your Harvest subscription. Simply use the coupon code APRILUPGRADE when you are submitting your payment information and we’ll take $5 off your first bill.

Give the new Harvest (time/expense tracking with invoicing) a spin and save on an upgrade!

With the latest Spring Update comes a change to Harvest’s pricing structure.

What does this mean for current users?

There’s more to Harvest for the same price you’ve been paying. If you are a current subscriber of Harvest, you simply continue to pay what they have been paying with much of the new updates added to your account. The only new feature not included is the invoicing module, which can be activated for your account starting at an additional $3/month for Solo plans and $15-$20 for Basic and Business plans. A free trial of the invoicing feature is offered to all current subscribers so you can see if it’s right for you. Lastly, current subscribers now also have the ability to purchase additional users one at a time instead of 10-packs. More details on this below.

For new customers

New customers of Harvest already have invoicing capabilities built-in. The complete time tracking & invoicing package starts at $12/month for the solo user, and goes up to Business plans that can support as many users as you need. See the complete pricing chart.

Buy additional users one-at-a-time

All plans now allow you to purchase additional users $5-$10 per month depending on your plan. So no longer would you have to buy 10 users or upgrade from Solo just to add one or two extra people to your current plan! And as you’d expect, when you remove the additional users you added to your base plan, your plan price will be adjusted accordingly.

If you have any questions, just let us know via support. Thanks for using the Harvest!

This month’s Harvest New Founder named themselves after the one-believed mythical creature, Giant Squid. But unlike the deep-ocean squid of tremendous size, this St. Paul Minnesota design studio is small and nimble. As you’ll find out from the following interview with the Squid’s founder, Reid Peifer, his studio has giant-size ambition and plans. In less than a year of existence, Giant Squid Industries have completed several online projects, made a few amazing silk-screen prints, created a couple of brands, and amidst it all, found time and given back to the community. We’re proud to have GSI as part of Harvest New Founders Program, and hope you enjoy the interview.

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This is a handy little feature to manage your tasks.  Go to Manage > Tasks.  Click on any task - you’ll see a little trash icon next to the task name.

The trash icon does 2 things: if you have not tracked any time under this task, it’ll let you remove the task entirely.  If anyone in your account has tracked time towards the task, then it’ll offer you the option to archive the task.

What does it mean to archive a task?

First, you won’t be able to track time to that task anymore.  Second, you won’t be able to add that task to any projects.  If you change your mind - simply go to Manage Tasks, click on “Manage archived tasks”, and you’ll be able re-activate them.

There’s a new section for managing your clients and contacts.

Go to Manage > Clients, and you’ll find all your clients listed out in alphabetical order. Next to each client name you’ll see two links – “Edit” and “Add contact”.

Edit – edit the client’s name and contact info.

Add contact – add a client contact (you can add however many as you’d like). When creating an invoice for the client, you’ll be able to choose from these contacts to send the invoice to.

The Manage Clients section also serves as a light, easy-to-use address book, and with that in mind, we display email and phone numbers for each client contact for quick access.