Akollo vs Harvest
Akollo vs Harvest: when to choose which
Harvest is a focused tool for tracking time and billing clients. Akollo tracks time too, but around it plans the projects, staffs them with the right people and shows what the work costs.
At a glance
Akollo and Harvest, area by area
- Built in
- Paid add-on, price in the cell
- Not offered
| Area | Akollo | Harvest |
|---|---|---|
| Projects, boards and timelines | Built inBoards, backlogs, sprints, timeline and approvals. | Not offeredProjects, tasks and clients for tracking and billing; no boards or Gantt. |
| Time tracking and timesheets | Built inTimesheets with approval, plus a desktop app that measures time. | Built inTimers and timesheets; approval on the Enterprise plan. |
| Resource and capacity planning | Built inPlanned against available time, per team and period. | Paid add-on, price in the cellHarvest Forecast is a separate product. |
| Budgets and profitability | Built inBudgets, cost rates, budget vs actual and profitability. | Built inProject budgets and rates; profitability reports on Enterprise. |
| HR basics: people and time off | Built inEmployee records, org chart, leave requests and approvals. | Not offeredNo leave or employee records on Harvest's feature pages. |
| CRM: accounts and pipeline | Built inAccounts, contacts, pipeline and activities. | Not offeredClient and contact lists only. |
| AI assistant | Built inAdmins decide who uses it; it answers within each person's permissions. | Built inHarvest AI assistant, in beta and off by default. |
| Self-hosting on your own servers | Built inOur cloud, or your own data centre or cloud account. | Not offeredHarvest says it cannot be hosted on your own server. |
| Product in Turkish | Built inTurkish, English and German, written natively. | Not offeredHarvest says its interface is English only. |
| Choice of where data is stored | Built inSelf-hosted, the data stays where you install it. | Not offeredHarvest says data is stored in the US. |
Where Akollo is different
Hours are where it starts, not where it ends
Harvest answers how long things took and what to bill. Akollo also answers who should do the work next, and whether they can.
- 01
Plan the project, then track it
Boards, backlogs, sprints and a timeline sit on top of the same tasks people log time on. Planned and actual hours meet in one place.
- 02
Capacity that knows about leave
Employee records, the org chart and leave approvals are part of Akollo, so the capacity view shows who is really available next week.
- 03
Approval on every timesheet
Managers approve, send back or lock weeks, and approved hours are priced with cost rates against the project budget.
- 04
Your servers, your language
Run Akollo in our cloud or in your own data centre, in Turkish, English or German. The AI assistant works within each person's permissions.
To be fair
When Harvest is the better fit
Harvest does one job very well. If that job is all you need, a bigger product is not an improvement.
- Agencies and freelancers who track time mainly to invoice clients
- Teams that pay through Stripe or sync invoices to QuickBooks Online or Xero
- You want to try it on a free plan before anything else
Moving over
Bring your Harvest history
Harvest exports time and project reports to CSV. Akollo imports project and task lists from CSV, up to 5,000 rows per file, with a dry run first.
- 01
Export from Harvest
Export your projects and tasks from Harvest as a CSV file.
- 02
Map the columns
In Akollo, match each column to a work item field. A key column updates items you imported before.
- 03
Dry run first
See how many items would be created, updated or skipped before anything is written.
- 04
Move team by team
Start with one team, add timesheets and capacity, then bring the rest across.
Questions about Harvest and Akollo
Is Akollo a Harvest alternative?
If you need time tracking together with project planning, capacity and HR basics, yes. For simple tracking and invoicing alone, Harvest is a focused choice.
Does Akollo send invoices?
Akollo prepares billing from approved work, with budgets and profitability, and hands it to your accounting system, which stays the book of record.
Finance in AkolloCan people track time automatically?
Yes. Besides manual entries, an optional desktop app measures time on the computer under your organisation's recording policy.
Desktop agentSee your hours turn into a plan
We will show tracked time, capacity and budgets in one view, on your own projects.