Harvest
Time Tracking
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Time Tracking App for Ad Agencies

Harvest is the ideal time tracking app for ad agencies, addressing the risk of losing 15-30% of billable revenue due to untracked hours. It offers precise project tracking and flexible billing options.

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How much revenue is your team leaving on the table?

Most agencies run at 55-60% utilization. Even a small improvement means significant revenue. See what closing the gap looks like for your team.

Number of people who track billable time
$
Blended rate across roles (junior, senior, lead)
55%
Percentage of total hours that are billable. Industry average is 55-60%.
75%
A realistic target for service businesses is 70-80%.
Monthly revenue gap $0
Revenue at current utilization $0/mo
Revenue at target utilization $0/mo
Extra billable hours needed per person/day 0h
Annual revenue opportunity $0

Start tracking team utilization

Walk through the entire flow below. Start a timer, check your reports, and create a real invoice — all in three clicks.

Go ahead — start tracking!

One click and you're timing. Try it right here: start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Harvest.

  • One-click timer from browser, desktop & mobile
  • Works inside Jira, Asana, Trello, GitHub & 50+ tools
  • Duration or start/end — your call
  • Day, week & calendar views to stay on top of it all
  • Friendly reminders so no hour gets left behind
Acme Corp
Website Redesign
Homepage layout revisions
1:24:09
Content Strategy
Blog calendar planning
1:30:00
SEO Audit
Technical audit report
0:45:00
Brand Guidelines
Color system documentation
2:15:00
Logo Concepts
Initial sketches round 1
1:00:00
Today's total 6:54:09

The Indispensable Role of Time Tracking in Advertising Agencies

Time tracking is critical for advertising agencies to maintain profitability and transparency with clients. Agencies without robust time tracking systems risk losing 15–30% of their billable revenue due to unbilled hours. This financial leakage underscores the importance of tracking every billable and non-billable hour accurately. Furthermore, approximately 80% of timesheets require corrections, indicating a widespread issue with manual tracking accuracy.

Accurate time data enhances project visibility, prevents scope creep, and facilitates transparent client billing. By tracking time at the task level daily, agencies can ensure that all hours are accounted for, thus justifying rate increases and renegotiating retainers. Harvest is an ideal solution, offering precise project and client tracking, detailed reporting, and flexible billing options tailored to agency needs.

Essential Features of Time Tracking Apps for Agency Success

For advertising agencies, selecting a time tracking app with the right features is crucial for operational success. Key functionalities include granular project and task tracking, integrated client billing, and budget monitoring capabilities. These features ensure that agencies can precisely track time, manage budgets, and generate invoices directly from tracked hours.

Harvest excels in these areas by enabling time tracking against specific client campaigns and projects, ensuring accurate billing through detailed reports. Its integration capabilities with popular tools like Asana, QuickBooks, and Slack further enhance its utility, providing seamless workflows. Additionally, Harvest's support for retainer agreements and milestone-based billing adapts to the varied billing models used by agencies.

Overcoming Time Tracking Challenges in Creative Environments

Creative professionals often resist time tracking, viewing it as intrusive and misaligned with their workflow. This resistance can lead to inaccurate data, with 83% of creatives not tracking time accurately every day. Addressing these challenges requires reframing time tracking as a support tool rather than surveillance.

Harvest addresses these challenges by offering one-click start/stop timers that simplify the tracking process, making it less disruptive. Its ability to categorize time entries by project phases like planning, execution, and review aligns with the nonlinear nature of creative work, ensuring that all valuable activities are captured. By integrating seamlessly into existing workflows, Harvest minimizes friction and enhances adoption among creative teams.

Leveraging Time Tracking Data for Strategic Growth

Analyzing time tracking data can reveal insights into team performance, project profitability, and areas for improvement. Agencies typically observe a 200–400% ROI from implementing time tracking software, underscoring its strategic value. Regularly reviewing reports can help agencies improve future project estimates, allocate resources more effectively, and optimize service offerings.

Harvest facilitates this process with detailed reports on time spent per campaign, enabling agencies to analyze profitability and efficiency. By tracking both billable and non-billable hours, agencies gain a comprehensive view of their operations, allowing them to make data-driven decisions that support growth and enhance service delivery.

Time Tracking for Ad Agencies with Harvest

See how Harvest allows ad agencies to track time across projects, manage client billing, and integrate with essential tools for increased efficiency.

Harvest time tracking app interface for ad agencies

Time Tracking App for Ad Agencies FAQs

  • Time tracking is crucial for ad agencies to ensure accurate client billing, enhance project visibility, and allocate resources effectively. Without it, agencies risk losing 15–30% of billable revenue due to untracked hours, impacting profitability.

  • Look for features like granular project and task tracking, integrated client billing, budget monitoring, ease of use, robust reporting, and seamless integration with other tools. Harvest offers these features, tailored to agency needs.

  • Harvest integrates with popular tools used in advertising such as Asana, Trello, Slack, QuickBooks, and more. These integrations allow for seamless workflows and reduce manual input, enhancing productivity and efficiency.

  • Creatives often view time tracking as disruptive and misaligned with their workflow. This can lead to resistance and inaccurate data. Harvest addresses these challenges with simple, non-intrusive tracking features that integrate seamlessly into creative processes.

  • Agencies can encourage adoption by keeping the system simple, integrating it into existing workflows, and communicating its benefits. Harvest's user-friendly features and seamless integration make it easier for creative teams to adopt time tracking.

  • Harvest supports retainer agreements and milestone-based billing through its flexible invoicing options. This allows agencies to manage billing models specific to their client arrangements efficiently.

  • Yes, Harvest allows agencies to categorize time entries by tasks, such as planning, execution, and review. This feature helps agencies track time accurately across different project phases.