Migration guide

Switching from
Harvest.

Practical walkthrough — no marketing fluff. Most teams complete the move in under an hour. Here's exactly what to do.

The 6 steps

  1. 1

    Export your Harvest data

    In Harvest, go to Reports → Detailed time → Export CSV for the time period you want to bring over. Separately export your Clients list and Projects list from their respective screens. You'll get three CSV files.

  2. 2

    Add a user-email column to the time CSV

    Harvest's time export identifies people by name, not email. Tempough's importer matches on email so it can't map names ambiguously. Open the time CSV in a spreadsheet, add a column called user_email, and paste each person's work email next to their name. Five minutes for a small team.

  3. 3

    Sign up and invite your team

    Create your Tempough workspace and invite team members at Settings → Team. Their emails need to match the user_email column from step 2 before you import time. Tempough is free to evaluate — you don't need to pick a paid plan until you actually want to bill or run team reports.

    Tempough signup screen where you create a new workspace
    Step 3a — Create a Tempough workspace.
    Tempough Settings → Team invite-staff modal with sample row
    Step 3b — Invite teammates. Emails must match the user_email column.
  4. 4

    Import — clients first, then projects, then time

    Go to /imports and upload in that order. Each import has a Dry-run button that runs the full import in a transaction and rolls back — you see exactly what would land before committing. Duplicates are skipped automatically, so re-uploading a fixed file is safe.

    Tempough imports landing page with Clients, Projects, Time, and Expenses tiles
    The /imports page — start with Clients, then Projects, then Time.
    Tempough imports "Before you upload" help — dry-run + dedupe rules explained
    Every importer runs the upload in a transaction and rolls back so you can preview.
  5. 5

    Recreate billing rates + cost rates

    Billing rates per project and cost rates per person don't come over in the CSV (Harvest doesn't export them in a structured way). Set them up at Settings → Cost Rates and on each project. This is also a chance to bring in cost rates if you didn't track them in Harvest — they unlock the Margin report.

    Tempough Settings → Cost Rates with effective-dated history per person
    Cost rates per person — effective-dated, so historic Margin reports stay reproducible.
    Tempough project billing-rate overrides editor
    Per-project billing rates — overrides on top of the workspace default.
  6. 6

    Set up forecasting (optional but recommended)

    If you were paying for Harvest Forecast separately, you can rebuild your assignments in Schedule. Drag-to-create, multi-week stretches, capacity overrides — same shape as Harvest Forecast, faster to use, no separate bill.

    Tempough Schedule (capacity-grid view) with sample assignments
    Schedule — drag-to-create assignments, capacity overrides, time-off-aware.

Day-one translation

What was called what in Harvest, and where to find it in Tempough.

In Harvest
In Tempough
TimerTimer (browser + keyboard-first)
TimesheetWeekly timesheet grid
Projects → TasksProjects → Phases → Tasks
EstimatesQuotes (Partnership+) — convert to invoice on accept
InvoicesInvoices (Stripe payment link built in)
Reports → Time / Expense / ProjectReports (Standard tabs always on; deeper tabs on paid plans)
ApprovalsApprovals (Team+) — with org-chart routing
Harvest Forecast (separate $)Schedule (Team+) — same plan, same login
Expenses + receiptsExpenses (Individual+) — reports + reimbursement
QuickBooks syncQuickBooks-formatted CSV export
Integrations via ZapierWebhooks + REST API + MCP for Claude/Cursor/Zed (Partnership+) — direct, not via Zapier
(nothing equivalent)Margin (P&L) reports, overtime-aware cost math, org chart, document distribution, client portal

Migration FAQ

Yes. Tempough has a built-in CSV importer that accepts Harvest's standard exports for clients, projects, and time entries. The one extra step: Harvest's time export identifies people by name, but Tempough's importer matches on email, so add a user_email column to the time CSV before uploading (about 5 minutes for a small team). Every import has a Dry-run button that previews exactly what would land before committing.
Still deciding?

The case for switching →

Why teams move off Harvest.

Want the matrix?

Tempough vs Harvest →

Side-by-side feature comparison.

Ready when you are.

Create a workspace, import your Harvest data, invite your team.