To track time and expenses in Harvest, you'll need to add clients to your account. A client is a company or person you're doing work for, and every project must be assigned to a specific client. For each client, you can add client contacts so invoices can be sent to certain individuals in the company. 

Administrators and Managers with special permission can add, edit, and archive clients and client contacts from Manage > Clients.

Adding a client

1. Go to Manage > Clients.
2. Click New client.
3. Enter the client name, and address and currency if you like, and click Save client.

The address and currency are optional. The address will appear on your invoices, and your invoices will automatically bill in the selected currency.

Then, in order to track time to your new client, you’ll need to create a project for them.

Adding a client contact

Once you’ve added clients, you can add client contacts. No email is sent when adding a contact. The email address is captured for your own reference and for the convenience of sending invoices to the client directly from Harvest. To add a client contact:

1. Go to Manage > Clients.
2. Click Add contact next to a client’s name, or the Add contact button next to New client.
3. Fill out the form, and click Save contact.

Importing clients and client contacts

You can import clients and contacts from a CSV as long as the file is formatted correctly. To get client and contact data into a CSV, organize your data into a spreadsheet (using Excel, Numbers, Google Spreadsheet, etc.), and save or export it as a CSV file. Once the file is formatted as described below and saved as a CSV file, you can import it by clicking the Import/Export dropdown in Manage > Clients and selecting the option to import clients or to import contacts, depending on which information you're adding to Harvest.

More information on importing, including a video walkthrough, is available in our general article on importing data.

Importing clients

Organize the spreadsheet with the following 2 columns (in the same order):

• Client name
• Address

You can also download a sample CSV file for a client import (right-click link).

Note: Harvest imports only accept commas (,) as delimiters. Semicolons (;), slashes (/), and other delimiters will result in import errors. 

If your CSV includes a client that already exists, you can update the Address field for them as long as the Client name matches what’s in Harvest exactly. Any changes to the client name will result in a duplicate client.

Importing client contacts

Organize the spreadsheet with the following 8 columns (in the same order):

• Client
• First name
• Last name
• Title
• Email
• Office phone
• Mobile phone
• Fax

Here’s a sample CSV file for a client contact import (right-click link).

Similar to client imports, if your CSV includes a client contact that already exists, you can update the Title, Email, Office phone, Mobile phone, and Fax fields for them as long as the Client, First name, and Last name fields match what’s in Harvest exactly. Any changes to the client or contact name will result in a duplicate client and/or contact being created.

If an import doesn’t go as you planned, you can revert it.

Exporting clients and client contacts

In Manage > Clients, click the Import/Export dropdown to see the options for exporting your clients or client contacts to a CSV or Excel file. Exporting clients will give you a file with each client’s name and mailing address, while exporting client contacts will result in a file with the following information for each individual client contact in your account: client, first name, last name, title, email, office phone, mobile phone, and fax.

Editing clients and client contacts

Editing clients

Updates made to a client’s name and address will affect all invoices for that client, including invoices made in the past. You may want to export PDFs of any already existing invoices for historical purposes before you update their info.

1. Go to Manage > Clients and click Edit next to the client name (in the gray bar).
2. Make any changes and click Update client.

Editing and deleting client contacts

1. Go to Manage > Clients and click the Edit button next to any contact’s name.
2. Make any changes and click Update contact. Or click Delete contact at the top right to delete the contact completely.

Archiving and deleting clients

Archiving clients

You can only archive clients if you archive all of their projects. Once you’ve done that:

1. Go to Manage > Clients and click Edit next to the client name.
2. In their profile, you’ll see a link to Archive that client.

To restore archived clients, go to Manage > Clients and click View archived clients, then click Restore for any clients you’d like to restore.

Deleting clients

You can only delete clients if you delete all of their projects and invoices. Once you’ve done that:

1. Go to Manage > Clients and click Edit next to the client name.
2. In their profile, you will see a link to Remove that client from your account. This removal will be permanent and irreversible.