# Migrating from Harvest to Tillage: a complete guide

> Step-by-step guide to importing your clients, invoices, and recurring revenue from Harvest to Tillage in minutes.

- URL: https://tillage.ai/blog/harvest-to-tillage-migration
- Author: Tillage Team
- Published: 2025-11-16
- Updated: 2026-10-30
- Category: Product

Love Harvest's time tracking but wish it had better [quoting](https://tillage.ai/features/quotes) and [contract](https://tillage.ai/features/contracts) features? You're not alone.

Tillage complements Harvest (or replaces its invoicing) with intelligent quoting, contract generation, and automated invoicing. And [migrating your data](https://tillage.ai/docs/integrations/harvest-import) is painless.

If you're here because of Harvest's [2026 pricing changes](https://tillage.ai/blog/harvest-price-increase-2026), this guide focuses on the quoting-and-invoicing side of your stack — the part Harvest was always thinner on. You can keep Harvest for time tracking and layer Tillage on top, or migrate your billing fully.

## Why Agencies are Switching

Harvest is great for time tracking, but falls short for:

- **Quoting**: Harvest has estimates, but no AI quote generation
- **Built-in profitability tools**: No variance buffers or margin on estimates
- **Contract automation**: No contracts or e-signatures
- **Payment schedules**: No milestone schedules, so a 50/25/25 project means copying invoices by hand
- **Payment fees**: No way to let clients cover processing fees

Tillage fills these gaps while preserving everything you love about Harvest.

## What Gets Imported

When you connect Harvest to Tillage:

### Clients & Contacts
- All client company information
- Associated contacts for each client
- Existing records updated on later imports, never duplicated

### Invoice History
- Complete invoice details with line items
- Original amounts and dates
- Payment status
- Client relationships

### Recurring Patterns
- Automatic detection of recurring invoices
- MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) calculation
- Future invoice automation setup
- Billing frequency identification

## The Migration Process

It's surprisingly simple:

### Step 1: Connect Your Account
1. In Harvest, create a personal access token and note your account ID (in Harvest's developer settings)
2. In Tillage, go to Settings → Import and choose Harvest
3. Paste your token and account ID
4. Connection established in seconds

### Step 2: Select What to Import
- Clients and their contacts
- Invoices with line items
- Recurring pattern detection (on or off)
- Optionally, an invoice date range to import from

### Step 3: Import
- Click "Import" and let Tillage work
- Follow progress for each step: clients, contacts, invoices, recurring patterns
- See how many records were created and updated

### Step 4: Verify & Optimize
- Review imported clients in Tillage
- Check recurring invoice schedules
- Set up any additional automation
- Start creating your first Tillage quote

**Total time:** Usually 10-15 minutes

## Smart Features During Import

### Duplicate Prevention
Tillage tracks Harvest source IDs to prevent duplicates. Run the import multiple times without creating duplicates.

### Recurring Detection
If you've been manually creating the same invoice every month in Harvest, Tillage:
- Detects the pattern automatically
- Calculates your MRR
- Sets up automatic future generation
- Saves you hours of manual work

### Data Preservation
All original Harvest data is preserved:
- Invoice numbers stay the same
- Dates remain unchanged
- Line item details intact
- Client information complete

## What Happens to Harvest?

You have options:

### Option 1: Keep Both
- Continue time tracking in Harvest
- Use Tillage for quoting, contracts, and invoicing
- Re-run the Harvest import whenever you want to pull in new clients or invoices (there's no automatic ongoing sync)

### Option 2: Full Migration
- Move your quoting, contracts and invoicing completely to Tillage
- Tillage doesn't track time, so if you bill from timesheets, move time tracking to a dedicated tool
- Export remaining data from Harvest for records

### Option 3: Hybrid Approach
- Keep Harvest for historical time data
- Start new projects in Tillage
- Gradually phase out Harvest

## Common Questions

**Will I lose any data?**  
No. The import is additive only. Your Harvest data remains untouched.

**Can I import again if I mess up?**  
Yes. Duplicate detection ensures you won't create duplicates.

**What if I'm still using Harvest?**  
Keep using it! Many agencies use both. Tillage complements Harvest's time tracking with better quoting and contracts.

**How much does it cost?**  
The Harvest import is included free. Tillage is $0/month, and you can import unlimited clients and invoices.

## Ready to Migrate?

The hardest part of switching tools is usually the migration. With Tillage's Harvest import, that barrier is gone.

Import your data in minutes. Start quoting smarter today. Compare the two tools in [Tillage vs Harvest](https://tillage.ai/alternatives/harvest), or see all [integrations](https://tillage.ai/integrations).

[Start Free Migration →](https://app.tillage.ai/signup)

---

All posts: https://tillage.ai/blog.md  
Site index for AI assistants: https://tillage.ai/llms.txt  
Sign up free: https://app.tillage.ai/signup