FairTools

Free time tracking and invoicing for freelancers (Harvest alternative)

Track time with a timer or a weekly timesheet, then turn billable hours into professional invoices in any currency. Import your Harvest history in one step. No account, no per-user fees, and your data never leaves your device.

FreeNo signupData stays on your device

What you can do here

  • Timer that survives page reloads, plus manual entries with billable flags.
  • Weekly timesheet (Monday to Sunday) with editable hours per project and day.
  • Clients and projects with an hourly rate per project and a currency per client.
  • Harvest CSV import with a preview and duplicate protection.
  • Invoices from uninvoiced time: tax (GST/VAT), discounts, numbering, due dates, your logo, payment links and UPI QR codes. Print or save as PDF.
  • Reports by client and project, with CSV export.

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A free Harvest alternative that does not charge per user

Time tracking tools usually charge per person per month, and some have added usage-based fees on top. Freelancers and small agencies have reported their bills multiplying after pricing changes, and teams outside the US often pay extra in card and currency conversion costs. FairTime covers the everyday workflow (track hours, check the week, send an invoice, see what is unbilled) as a free web app that stores everything on your own device.

There is nothing to sign up for. Open the page, add a client, and start the timer. Because the app is a static page with no server-side database, there is no subscription to cancel and no account to lose access to.

How to track time and create an invoice, step by step

  1. Add a client and a project. Under Clients & projects, create a client and pick its currency (for example INR, GBP, AUD, EUR, USD or CAD). Add a project with its hourly rate.
  2. Track time. On Track, choose the project and press Start timer. Close the tab if you like: the timer remembers when it started. Forgot to start it? Add the time manually as 1.5 or 1:30.
  3. Review the week. The Timesheet shows Monday to Sunday for every project and task. Type hours straight into a cell to fix a day, or copy last week’s rows.
  4. Create the invoice. Under Invoices, pick the client and date range. FairTime collects the billable time that has not been invoiced yet and groups it by project, by task or by entry. Edit any line, add tax and a discount, then press Create invoice. Those entries are marked as invoiced so they are never billed twice.
  5. Send and get paid. Click Print / Save as PDF and email the PDF. Mark the invoice as sent, then as paid when the money arrives. Overdue invoices are flagged automatically.

Worked example: a GST invoice in rupees with a UPI QR code

A designer in Pune bills a client ₹2,500 per hour. Over the month she logged 18.5 billable hours. The invoice subtotal is 18.5 × ₹2,500 = ₹46,250. With 18% GST the tax is ₹8,325 and the total due is ₹54,575. She has added her UPI ID in Settings, so the printed invoice carries a QR code for exactly ₹54,575 that the client can scan with any UPI app, plus her GSTIN under her address.

Worked example: a UK invoice with VAT and a discount

A London developer bills £95 per hour and logged 32 hours. The subtotal is £3,040. A 10% loyalty discount brings it to £2,736, and 20% VAT adds £547.20, for a total of £3,283.20. The invoice shows a Stripe payment link that he created in his own Stripe account, so the client can pay by card.

Importing your Harvest time entries

FairTime reads Harvest’s Detailed Time CSV export, which includes the date, client, project, project code, task, notes, hours, billable and invoiced flags, the person, the billable rate and the currency. The importer matches column names regardless of capitalisation, handles notes that contain commas, quotes or line breaks, and works out whether dates are written as YYYY-MM-DD, DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY by looking at your data. Clients and projects are created for you with their rates and currencies, and time Harvest already invoiced stays marked as invoiced. Every row gets a fingerprint, so importing a newer export later only adds the new rows.

FairTime compared with paid time tracking apps

Paid tools such as Harvest, Toggl Track and FreshBooks offer things FairTime deliberately does not: cloud sync between devices, client portals, built-in payment processing, expense tracking and accounting integrations. If you need those, a paid tool may be worth it. If what you need is an honest record of hours and clean invoices, FairTime does that for free, with no seat limits, and you can export everything as CSV or JSON at any time.

Frequently asked questions

Is FairTime really free? What is the catch?

Yes. There are no plans, seats or usage fees. FairTime is a static web page: your data is stored in your own browser (IndexedDB), so there is no server cost to pass on to you. The trade-off is that you are responsible for backups: use Import & backup → Export backup regularly.

How do I move my data from Harvest?

In Harvest go to Reports → Time, choose the date range (All time works), switch to the Detailed view and click Export → CSV. In FairTime open Import & backup and drop the file in. You will see a preview of new clients, projects, rates, hours and amounts before anything is saved. Re-importing a later export only adds rows you do not have yet.

Can I invoice in INR, GBP, AUD, EUR or other currencies?

Yes. Each client has its own currency and invoices are formatted with your browser’s built-in currency formatting (for example ₹1,50,000.00 for INR or £1,500.00 for GBP). Amounts in different currencies are never mixed or converted. There are no currency fees because no payment passes through FairTime.

Can clients pay the invoice online?

You can add your own payment link (Stripe Payment Link, Razorpay, PayPal.me, Wise and so on) and it is printed on the invoice. For INR invoices you can add your UPI ID: the invoice then shows a UPI QR code and a upi://pay link with the exact amount, which works with GPay, PhonePe, Paytm and BHIM.

How do I make a PDF invoice?

Open the invoice and click Print / Save as PDF. Choose “Save as PDF” as the printer in your browser’s print dialog. A dedicated print stylesheet removes the app interface so only the invoice is printed.

Can a small team use FairTime together?

Yes, by sharing a JSON file instead of a server. Each person sets their name in Settings, tracks time in their own browser and exports a backup. A billing lead merges everyone’s files (Import & backup → Merge). Records are matched by id and clients or projects with the same name are combined, so nothing is duplicated, and reports can be filtered by person.

Does the timer keep running if I close the tab?

Yes. The timer stores its start time, not a ticking counter, so it keeps counting through reloads, closed tabs and restarts of the same browser. When you stop it, the elapsed time is saved as an entry, optionally rounded up to 6, 15 or 30 minutes.

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