How to Migrate from Harvest to Miru in 10 Minutes

Step 1: Export everything from Harvest

Log into Harvest. Go to Reports > Detailed Time. Set the date range to “All Time” (or however far back you want). Click Export CSV. That file is your entire time tracking history — dates, hours, projects, clients, descriptions, billing status.

If you use Harvest’s expense tracking, do the same thing: Reports > Expense Report > Export CSV.

Save both files somewhere you won’t lose them for the next five minutes.

Step 2: Sign up for Miru

Go to app.miru.so/signup. Name your organization. Pick your timezone. You’re in. The whole thing takes about 60 seconds. No “schedule a demo” button.

It’s $1 per member per month. That’s not a promotional price. That’s the price.

Step 3: Install the CLI and import

The Miru CLI reads Harvest’s Detailed Time CSV directly. No column mapping, no reformatting. Install it, sign in, and run a dry run first so you can see exactly what will be created:

curl -fsSL https://miru.so/install.sh | sh
miru login --email you@example.com
miru import --file harvest-time.csv --format harvest --dry-run

The dry run lists the clients and projects it will create, the team members it matched by name, and any rows it cannot place. Harvest exports names, not emails, so invite your team to Miru with the same first and last names they used in Harvest. If a name does not line up, map it explicitly:

miru import --file harvest-time.csv --format harvest --map "Jane Doe=jane@yourfirm.com"

Drop --dry-run when the plan looks right. Clients and projects are created automatically, time entries land on the right project, date, and person, and Harvest’s billable and invoiced flags carry over. Running the same file twice does not create duplicates.

Prefer not to use a terminal? Email your Harvest export to hello@saeloun.com and we will import it into your workspace for you. Expense import is not available yet; send us that file too and we will handle it.

Step 4: Invite your team

Go to Team > Invite in Miru. Paste your team’s email addresses. Pick roles — Admin, Employee, Book Keeper, whatever fits. Send. They get an email, click a link, and they’re logging time.

The interface is simpler than Harvest. If anyone on your team could use Harvest, they can use Miru without training. The timer works the same way. Manual entry works the same way. The difference is what happens downstream: invoicing, expenses, and payments are all built into the same tool.

Step 5: Cancel Harvest

Log into Harvest. Settings > Subscription > Cancel. They’ll offer you a discount. Do the math: even at half price, Harvest still costs more than four times what Miru does. Close the tab.

Redirect that budget to something useful. Better monitors. A team lunch. A junior hire’s first month of coffee.

Why now?

Every month you wait costs you money. Not metaphorically — literally. The price difference between Harvest and Miru for a 20-person team is $196/month. That’s $2,352 a year you’re donating to Harvest for the privilege of using a closed-source time tracker with no CLI.

The migration takes 10 minutes. The ROI is immediate. Stop overthinking it and start the switch.

Hard Stop

Run this loop for two weeks without skipping cleanup. The compounding effect is real.

Next: check the price, follow the Harvest migration guide, or compare Harvest side by side.

Start with Miru or read the docs.

Vipul A M

Co-founder at Saeloun. Building Miru. Rails contributor. Shipping from Pune, India.