Every 15 minutes

Post paid Harvest invoices to Slack

When a client settles an invoice, your channel sees the client, amount and invoice number within about 15 minutes.

Runs: Every 15 minutes
Apps: Harvest
AI: Not needed
Access: read (admin or manager with invoice permission)

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, look for Harvest invoices marked paid and post the client, amount and invoice number to #finance in Slack.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

In a services business, the moment a client pays an invoice matters more than the moment it was sent. A studio owner with a 30-day invoice for $8,400 wants to know when the money lands so they can approve a contractor payout, release a project hold or simply stop worrying. In Harvest the status flips to paid quietly, and unless someone happens to open the Invoices page, finance and project leads hear about it days later, usually when asked.

Every 15 minutes, Harvest is asked for invoices marked paid since the last check. Each one that has not been announced before is posted in Slack with the client name, the amount and the invoice number, and the invoice IDs already handled are saved so you never see the same payment twice.

It suits agencies, consultancies and freelancers who split cash-flow responsibilities between a founder, a bookkeeper and project managers.

What you get out of it

Cash flow decisions are made on facts
A founder who sees a $12,000 payment arrive can approve payroll, a hire or a contractor payout the same afternoon, rather than guessing from the bank balance at month-end. Knowing sooner reduces anxious waiting.
Project holds are lifted promptly
If work was paused until an invoice was settled, the project manager sees the payment and restarts the team the same day. Clients notice quick restarts, and your delivery stays on schedule.
Bookkeeping stays in step
The bookkeeper sees each payment with its invoice number and can reconcile it against the bank feed while it is fresh, which prevents a pile-up of unmatched deposits at quarter end.
Thank-you notes go out while it counts
A short message to the client's accounts contact the day they pay is a small gesture that builds goodwill, and it only happens if somebody knows about the payment in time.
A visible record of who pays quickly
Over weeks the channel becomes a timeline of payments. You can see which clients settle in days and which take months, which informs payment terms for future proposals. Those patterns help when you decide who deserves a deposit up front.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime checks Harvest for invoices that have been marked as paid since the last check.
It skips any invoice it has already announced, so each payment is posted only once.
A message goes to your #finance Slack channel with the invoice number, the client and the amount paid.

Before it runs live

Connect Harvest

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes

Post paid Harvest invoices to Slacktoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #financePaid: invoice #2026-114 from Acme Corp, USD 8,400.00

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Harvest steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

invoice_paid_alert.pyexample

from datetime import datetime, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, report_fetched, state, notify, http, credentials

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer " + credentials.secret("HARVEST_TOKEN"),
               "Harvest-Account-Id": credentials.secret("HARVEST_ACCOUNT_ID"), "User-Agent": "ClickRuntime"}
    now = datetime.now(timezone.utc).strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")
    since = state.get("since") or now
    invoices = http.get("https://api.harvestapp.com/v2/invoices", headers=headers, params={"state": "paid", "updated_since": since}).json()["invoices"]
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    new = [i for i in invoices if i["id"] not in seen]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        state.set("since", since)
        return {"summary": "No newly paid invoices"}
    for i in new:
        notify.slack(f"Paid: invoice #{i['number']} from {i['client']['name']}, {i['currency']} {i['amount']:,.2f}", channel="#finance")
    state.set("seen", list(seen | {i["id"] for i in new})[-1000:])
    state.set("since", now)
    return {"posted": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it announce partial payments?

Harvest marks an invoice as paid when the full balance is settled, so partial payments are not announced by this check. If you take deposits and want to see them, a variation can watch for invoices with a payment recorded, which you can request and approve.

What stops the same invoice being posted twice?

The IDs of invoices already announced are stored after each run. On the next check, any invoice with an ID in that list is skipped, even if Harvest reports it again because its record was edited.

Can the post tag the person who owns the client?

Yes, if you keep a mapping of clients to owners. A specific change can mention the project manager by Slack handle, so the right person sees the payment without anyone forwarding the message. This works best when each client has one clear owner in your team.

What permissions does it need?

read (admin or manager with invoice permission). Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule