New freelance and agency-based web developers looking to streamline their client billing and time tracking might what to check out a new contest that promises to provide a year's software-as-a-service license to one newly formed company each month.

The contest comes from Harvest, a time tracking, expense logging, and client invoicing solution that is designed to help freelancers and small businesses streamline many of their client accounting functions.

Described as "The New Founders Program," the contest is for companies or freelance developers that have been in business for less than one year.

To qualify for the year of free service, the company must be a full-time endeavor—sorry no moonlighters—and applicants must submit an interesting story about their business, and provide a link to a functioning website that describes their company's operations. Harvest then selects one company per month.

Harvest stated the aim of the program on its website: "To help companies get on their feet, The Harvest New Founders Program is giving away one year's subscription of Harvest time tracking service to a new company each month. The goal is to help new companies worry less about logistics and focus more on the important things, such as building a sustainable business."

Web development requires you to wear a lot of proverbial hats, including that of accountant, tracking your time for each client, managing invoices and billing, and even keeping track of accounts payable and receivable.

While there are certainly a lot of developers that manage all of these important functions with an Excel spreadsheet, it seems crazy to think that the same people who would not use Microsoft Word to code web pages would use an equally odd tool to manage their client accounting.