Stone ages to Fergus

We have been using Fergus pretty much since it started. Previous to Fergus everything was hand written, including time sheets, client details, scheduling and notes for jobs were written in a diary and on a huge whiteboard, monthly invoicing was done with stacks and stacks of paper and was a huge job every month. Back costing was something that didn't happen due to the time it took. The change to Fergus has meant invoices, time sheets and notes are very easily loaded onto jobs and all in the right, easy to find place for anyone who has access. Invoicing can happen with a couple of clicks and back costing or financial reports and all done for you. It has made it so easy to keep an eye on the numbers in our business at any time. Its also easy to run wherever you are, we have been over seas and managed the business without being in the office. We would never look back and have gained so much from Fergus, the customer support is fantastic. We would happily recommend this software to anyone.

Pros

CSV uploads for invoices saves so much time from having to manually enter every. single. piece of gear! Having everything on a job number to easily find. Times, materials and anything to do with a particular job is in one place. Being able to Pin notes on jobs for any updates or special information. As long as everything is put on the job number nothing is forgotten. Ability to have a different client and site contact and address. Ease of finding client details.

Cons

We find the health and safety a bit clunky to use - but haven't looked into it really well as our main health and safety is done through someone else... Would be great if PS3s and As Builts could be done using Fergus. We need these for almost every job and we have to do them and upload as files on the job. The gas certs are awesome though. Also, we pay time and a half after certain amount of hours are worked, so would be great to have the possibility for fergus to pick up this cost after certain hours are worked or any work logged for a Saturday as this is a manual cost I need to take into account when back costing.

Fergus has been a fantastic tool to manage our growing electrical firm. It is really easy to operate

Pros

It is a one stop shop "power house" that runs our electrical and heat pump contracting business. It integrates seamlessly to Xero which has made it very simple to implement. We like the ability to track staff when required and the fact that it has a full health and safety component also. The customers enjoy the interface through email and we regard the ability of the system to track and record site related information to be very valuable for all users. By adopting this system we are now seen as professional and progressive with in our town. We are now capturing better information about job costs before we send invoices which has helped us to raise our overall profit margin. We no longer have jobs falling through the cracks at invoicing time either. The scheduling features are fantastic, all staff can see what is on for the week, not just those in the office that can see the whiteboard! The workers on the ground have access to client details which allows them to make contact without input from the office, they also have full job history and quote/estimate information which makes their job easier also. The App runs on any mobile platform which solves the android vs IOS debate, we just use the platform that we like. No software to manage is also a bonus, if we have internet access... were in business! This has been the biggest leap towards a paperless office that we've made so far. We enjoy the friendly knowledgeable helpdesk staff who always answer the phone promptly. Awesome!

Cons

Once you have published a quote, you can no longer edit it... if you find a mistake or want to add something extra to the quote. The search engine on electrical items can be abit poor, maybe it could show frequently selected or used items at the top of the search results list. The financial summary has too much information in it, it is so busy. There could be more price options, we would like to bring on another administrator on a 3 hrs per day basis and another electrical worker on a 2-3 days basis, it is quite expensive for part timers. There is no drawing software in the system for quoting, some others such as Simpro, System fox and Katipult have this on-board. (I think these are usually based on Visio). J A Russell don't API to the system like Corys and Plumbing World do, could be easier for us if they did the same.

We have been using Fergus for almost 12 months now and are very happy with the program.

The benefits to our business using this software is ultimately less time processing paperwork and data and simplicity for our users. The other great feature of the software is being able to store job specific data like photos that are easily accessable

Pros

We went from a single person operation to 4 people on the road and one office based team member. The old program we were using didn't have enough quite do every thing we wanted and was quite clunky on site. The way in which Fergus flows and easily displays information regarding jobs means there is no confusion on site and when used correctly office staff can collate the data to create invoices easily, meaning we can get invoices out faster and hopefully paid faster. Now with the additional benefit of Fergus offering our customers credit card payment, we have found even less reason for customer not to pay. The schedulling calander on Fergus gives us the best forsite we have ever had to see potential lead times and alsogives us a better look at keeping things ahead of jobs wth regards to ordering materials and organising other important parts to any given job. Our guys on site love it as it is super simple to use for them and realistically cuts down there paperwork too. Time sheets created off all there job data is done automatically meaning the office is not trying to get times off them each week to do payroll.
In general Fergus has made our business run smoother and less things get forgotten about, missed or overlooked.

Cons

The biggest thing that we find as a downfall would only be it is not that simple to see what price you have sold a product for previously. (Well not that we are aware of).
In saying that Fergus seem to be very dedicated to listening to what their customers want and make updates regularly, I''m sure that it will only be a matter of time until they create a tool to help with this.

Has been a game changer for our business, i wish it was around 10 years ago!

Invoicing and quoting are much less of chore and can now be done much quicker than before. This has resulted in an improved cash flow for or business.

Pros

Tracking and entering costs (both labor and materials) has made our invoicing and quoting much more accurate. Being able to set up favorite item lists makes quoting much less of a chore than it used to be as items can be just selected from a pre made list and added where needed.

Our wholesalers send us daily CSV files with our purchases which are then uploaded directly to Fergus. The Job numbers are all linked already so its just a matter of clicking a button and the materials are automatically assigned to the job and corresponding site visit.

Pricelists are also uploaded from our wholesalers so prices for thousands of items are available instantly and are up to date. This means jobs can be invoiced quickly and on site if need be.

We also use Xero for our accounting software and Fergus integrates perfectly with it.

Cons

Integration with the Xero employee pay function is the only thing lacking. At the moment all our employee times are entered into Fergus for each job then each week their hours need to be enetered into Xero again for the pay cycle. It would be great if they talked to each other so we didnt have to do it twice.

Fergus has made our lives a lot easier since moving from workflowmax. Much less manual entering.

Speeding up invoicing, better tracking of old jobs via photos/notes etc.

Pros

Entering time sheets, phone tracking, integration with our suppliers csv files, linking to xero, favourites lists with materials, photo attachments. Staff reply relatively quickly to any queries and seem happy to help. System seems to constantly grow, many new features since we first signed up.

Cons

Compliance's could do with some more auto-fill features like drop downs on frequently submitted parts. Off-line ability when it comes to filling in times on a job when you're out of service and searching jobs. Apprentice on entry level subscription cant search for jobs unless he is assigned to it which is a pain (has no search bar option at all). Quotes and estimates could do with being a bit more separate as we have a different blurb at the bottom for quotes than estimates and I have to alter it if its an estimate because we use the quote template blurb. Be nice if on the desktop version you could add multiple people to a time entry like you can on the mobile version

Our positive experience with Fergus

Fergus have been very accommodating, their service is personal friendly and attentive. We have been with them from their early days and have watched them grow and develop, they take on board their client's feedback. Given the fact that we are dealing with a local company, as oppose to a large international company, as we have in the past, has meant that we can resolve issues more easily and faster. Unlike with previous companies, in Fergus, they actually do answer customer's calls, it feels more personal.

Pros

I love that I have every detail of each job file in one place, from the first call of a potential client, to the last invoiced, all the job history, ie correspondence between Us and the client or Us and a supplier or any account detail relating to the job. I really like that it is locally owned.

Cons

Our accountant struggles with certain aspects when needing to retrieve financial information and do reports. I personally wish that in order to show to and fro correspondence in any specific job, that I wouldn't have to copy and paste replies from Outlook back to Fergus. Keeping a paper trail is vital in our business.

Fergus just works incredibly well. Reliable floorless syncing with Xero, Best I have seen.

Time sheet Tracking for me and staff, organised and nice looking quotes, quote acceptance via email, Mobile invoicing if needed, a way of back costing jobs fast and easily.

Pros

Upto a few years ago a big part of my business was running blind so I went hunting for a software management program to get us sorted. I tried nearly every program on the market from Tradify, Workflo Max, Service m8, GeOp and many more, I even doubled back and trialed some of them again. I ran through several jobs in each software program but just couldn't find a program that would do what I needed. They all had helpful features but none of them were as fitting as Fergus. Fergus just works well, and is getting better all the time. Quotes are a breeze and invoicing takes me about 30 mins a day. I love using fergus and recommend to any business as a must have.

Cons

The software does everything I need to run my business so cant see any cons. Would be nice if the software had a faster GPS tracking system but I am sure this will come in time.

Fergus works for us

We are a busy plumbing and gas fitting business and we find Fergus a great asset to the business. It makes all the day-to-day tasks such as booking jobs, logging time entries, tracking supplier documents, communicating with the team while they are at worksites, tracking customer details, checking past histories for jobs and clients and invoicing, nice and easy. It communicates well with Xero to make bank reconciliation and paying supplier accounts really efficient. If i have had any issues, the Fergus & Xero support has always sorted things out quickly. The main areas where I see the program could improve is some fine-tuning of the recurring jobs feature and it would be really handy to have an "undo" button to remove your last step if you make an error while working.

Pros

It's easy to use and track everything you have done. The functionality for importing supplier documents and attaching files and photos to jobs is great.

Cons

I would like an undo button for when you make a little error on an invoice and don't want to have to go back and start the whole thing again.

Streamlining Made Easy - now everything is one place customers/supplier docs/ invoicing. Easy As!

Time and everything else said in the review.

Pros

A complete all round package you only need this and your accounting package. I use Fergus and Xero which integrate seamlessly together and the system can be accessed any time anywhere. Now that everything has moved from paper to cloud - nothing gets missed! Everything is loaded directly against the job and you can track your profitability throughout the project. NO more backcosting! Plus, all the timesheets are loaded for payroll - everything in the one place. But best thing is being able to call and talk to someone on the other end of the phone. Its great to be able to talk through a process and solve a problem quickly so I can return to business and get the job done.

Cons

That you are unable to change the colour of the text to make a point. For example it would be great if we could use red printing for the customers that are bad debtors and therefore when they phone a job in - it would be noticeable and easy to see.

Personal Perception

I have used Fergus for some years now and under different employers; builders, plumbers, sparky and even a company that washed buildings and had a national team of employees to manage. It's a great all-round system which really negates the need for any other system other than our accounting package Xero. It's a lot to set up (like they all are) but once the background work is uploaded it covers so much for the team on the front line as well as in the office. Now also with H & S being added in - it really does keep work efficient. I have recommended you to over 30 people already! Thanks so much.

Pros

It covers having a customer file, GPS logs, H&S, jobs, calendars, quoting and invoicing. So I like that we only have to have one system that works really well with our accounting package.

Cons

When you get used to using something and really like the way it was but then it changes. For example, the new map.