Fergus

Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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.

Avantages

- Easy
- Very visual
- custom emails responses & templates
- supplier invoice downloads (JA Russell)
- field staff find easy to complete COC's and job cards
- forms is easy to use for internal audits and tailgates

Inconvénients

- WIP doesn't download very well would be great if PDF Option
- unable to custom status's
- unable to create credits for invoices have to void then recharge
- quoting reporting would be great if we could filter to groups
- hazards need to be mitigated by all staff however not all staff are scheduled on works?

Avantages

intuitive nature of this system ease of use

Inconvénients

nothing seems to fit our model and work in well

Avantages

Desktop and mobile sites are easy to use. Integration with suppliers and accounting software is key. Scheduling is simple and easy. Just starting out with forms but that seems like a really good option. Invoicing is easy. Customer support are always knowledgeable and get the answers needed

Inconvénients

Sorry guys 2 things

I know you have integrated with google calanders but I think just a calander similar to google calanders would have been suffice. I would really like to be able to look at a month display (like a widget on android) and see the upcoming work. When customers ask me when we can come back or when are we available, often I am in the field when I get asked this and being able to draw up a quick calander display would really help me.

2nd thing No inventory list of stock. Ideally I would like to have an accurate list of what is in staff members vehicles and what our holding stock is, just makes it easier when ordering or servicing breakdowns.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Fergus

Avantages

- User interface is very easy for the staff to use, mobile app is very usable to for the field staff. It's really basic but does exactly what we need.

Inconvénients

We are a facilities maintenance plumbing - so an asset management portion of the software would be good as well as the Re occuring function would be very practical for us.

Avantages

I love the Dashboard view. Once you've done some training, it's really simple to use and you can't really make an unfix-able error in Fergus.

Inconvénients

The response time from the support team is much slower than a few years ago. I guess that's progress as they're a much bigger company now. However, the personal support and reaction time was fantastic a few years ago.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Fergus

Avantages

Great technical back up in layman's terms and we feel that we are being listened to.
Your people who answer questions do a great job.
I also like the information in "Notifications" about any problems that Fergus may be experiencing.

Inconvénients

There is a lot of information and procedures that are a bit daunting at the start

Avantages

The chat bot is very effective and informative.

Inconvénients

There are alit of features. Know how to use Fergus to its full capacity I think there could be a more simpler version for tradesman who may not be tech wise or prefer simpler tech.

Avantages

Fergus software is easy to use and integrates exceptionally well with Xero accounting software. It doesn't matter where I am in the world I can have immediate access, and with one look can see from start to finish how my business is progressing to ensure great cash flow.

Its simple to use and easily helps all of my staff to achieve their daily goals. Fergus has helped to systematise our work flow to ensure the best benefits for our staff and our clients. An exceptionally good tool.

Inconvénients

whats not to like? how many companies can you call up and if its practical, and helpful to all users, will alter their software to suit

Avantages

Easy to use, dashboard easy to navigate, able to manage job status at a glance, easy assigning of jobs to plumbers, able to export to payroll system, import Creditor invoices directly to job, easy importing of price book catalogues, able to access from anywhere as cloud based, quoting in seconds, and so much more.

Inconvénients

Nothing to report - This software does not have any "Cons" to report back on, everything about Fergus is user friendly and yet Fergus are continually updating the system in an effort to make even more user friendly.

Avantages

How it keeps track of 99% of everything I need to run the day to day side of my business. I dunno how I managed with out it. Everything is attached to the job electronically and you can go back and look up what you need.

Inconvénients

There’s no inventory to track the left over materials from a job to reassign them to another

Avantages

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.

Inconvénients

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.

Avantages

Quick and easy assigning of staff to jobs each day

Inconvénients

I originally tried to do use it with MYOB, but that did not work well so had to shift to Zero at the same time as setting up Fergus

Avantages

ALmost everything. It saves us a heap of time with scheduling and processing jobs. It is easy to use and reliable. There is alot of capacity to communicate with both customers & employees within the app. Reporting is a breeze and at a click of a button. Excellent

Inconvénients

There are only two things - sometimes it takes more clicks than necessary to navigate around the website which is a bit of a pain. And the invoicing/statements functionality and payments process could be improved - I currently can't select for a statement for a certain time frame within a customers account and it would be good to be able to record payments at the time of invoicing instead of ok'ing the invoice and then having to process the payment.

Avantages

easy to use and great for customization

Inconvénients

cost !!! when i first started using the software it was free for businesses with 1 employee

Avantages

It has everything I need to use on a daily basis and allows me access to all my site notes, photos, and day sheets remotely so I can always access what I need to know about any job quickly. This program allows quotes/estimates, invoicing, supplier documents, day sheets and employee trackers all in the one program.
Fergus sends all sales and purchase data entered directly to some accounting software. Easy importing of supplier documents.

Inconvénients

I have found the GPS to be a little slow to load. Also the fact invoices can't be easily edited after approved can be a little frustrating.

Avantages

I am entrenched in Fergus and really like how it operates. I work about 55 hours a week and find it so easy.

Inconvénients

Only when things go haywire like the Site Description scenario the other day

Avantages

The access to all the job files even when out of the office using a tablet.
The pictorial view of all your jobs and at what stages they are at.
The ease of importing your supplier invoices directly into a job.
The help support is good and reasonably quick.

Inconvénients

importing materials into an invoice when extra materials are added after the invoice is started, you have to re-import the whole lot again.
On the schedule calendar there is no ability to indicate if a job time that is scheduled if it is fixed or floating.

Avantages

I’ll keep it simple and straight to the point.
If you don’t use Fergus then you are missing out big time.
I’m nearly at the end of my fourth year in business with a busy little maintenance Plumbing business. Being a newbie I’ve made lots of mistakes that have cost me a small fortune. Not having Fergus to date is the biggest one.
It makes your operation , what ever it may be , run smoothly and have structure. It’s easy to pick up , with a brief training session the crew and office are off and away . I’m on the tools so I see it from both sides . Admin had a fair amount it of set up but once all the computers and programmes got talking to each other and Fegus was live we haven’t looked back because to do so is mind blowingly surprising. How the hell did the office girl stay sane.
If you are in two minds, just do it. You won’t regret it, you will cringe when you look back but in saying ,you’ll never look back

Inconvénients

It’s hard at first when you get to end of job and have to make up a gear list when used to racing off to next emergency.but that’s a good thing , right

Avantages

Possibly the the thing I most apart from the comprehensive features would be the amazing and helpful customer support.

Inconvénients

I find this software to be similar to alot of cloud based softwares in that it can be very slow at times

Avantages

Integration with software, conversion to invoice from quotes

Inconvénients

New calendar is taking a bit to get my head around, no formatting in job descriptions and notes (big sigh)

Avantages

No paperwork. Photos able to be attached to jobs. Fergus talks to xero and merchants. Good calendar system.

Inconvénients

No stock file. Photos are no longer able to be enlarged on phone. Notes on quotes cannot tag a persons name at the end of the list. Cannot pick out a supplier to look up a stock item like we can on the desk top

Avantages

Ease of use, simplicity of the status board helping you track all current and upcoming job from start to finish.

Inconvénients

The app could do with some better technology.

Avantages

It is user friendly and there is continuous work to improve the user experience. It has an easy to read format and uses commonsense.

Inconvénients

That you can't go back to a category page in the dashboard ie invoices you have to go home and then into that category and then the next item.

Avantages

This system is user friendly and makes light work of all the paperwork required to keep a trade business running. It is packed full of features which help keep operations streamlined.

Inconvénients

As a total trade management software the only feature that we feel is missing is stock management.