Fergus for NZ tradies: job management built by a plumber

Fergus is a job management app that started in New Zealand, built by a plumber who was fed up with the paperwork side of running a trade business. It’s especially popular with plumbers, gasfitters and electricians, and it’s grown into one of the main job management apps in NZ and Australia.

What Fergus does

• Quoting and estimating: build quotes from your price list, with your supplier prices pulled in
• Scheduling: a drag-and-drop calendar to assign jobs to your team, including recurring maintenance work
• Job tracking: a clear view of where every job is up to, from enquiry to paid
• Mobile app for the field: your team sees their jobs, logs time and materials, takes photos and fills in forms on site
• Job costing: track labour and materials against each job in real time, so you can see which jobs actually make money
• Supplier integrations: connect your trade supplier accounts so supplier invoices and price lists come in automatically and can be matched to jobs
• Invoicing: invoice from the job, including progress invoices
• Health and safety: safety forms and compliance documents stored against jobs

Accounting integrations

Fergus connects to Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks, so invoices and payments sync to your books. See our Xero guide for tradies for how to get the most out of that connection.

How the pricing works

Fergus offers different plans (at the time of writing, an Essentials plan for smaller teams and a Pro plan with more advanced job costing, reporting and automation). There are no lock-in contracts, and onboarding support is included. Check Fergus’s pricing page for current NZ prices.

Who it suits

Good fit if you:

• Run a plumbing, gas or electrical business, or any trade with lots of materials on each job
• Want to know your real profit on every job, not just your turnover
• Buy most of your materials through trade supplier accounts and want those invoices matched to jobs automatically
• Have, or plan to have, a team in the field and someone in the office

Maybe look elsewhere if you:

• Are a sole trader who just wants simple quotes and invoices (Tradify or the free plan of ServiceM8 may be enough)

Getting started

1. Book a demo or start a trial and ask about migrating your existing customers and price lists.
2. Connect your accounting software and your main supplier accounts first, since that’s where Fergus saves the most time.
3. Set your labour rates and markups so job costing is accurate from day one.
4. Train the team on the mobile app: their jobs, time, materials and photos.
5. Check your job profitability reports after a month. Most businesses find a few job types that make less money than they thought.

The bottom line

Fergus suits trade businesses that are serious about job costing and growth, particularly plumbing and electrical. If that’s you, put it on your shortlist alongside the others in Tradify vs Fergus vs ServiceM8.

Readysite isn’t affiliated with Fergus. Features and pricing change, so check Fergus’s website for the latest.