Mike Gibson, owner of Northbrook Electrical in Christchurch, has been using Fergus smart job management software since 2015.
In that time his business has grown like wildfire. He’s added four new divisions, including branching out into solar electrical work, and taken on six full-time employees and one casual. He also has up to four contractors working with his team at any one time.
Despite the high-powered, jet-fuelled growth he’s experienced, Mike says it’s been simple to track his workload.
“I don’t get confused with Fergus. It’s easy to follow what’s going on and assign my staff to jobs,” says Mike.
“The growth I’ve experienced would have been a pain to manage without Fergus.”
Mike says he’s able to keep track of what jobs he has on at a glance using the colour-coded status board. He can also estimate and calculate how much profit he will make on each service he provides.
‘Fergus still goes straight to the top of the list’
Mike made the switch from a paper-based job management system to Fergus in 2015 after seven years in business. He says he researched job management systems for six months before making a decision.
“Compared to other programs, the platform isn’t as big and scary when you look at it, but it still does everything you need."
“Now I’m using it, I often find myself talking to other sparkies and comparing Fergus to the systems they use and Fergus definitely still goes straight to the top of the list.”
His favourite features include the ability to see all the information on each job at the click of a button, including profit margins, and the calendar that shows his team where they need to be each day.
His team can enter their hours in the app, without the need to come back to the office.
“With Fergus the job is right there in front of them. I don’t have to hound them about making sure they write down their time on their timesheets and where they have been every day on their job cards.
“All they have to do is hit the start button and enter in their time at the end of the day.”
‘Cut my admin time in half’
Fergus is also helping Mike save time when it comes to managing the finances.
“Before Fergus, I used spreadsheets to do all my back-costing and it was long and hard. The accounting software we used before Xero didn’t let us itemise things out by job and didn’t keep track of how much time we were spending on a job.”
Mike would also go through 50-60 job cards every month, copying over the hours his staff spent out on the job into a spreadsheet and making sure he had captured every cost that needed to be billed to the clients.
“I would sit down at the end of every week or every second week for hours and it was always a complete headache. Fergus has cut my admin time by half...now I very rarely have to sit down in the office and scratch my head and ask what I’m going to have to invoice out or not.”
Less headaches with progress payments
Above everything else, Mike says the option of one-click progress payments has saved the most headaches.
“The thing that has stood out to me - and made my life a whole lot easier - is the way Fergus allows progress payments. In Fergus I can click a button and invoice out a progress payment and I don’t have to write out the invoice each time.”
Spending less time on administration has given Mike the time to spend more time on the road, seeing his customers, and answering calls.
Over to you
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Dan Pollard
