From humble beginnings in a garden shed, Waterlip Electrical Contracting (WEC) has grown into a busy family-run business with 13 staff and a full schedule of commercial, industrial and domestic electrical work.
Founder Connor started the company six years ago and has built the team around trusted family and friends. But as the business grew, so did the paperwork—and it soon became clear the old systems weren’t going to keep up.
“We were keeping up with the work, but we were just filling up our office with filing cabinets. Everything was on paper—testing, job sheets, materials. It became a nightmare to manage.”
WEC was handling everything manually. Job details were typed up in the office, printed out for the team, and returned at the end of the week in a stack of handwritten job sheets. Those job sheets were then entered into Excel for costing, cross-checked with supplier pricing, marked up, and eventually entered into accounting software for invoicing.
“We had someone in the office all week just copying up paperwork. Then we’d print it out again if we needed it. It was just a massive time waste.”
This manual workflow became harder to manage as the team expanded and job volume increased.
“It’s been really hard trying to grow the business when you’re relying on spreadsheets and paperwork. There was no easy way to manage everything in one place.”
Since implementing Fergus, WEC has been able to streamline operations and free up key admin time.
“Now the lads get to site and everything they need is on their phones. Job sheets, materials, notes—it’s all there. And they’re filling it in properly every time, which never used to happen.”
Connor estimates that just from automating job sheets alone, the business has saved four days a week of admin time—freeing up one team member to get back on the tools and another to focus on higher-value office work.
“I can invoice a customer before the lads have even left site. That used to take hours, now it takes minutes.”
With Fergus, the team also spends less time chasing up job photos and paperwork.
“Before, the lads would take photos on their phones and we’d spend hours uploading everything to Dropbox. Now they use the Fergus app and it’s instantly in the system—even if we’re 150 miles away.”
Having everything in one place has been a game-changer for Connor, who now has time to focus on developing the business.
“I can go out to meetings, visit sites, bring in new customers. I’m not stuck doing paperwork on weekends anymore.”
By moving away from paper-based processes and bringing the team onto Fergus, WEC has:
“It’s completely changed everything we do. Fergus has saved us so much time and stress.”
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