The trades’ new best friend – Fergus is here to save your time

If you’d rather spend your time on the job you actually enjoy doing rather than on mindless admin tasks, then TOOLKiT’s got good news for you: now you can! With Fergus’ launch into the UK market, we can all wave goodbye to the endless pile of spreadsheets that have been keeping us up at night.

Fergus, the specialised trade software designed to save you precious hours you would have otherwise regrettably spent sorting through your admin, has launched its platform in the UK – and you can hear a collective sigh of relief across the nation.

Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, Fergus was founded in 2014 by veteran plumber Dan Pollard, when he set out to solve the admin problems that had plagued his business for years – literally made by the trade for the trade. 

Since then, the company has transformed the way trade businesses in New Zealand and Australia operate and organise themselves, and has, understandably, become recognised as a global leader in software for tradespeople.

Currently serving over 18,000 tradespeople in eight countries, Fergus’s mission is to provide trade businesses with access to software tools that will allow them to organise their business in a way that keeps them from being buried nose-deep in invoices and other such nonsense – valuable nonsense, of course, but did you really become a bricklayer because you had a passion for spreadsheets?

The Fergus workflow covers all aspects of the job and, as the only system tracking labour and materials back to the job in real time, Fergus ensures each job is profitable, keeping your finances healthy and avoiding all those hours you’d spend adding up and chasing payments.

“Despite the digital revolution of the past 30 years, most tradespeople – over 75% in most markets according to our internal market research – are still using manual, often paper-based systems and processes to manage their business.”

James Chillman, UK Country Manager

James explains how these practices ultimately lead to poor cash flow, lower profits and significant stress on the business owner, all of which could easily be avoided with Fergus’ concentrated business approach.

“The trades have effectively been left behind and ignored by the software industry, predominantly because the average size of trades businesses was considered too small to matter. Fergus is designed specifically for the trade and has all the user friendliness built in you would expect for those company owners looking to spend less time on admin and more time doing the things they enjoy.”

In late 2021, Fergus opened offices in Manchester to provide support for tradespeople in the UK and, with this market growing rapidly, in June 2022 the company announced it had raised AUS $15M in funding.

This investment is earmarked for further product innovation and geographic expansion in the UK and eventually in other markets, as the brand’s ultimate goal is to provide software access to trades on a global scale and truly end our days of manual admin once and for all.

Have you thought of trying out Fergus for your business? Why not check out the company’s website and take their suitability quiz to see if Fergus is the right fit for you.