Fergus
Fergus tracks the variation. Someone still has to sign it.
Fergus is the one job-management platform in this series with Variations as a first-class feature: extra work becomes its own job, sharing the customer and site, with its own job number, tracked separately through to invoicing. Here's how to create and invoice one — and what a tracking record was never designed to do.
First-class Variations feature Own job number per variation Invoice from the parent job
Where we stand: we build ScopeLock, a variation-approval tool for Australian trades, and we say where that creates a bias. Every Fergus detail below comes from Fergus's help centre, read on 24 August 2026 and linked at the bottom.
01 — The short version
A variation is its own job, linked to the original.
In Fergus, a variation is a job: same customer, same site address, its own job number, parented to the job it grew from (the “parent job”), which can be a charge-up, estimate or quote job. The variation duplicates the parent's details so you only edit what changed, moves through the Status Board on its own, and rolls up into the parent job's Financial Summary. For costing and reporting on longer jobs, it's honestly the best-structured answer of any platform we've looked at.
Two house rules from Fergus's own FAQ: you can't create a variation on a variation (make multiple on the parent instead), and you can't move quotes or invoices between variations.
02 — Create one
Thirty seconds, desktop or app.
Desktop — Variations menu
Open the parent job, select the Variations menu at the top of the job card, click Create Variation, and pick the type: charge-up, estimate or quote.
Rename what changed
The variation takes its own job number and duplicates the parent's information — edit the title and description so it reads as the difference, not a copy.
Fergus Go — scroll to Variations
In the mobile app, open the job and scroll to the Variations section at the bottom, then Create Variation. One catch from Fergus's own notes: variations don't appear in site visits, so make sure you're viewing the job itself.
Navigate between them
Every variation links back to the parent at the top of the job card, and the Variations menu jumps between jobs sharing the same parent.
03 — Invoice one
One invoice can pull from parent and variations.
From the parent job's Invoicing screen, create a new invoice with the “Add Costs from Job” option. The Select Costs screen lets you pull line items from the parent and any of its variations into a single invoice — or invoice a variation on its own if the customer prefers the paper separated. Because the records are linked, costing stays clean either way.
A variation created as a quote type also produces a document the customer can accept — which brings the page to its actual point.
04 — Tracking isn't approval
The job number organises the work. It doesn't agree the price.
A Fergus variation is, by design, an internal tracking record — it's how the business holds the extra work for costing and invoicing. What it isn't is a customer-facing approval step: it doesn't put the scope and the price in front of the customer and come back signed before the work starts. Fergus Go's sign-off captures a signature on the tradesperson's phone as a completion record — signed after, not agreed before. A quote-type variation does send a document to accept, which covers formally requested changes at desk pace, but not the on-site “can you just”.
The two halves fit together, and this is the pitch, with the bias declared up top: ScopeLock gets the customer's signature on the scope and price before the work starts — free under A$500 — and Fergus tracks the variation against the job afterwards. Approval first, costing second — the order matters at invoice time. The full comparison is on our Fergus page.
Straight answers
Questions people actually ask.
Does Fergus have a variations feature?
Yes — a first-class one. A variation is its own job sharing the customer and site address, with its own job number, created from the parent job's Variations menu on desktop or the Variations section in Fergus Go. Variations track separately through the Status Board and roll up into the parent job's Financial Summary.
Can I create a variation on a variation in Fergus?
No — Fergus's own help centre says so. Create multiple variations on the parent job instead. You also can't move quotes or invoices between variations once they're created.
Can a variation be invoiced with the parent job?
Yes. From the parent job's Invoicing screen, use “Create New Invoice — Add Costs from Job” and the Select Costs screen will pull line items from the parent and any of its variations into one invoice. Or invoice a variation separately if the paper needs to stay distinct.
Is a Fergus variation the same as customer approval?
No. The variation record organises and costs the extra work internally. Customer approval is a separate step: a quote-type variation produces a document the customer can accept, and sign-off in Fergus Go captures a signature on your phone as a completion record. Neither is a scope-and-price record signed by the customer before the work starts — which is the gap a dedicated approval tool fills.
Method
Where these answers came from.
Vendor screens and features are taken from each publisher's own website or help centre on the date shown. Nothing here is sponsored and no vendor has reviewed this page.
If something's changed, tell us and we'll fix it — an out-of-date guide is worse than none.
The next one's coming
The next “can you just” is already on its way.
Price it on your phone, they sign on theirs, you both keep the PDF. Under A$500 it costs you nothing, ever.
No card, no trial clock. Your customer doesn't need an account.