What is funeral home software?

Funeral home software helps funeral homes, mortuaries, and crematoria manage all aspects of day-to-day operations. By automating accounting, inventory, and document management, funeral home software provides complete control over back-office tasks. Front-office features allow you to manage funeral services, share and sign documentation, and share merchandise and memorials on your website or social media.

The benefits of funeral home software

• Ease of documentation:  By using electronic templates for commonly used funerary documents, customers can digitally sign required paperwork without having to be physically present.
• Improved customer service:  Considering the time-sensitive tasks required to prepare for a funerary service, funeral home software helps you organize intake, delivery times, service schedules, and invitations. This facilitates as positive of an experience as possible for your customers during a difficult time.
• Easier product selection:  Funeral home software allows you to organize a catalog of memorial products that can be shared with customers on various digital platforms. Integration with the accounting component allows these items to be seamlessly added to an order/invoice for ease of billing.
• Document control:  External documents, such as death certificates or memorial photos, can be imported and stored digitally along with documents generated by your business. Having a permanent, central document repository allows you to instantly access or distribute documentation as needed. 
• Automated accounting:  Funeral home software integrates accounting with service planning and ordering, ensuring that customers are accurately invoiced. Reporting features allow business owners to generate reports on receivables, payables, and inventory on hand. 

Typical features of funeral home software

• Service management:  Organizes the tasks involved in a funeral, burial, or cremation service, such as scheduling services and inviting guests.
• Accounting and financial reporting:  Maintains an accounting ledger and generates reports for payables and receivables.
• Document management:  Allows the digital signing of documents and provides a paperless document repository for all documents generated or required by the funeral home.
• Pre-need management:  Organizes all goods and service required to prepare pre-burial ceremonies. Provides digital form templates for all signable documents.
• Merchandising tools:  Facilitates the design of urns, prayer cards, and other remembrance products. Allows you to publish purchasable merchandise to your website and social media posts about the deceased.
• Inventory management:  Tracks and manages the resources necessary for the operation of funerals and cremations.

The funeral home software directory lets you filter by feature(s) to only view options that meet your business needs, which can help you narrow your software shortlist.

Considerations when purchasing funeral home software

• Different products for different services:  Many products are geared towards businesses that offer specific services. For example, inventory and document requirements for a contracted crematorium are vastly different than those required of those funeral homes. Make sure you consider your specific business needs and purchase software that meets that those needs. Additionally, companies that provide on-site burial may want to consider choosing an app that offers plot mapping and inventory. 
• Modular design:  Some available funeral home software packages are available on a modular basis, allowing business owners to choose only those components that they need. For example, if a funerary business already has a reliable merchandising software in place, accounting and document management modules can be purchased separately at a lower cost.

Relevant funeral home software trends

• Conversational chatbots will provide more options for making funeral arrangements:  Considering the emotional distress incurred from the death of a loved one, discussing funeral options and arrangements can be difficult. As conversational chatbot technologies become more affordable for small to midsize businesses, expect to see funeral homes offer customers the ability to ask questions and make arrangements with a chatbot, avoiding the need to make an initial call or leave a message.
• Increased social media use:  Statistics show that even in the end-of-life sector, traditional marketing is slowly being replaced by social media presence. As this trend continues, expect funeral home software to allow the automated publication of obituaries and remembrance content to social media platforms.