Funeral preplanning involves practical and emotional decisions for families. Modern funeral home management software helps you address the many factors involved with preneed funeral arrangements in a straightforward and compassionate manner.
Modern funeral home management software can help you serve families is through preneed funeral arrangements. While a pre-planned funeral has many of the same components as one put together after a person passes, there are aspects of preneed planning that require training and setup to provide a professional, positive experience for clients.
The right funeral home software is crucial for this to work well. Any meeting involving a preneed funeral arrangement counselor and a family or individual needs to be set up properly, with easy access to information like pricing and a straightforward way to record all the decisions and choices made while discussing options.
Ensuring all of this is in place means first stepping back to acknowledge the main reasons why a family could and should consider preplanning their funeral.
Advantages of preneed funeral arrangements
Individuals and families interested in preneed services typically have three main reasons for doing so:
- Reducing decision-making for surviving family members
- Creating a truly personalized service
- Minimizing the financial burden of a funeral
Let’s examine each of these in turn.
1. Reduce decision-making burden on surviving family members
Reducing the decision-making burden on surviving family requires first reviewing the major decisions involved in preplanning a funeral. These include:
- Traditional burial vs cremation
- Direct cremation vs viewing and service followed by cremation
- Casket or urn selection
- Dispersal or other plans for cremains
- Timing and order of viewing, visitation, memorial service, reception, and burial/disposition
- Specific funeral components needed to honor religious traditions, military service, etc.
- Location/venue for viewing, visitation, service, reception
- Floral arrangements
- Music and readings for the memorial service
But, a preplanned funeral need not stop with these essentials.
2. Personalizing preneed funeral arrangements
Beyond the basics listed above, preplanning a funeral provides the opportunity to create a truly unique, meaningful service that fully honors the wishes of the deceased and his/her personality, the family’s specific cultural and religious traditions, and relationship dynamics among surviving family and friends.
For example, here are some additional details that may need to be considered for a preneed funeral arrangement:
- Limit number of guests
- Dietary requirements for reception catering
- Specialized keepsakes to honor the deceased
- Service live-streaming for survivors who can’t attend in person
Of course, cost will be a consideration in making decisions about any of these options.
3. Financial considerations for preneed funeral arrangements
When a family considers prepaying for a funeral at your funeral home, it is imperative that you provide transparent, straightforward documentation about how funding plans work and their benefits compared to other methods of pre-funding a funeral.
The information you provide should include any time limits on locked-in prices, billing frequency for payment plans, the involvement of insurance products to cover funeral cost if death occurs before payments are completed, and what happens if the family relocates and needs to transfer funding plan/payments to a different funeral home.
Having clearly documented prefunding packages available can be helpful. But, the funeral home management software you use to document this aspect must be flexible since each family’s financial constraints and preferences are different.
Preparing for an an effective preneed funeral arrangement meeting
Whenever a preneed funeral arrangement counselor meets with an individual or family, some preparation ahead of time will ensure the time is spent most effectively for all involved. Here are some basics:
- Plan at least an hour for the meeting; ideally two.
- Request that an individual planning their own service bring along their spouse and/or at least one of their children.
- Request a list of questions from the individual and their family.
- Request basic information about budget constraints for the funeral and existing funding sources, like life insurance and its coverage for end-of-life care and funeral expenses.
- Request that the individual or family bring along essential information about their financial advisor, for communication between parties if needed.
How funeral home management software supports preneed funeral arrangements
For families, preneed planning offers the advantage of being able to take time to thoughtfully work through the cumbersome legal and administrative aspects of a funeral, as well the emotional and legacy choices to be made. Continental Computers’ flagship software product, The Directors Assistant Web (TDAW®), and other services can help you, the funeral director, support families with all of this. Here are two ways we provide comprehensive but user-friendly solutions designed with deathcare professionals and families in mind.
TDAW®: anywhere, anytime access
TDAW® is accessible on any device connected to the internet. This means funeral home staff can have a preneed funeral arrangement meeting in any location–such as at the family’s home, or the funeral home office–and set up a preneed case to walk through and record all aspects of the funeral right down to details like music.
All this information is kept on file. Once the person dies, it is easy to pull up the case, convert it to an at-need case (while retaining the preneed case in read-only format), and begin working it like a normal case.
ArrangeOnline®: self-service preplanning
ArrangeOnline® is a web directory where funeral homes can list themselves as providing online funeral planning services. This allows families to review decisions about a funeral on their own, and then connect with the funeral home to make those arrangements.
For families, this is an opportunity to get the benefits of time and group participation normally missing in a traditional arrangement meeting.
Funeral homes can set up their ArrangeOnline® website from within TDAW®, listing the services available.
Learn more about TDAW® or contact Continental Computers anytime to explore how our funeral home management software can help you run your business effectively and support families with compassionate funeral planning services.
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This blog post is co-authored by Mae Kowalke and Wes Johnson.
Mae Kowalke
Digital Marketing Lead, Continental Computers
Mae grew up in rural Washington State and Vermont. In high school, she worked in public libraries and during college began her career in journalism before segueing into digital marketing. Mae holds a B.A. in Communications and has spent over two decades applying her writing superpower to help businesses communicate the value they bring to customers. Mae’s life experiences provide her with a broad and deep understanding of researching, organizing, and communicating meaningful information to both businesses and consumers.
Wes Johnson
President/CEO, Continental Computers
Wes grew up in the southern United States as an underprivileged child, and went on to serve active duty in the U.S. Army for a decade. Wes holds a B.S. in accounting and an MBA, and is a practicing licensed funeral director. These life experiences provide him with a unique perspective in the death-care industry. He understands the dynamics between the family and the funeral director, including the difficulty families face to pay for funerals. “Let’s solve problems together,” he says.
