Ten questions to ask before you choose funeral management software

Most independent funeral directors change their office system once in a decade, if at all. So when the time comes, nobody in the firm has done it recently, and every supplier's demo looks good. These are the questions that tell them apart.

1. Can I try it on a real week?

Not a demo someone else drives. A trial where you enter your own cases, on your own busy days, with your own staff. If a supplier won't let you use it before you sign, ask why.

2. What does it cost, all in?

Ask for the monthly price per branch or per user, plus setup, data migration, training, support, and anything charged per case or per document. Then ask what happens to the price at renewal. A low first-year price with an open-ended renewal isn't a low price.

3. Can I leave, and take my data with me?

Ask for the export format before you sign: every case, every contact, every document, in files you can open without the supplier's software. Your records belong to your firm, and you may be legally required to keep them for years after a funeral.

4. Does it know the paperwork?

Since September 2024, the medical examiner system, the MCCD and the current cremation forms have changed how a case moves. Cremation 4 and 5 are gone, and Cremation 1 has new sections. Ask the supplier to walk a cremation case through the software and see whether it knows which form comes next, and who has to sign it.

5. Does it help with the CMA order?

Your Standardised Price List, crematorium prices and terms of business have to be displayed in the fixed format, online and in branch. Software that holds your prices should produce those documents from them, not leave you updating a Word file by hand.

6. How does it record care of the deceased?

With regulation coming, how you look after the people in your care matters as much as the paperwork. Look for identity checks, storage and temperature logs, and a record of every hand-over, each with a name and a time.

7. Who can see what?

Can an arranger see money but not the mortuary? Can a part-timer be given access for a day? When someone leaves, can you remove their access in one click? And is every change to a case recorded against the person who made it?

8. Where's the data, and how is it protected?

UK or EU hosting, encryption, backups, and a signed data processing agreement. Families trust you with some of the most sensitive information they'll ever share, so the supplier should be able to answer these without looking anything up.

9. Does it work on a phone?

Removals happen at night. Arrangements sometimes happen in someone's kitchen. If the software only works properly at a desk in the office, some of your work will keep happening on paper.

10. Who answers the phone?

When something goes wrong at nine on a Saturday morning with a funeral at eleven, who do you call? Ask about support hours, and whether the people on the other end understand what a funeral director's day actually looks like.

One more thing

Ask to speak to a firm of your size that's been using it for a year. Suppliers tend to point you at their happiest customers. An independent with two branches will tell you more than a group with forty.