The Arrangement Process, As It Runs Today

A call comes in — from a family, hospital, care home, hospice, or coroner. First call staff capture the details on a first-call form. Some arrive as emailed forms rather than live calls. A case is opened in Mortware.

Minimum viable record is deceased name + branch. Date of death is explicitly optional and may be unknown at this point.

There is no morgue at these locations, so the decedent cannot remain. Transfer proceeds immediately on verbal authorization only — no signed contract, no payment.

The transfer team is dispatched, the decedent is brought into care, and location is logged. Because the arrangement hasn’t happened yet, the transfer team or Megan’s team creates the SRS record.

The facility holds the decedent and no pickup occurs until the family comes in for a full arrangement and signs. This applies even to coroner cases.

The case sits at intake until an arrangement is scheduled and completed.

Managers pre-block arrangement slots for all directors roughly a week out; key people’s vacations are blocked so capacity is visible at a glance. First call staff fill the available slots.

Managers meet at 8:15; the full team huddles at 8:30 and pulls up the calendar — who’s doing what, and what’s changed since yesterday.

The family arrives. Per JC, the standard arrangement order — sourced from the Canadian College of Funeral Services curriculum — is vital statistics → rapport / service type → merchandise → payment → signing.

Vital stats go in first. The director works in Mortware’s tabbed modal (10+ tabs) as the primary entry surface, while the pre-pop face sheet serves as the visual reference — scanned top to bottom, familiar by muscle memory.

Rapport-building and service type discussion, then merchandise selection to build the package.

Disposition type — cremation, graveside, and so on — is determined here. That choice is what drives which downstream parties get notified.

Payment is discussed and collected or committed. Kearney’s stated target is payment up front, with no outstanding AR beyond 30 days — payment is expected at or before the arrangement. Payment terms are signed in this same session.

Cash advances — clergy, musicians, other third-party pass-through costs — are collected from the family on the invoice and later disbursed by cheque. Any cash advance over $500 requires customer payment before the cheque is issued.

Forms are generated as outputs of the case data, not inputs. The pre-pop auto-populates the downstream bundle — correcting one field on the face sheet corrects the whole bundle. Government vital statistics forms are produced here.

The director reviews before anything is sent. JC checks documents 7–8 times before sending.

The family signs everything in one session: the contract, the payment terms, the cremation authorization where applicable, and all optional consents. This is the hard milestone in the agreed status sequence — everything before is Arrangement, everything after is Contract signed.

This is also the moment the decedent is released for transfer. For hospital and coroner cases, the transfer that has been blocked since first call can now be dispatched.

The director enters the SRS record at arrangement: contract number, name, weight, disposition type. If the body arrived before the arrangement was done, the transfer team or Megan’s team has already created it.

Comm board and cremation board are updated separately, by hand.

Two things happen together. For hospital and coroner cases, the transfer is dispatched — the first physical movement of the decedent, waiting on Step 8 since first call. Simultaneously, the director manually emails the care centre, transfer centre, registrars, and crematorium with the documents each needs.

The case moves to Preparation document sent and ownership passes to the care / prep team. For home / hospice cases the decedent is already in care, so this step is documentation-only.