---
title: How it works
description: One funeral case from the first call to the closed file: the family portal, the paperwork everyone is waiting on, the forms and the invoice.
---

Token estimate: ~1,200

# How it works

One funeral case from the first call to the closed file: the family portal, the paperwork everyone is waiting on, the forms and the invoice.

A funeral is one long piece of administration wrapped around a few hours of ceremony. The same facts about the same person will be asked for by a doctor, a registrar, a crematorium and an accountant, and the funeral cannot be booked until people outside the firm have done their part. Funeral Casework will hold those facts once and follow the waiting.

Here is one case from the first call to the closed file. The surfaces named along the way are listed on [the features page](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/features).

## The first call

A call comes at two in the morning. The page that answers it will ask for four things: who died, where they are, who is calling, and a number to call back on. Nothing else, because nothing else can be usefully collected at two in the morning.

That creates the case, and the case is the record everything else hangs off. It will be reachable in two taps on a phone, because that is the device the person on call is holding.

## Into care

The removal is recorded against the case: who went, when, and where the deceased is now. From that point the case appears in the list of everyone currently in the firm's care, which is the list a director checks before answering any question about capacity.

## The link to the family

The arranger sends a link by text or email. There will be no account and no password - the link is the credential, and several relatives will be able to hold the same one.

The family fills it in at home. This is the part that usually goes badly in a meeting room: the registrar needs the birthplace, the occupation and the parents' names including the mother's maiden name, and the person sitting in front of the arranger is very often not the person who knows them. At home, on a Tuesday evening, someone can ring an aunt.

Each section saves as it is filled, so the form can be left and picked up again.

## The arrangement meeting

Because the details are already in, the meeting becomes a review rather than a transcription. The arranger confirms what the family entered, takes the decisions that need a conversation - burial or cremation, the service, the coffin, the cars - and prices them from the firm's own list.

## What everyone is waiting for

Now the case stops depending on the firm and starts depending on other people. A doctor has to complete the medical certificate of cause of death. Since September 2024 a medical examiner has to scrutinise every death in England and Wales before that certificate is issued. If a coroner is involved, nothing moves until the body is released. Then the death is registered, the green form comes out, and only then can a crematorium slot be held with any confidence.

Each of those will be its own item on the case, carrying who it is waiting for, when it was last chased, and how many days it has been open. The items will group by who is being chased rather than by case, so three families waiting on the same registrar will be one phone call rather than three.

## The forms

The statutory paperwork, and the firm's own estimate and contract, will be filled from what is already on the case. Nothing will be typed a second time. They will be signed on the arranger's tablet at the meeting, or remotely by the family on their own phone if the signature is the only thing left.

## The estimate and the invoice

The firm's price list will be entered once, in the structure the Competition and Markets Authority requires funeral directors to publish. Selecting from it produces the itemised estimate the family takes away, and the same selection becomes the invoice.

Disbursements will be recorded separately from the firm's own charges throughout, because they are money passing through rather than money earned, and treating them as one number is how a funeral director ends up out of pocket on a crematorium fee.

## Closing the case

Certified copies go to the family, the invoice is settled, and the case closes with its documents, its timeline and its money attached to it. Records will stay available and exportable rather than locked in.

## What this covers

The paperwork at launch will be the England and Wales set. Scotland and Northern Ireland certify and register deaths differently, and their form sets will follow.

What each surface does is on [the features page](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/features), and what it will cost is on [the pricing page](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/pricing).