Your directors are with families. Somebody still has to carry the details.
An independent funeral home runs on care and on details. The care belongs to your directors. The details — whether the cemetery has confirmed Saturday, whether the obituary will make Thursday's paper, which certificates are still to be ordered, which license renews this autumn — are what quietly fill their evenings.
PrivateChief gives the firm a named Business Chief who carries those details, knows who is asking, and brings your directors decisions instead of noise.
First calls stay with your people. We would not have it any other way.
Your Chief does not answer first calls. When a family, a hospice or a hospital calls to report a death, that call belongs to a director or to the answering service you already trust, and it should stay there. Your main line stays exactly where it is.
PrivateChief also does not integrate with your funeral home software. It does not read Passare, Gather, Osiris, FrontRunner or Parting Pro, it does not file with your state's electronic death registration system, and it does not touch pre-need trust or insurance funds. It does not quote from your General Price List either: price questions go to a director.
What it does is carry the details around the care, from the material that software never held: the email, the calendar, the document drawer, the cemetery's and the florist's promises, the license dates, and whatever your directors tell it. Nothing it drafts reaches a family without a director's approval.
Six things a funeral home carries by hand, and a Chief who carries them instead.
Start the day already knowing
A scheduled briefing puts today's services and arrangement conferences, the confirmations still outstanding, the deadlines that are close and anything that changed in front of the right director before the day begins.
Chase the cemetery, not the family
The cemetery opening, the crematory time, the clergy, the florist, the musician, the monument order. Your Chief keeps the thread with each one and brings a director only the decision it cannot make.
Never miss the paper's deadline
The obituary deadline for each newspaper, the extra certified copies a family asked for, the permit that must be in hand before a service. You give your Chief the dates; it raises each one in good time.
Answer a family's question without the evening email
When a family writes with a practical question, your Chief drafts the answer from what the director has recorded and holds it. Nothing is sent to a family until a director has read it and said yes.
Turn a pre-planning enquiry into a meeting
Someone asks through your website about planning ahead. Your Chief takes their details, offers times for a conversation with a director, and never quotes a price or sells a plan.
Keep the firm licensed and its books current
Funeral director and embalmer licenses, the establishment license, vehicle registrations and insurance, organized and searchable. Connected bank accounts feed the firm's own month; pre-need trusts stay where they are.
Fewer loose ends. Less of it in your head.
Your briefing lists the two services today, the arrangement conference at eleven, the cemetery that has not confirmed Saturday, and a pre-planning enquiry that arrived overnight.
A family asks whether the obituary will appear in Thursday's paper. Your Chief checks the deadline, drafts the answer, and holds it until the director has read it.
The cemetery still has not confirmed. Your Chief has already asked twice and brings the director the one thing it cannot decide: whether to call the superintendent directly.
The firm's own income and costs are gathered and categorized, and the exceptions arrive as a short list of decisions rather than an evening with a spreadsheet.
Useful to the whole firm. Deliberate about who sees what.
"One assistant for everyone" is the wrong answer for a funeral home. The owner, the directors, the office administrator and an apprentice do not need the same access to families' details or to the books, and a Chief that assumed they did would be a liability.
Each member is known by name and role. Access to records and tools follows explicit permissions rather than assumption, and your Chief answers the person actually asking.
At the firm, or hosted entirely by us.
By default the firm's working memory, permissions, documents and operating context live on a managed appliance in your office, which we monitor, update, back up and support remotely. If you would rather own no equipment, the same Business Chief runs fully hosted on a dedicated, isolated server we operate for you, ready in days rather than weeks. The monthly price is the same either way.
Business service is $199 per month for one firm, with each member of staff known by name and role. A firm with more than one location can run each as its own business and workspace at $199 per month each. Fully hosted service has a fixed $299 onboarding fee; an in-office installation is quoted for the actual location, integrations and migration work. Businesses also maintain a compatible paid OpenAI or Anthropic Claude subscription directly with that provider. See the complete pricing.
Straight answers.
Will it answer our first calls?
No. First calls belong with a director or with the answering service you already use, and your main line stays exactly where it is. Your Chief carries the work that follows, from what your directors record and tell it.
Does it connect to our funeral home software?
No. There is no integration with Passare, Gather, Osiris, FrontRunner or Parting Pro, and it does not file with your state's electronic death registration system. Your Chief works alongside them from email, calendar, documents and what your directors tell it.
Will it contact families without a director's approval?
No. We set every firm up so that anything it drafts for a family is held until a director has read it and approved it. Every capability runs in one of three modes — off, able to read and plan but send nothing, or permitted to act — and new workspaces start where nothing is sent, spent or published.
Will it quote prices or sell pre-need plans?
No. It does not quote from your General Price List, sell pre-need plans or handle pre-need trust or insurance funds. It takes a pre-planning enquiry and arranges a conversation with a director.
Where do families' details live?
On a private appliance at the firm, or on a dedicated isolated server in a PrivateChief-controlled United States cloud account if you choose the hosted option. Each client company has its own workspace and data boundary. It is not sold or used for advertising profiles.
How do I see it working before committing?
Talk to one. Our demonstration Chief, Alfred, will hold a real conversation with you on the live demo or by telephone on (978) 440-1800. It is the product, not a recording.
