Funeral Service Glossary: 60 Terms Every Funeral Home Owner and New Hire Should Know

A funeral service glossary is a plain-language list of the words a funeral home uses every day, from the first call to the final disposition. This glossary defines 60 funeral terms in the order a case meets them, for new hires and new owners.

How is this funeral service glossary organized?

This funeral service glossary runs in the order of a case: the call, the family, prices, paperwork, care, and disposition, then preneed, money, phones, and software. Definitions of regulated terms paraphrase the FTC Funeral Rule, 16 CFR Part 453.

What is a first call in funeral service?

Funeral homes call the first report of a death the first call.

First call

A first call is the first contact that reports a death to a funeral home, from a family, hospice, hospital, or coroner’s office. The first call opens the case, so use a first call intake checklist.

Removal (transfer)

A removal, also called a transfer, is the act of bringing the person who died from the place of death into the funeral home’s care. Removal staff need an exact address, a contact there, and the family’s timing.

Pronouncement

Pronouncement means the formal declaration that a person has died. The US Standard Certificate of Death records the date and time pronounced and the signature of the person pronouncing. Ask on every first call whether anyone has pronounced.

Medical examiner and coroner

A medical examiner or coroner is the official who normally takes jurisdiction over a death without medical attendance, from an unknown cause, or by accident, suicide, or homicide, according to the CDC’s handbook. Release waits on that office.

Trade call

A trade call is a request from another funeral home for a service, such as a removal, an embalming, or forwarding remains. Record the referring firm, the service, and who to bill, so trade work stays separate.

What does at-need mean?

At-need means the death has already occurred.

At-need

At-need means arrangements made after a death has occurred, as opposed to preneed arrangements made in advance. The FTC’s guide applies the Funeral Rule to both.

Arrangement conference

An arrangement conference is the meeting where the funeral director and the family choose the disposition, services, and merchandise. Under the Funeral Rule, the family receives the itemized statement at the end of that discussion.

Informant

An informant is the person who supplies the decedent’s personal facts for the death certificate. The CDC handbook prefers, in order, a spouse, parent, child, other relative, then anyone who knows the facts. Verify name spellings with the informant.

Next of kin

Next of kin means the closest living relatives of the person who died, in an order set by state law. Record each relative’s name and relationship, because CANA’s model law ties the right to control disposition to nearest kinship.

Authorizing agent

An authorizing agent is a person legally entitled to authorize the cremation of human remains, in CANA’s model cremation law. CANA notes that the authorizing agent is the nearest kin in most cases, but not in every case.

Visitation

A visitation, also called a viewing or a wake, is a set time when family and friends gather with the person who died present. The FTC’s embalming disclosure says embalming may be necessary for a funeral with viewing.

Committal service

A committal service is the brief closing rite at the grave, crypt, or niche, where the person is committed to a final resting place. Staff, equipment, and the cemetery’s schedule must line up, so confirm the time beforehand.

Celebrant

A celebrant is a person who leads a funeral or memorial service built around the life of the person who died, in place of clergy. Record who pays the celebrant’s fee.

Obituary and death notice

An obituary is a written account of a person’s life, published in a newspaper or online. A death notice is a short announcement of the death and the service times. The FTC lists obituary notices among cash advance items.

What is a General Price List?

A General Price List is the itemized price list the FTC Funeral Rule requires. FTC Funeral Rule basics explains the Rule.

General Price List

A General Price List, or GPL, is the printed list of itemized prices that a funeral provider must give, to keep, to anyone who asks in person about funeral goods, services, or prices. See General Price List management.

Casket Price List

A Casket Price List is the printed list of retail prices for the caskets and alternative containers a firm offers without special ordering. Staff must offer it before showing caskets. Use the casket and outer burial container price list checklist.

Outer Burial Container Price List

An Outer Burial Container Price List is the printed list of retail prices for the vaults and grave liners a firm sells. Staff must offer it before showing the containers, with the FTC’s disclosure on whether one is required.

Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected

A Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected is the itemized written record of what a family chose, each price, the cash advance items, and the total, given to the family when arrangements end. See itemized funeral statements.

Basic services fee

A basic services fee is the charge for the funeral director and staff’s services, such as the arrangement conference and permits, and may include overhead. The FTC’s guide calls it the only non-declinable fee the Rule allows, unless state or local law requires otherwise.

Cash advance item

A cash advance item is an item the funeral home describes as a cash advance, or obtains from a third party and pays for on the family’s behalf, such as clergy honoraria, flowers, or death certificates. A firm that adds a charge must say so on the statement.

Direct cremation

Direct cremation is a cremation without a formal viewing, visitation, or ceremony with the body present. The Funeral Rule bars a firm from saying a casket is required for direct cremation. The General Price List shows its price range.

Immediate burial

Immediate burial is a burial without a formal viewing, visitation, or ceremony with the body present, except for a graveside service. The General Price List must show its price range, including a price when the family provides the casket.

Alternative container

An alternative container is an unfinished wood box or other non-metal receptacle, without ornamentation or a fixed interior lining, made of fiberboard, pressed wood, or similar material. A firm that arranges direct cremations must make one available.

The FTC’s guide says to keep each price list for at least one year after you last handed it out, and each completed statement for at least one year from the arrangements conference.

Which documents and permits follow a death?

A death certificate, a disposition permit, and signed authorizations follow a death. The College of American Pathologists lists physician deadlines from 15 hours in California to 10 days in North Dakota.

Death certificate

A death certificate is the permanent legal record of the fact of a death. The CDC handbook makes the funeral director responsible for filing it with the proper registration official. Families use certified copies for insurance, pensions, and property transfers.

Medical certification

Medical certification is the part of the death certificate that states the cause of death, completed by the attending physician, a medical examiner, or a coroner, not by the funeral director. See when the doctor has not signed.

Electronic death registration system

An electronic death registration system, or EDRS, is a secure, web-based system for registering deaths, as the CDC describes it. Funeral directors, medical certifiers, and registrars each complete a part online, so a new hire needs a login.

Disposition permit (burial transit permit)

A disposition permit, also called a burial transit permit, is the state’s authorization for burial, cremation, entombment, or removal from the state, where required. The CDC handbook says the permit accompanies the body to the place of disposition.

Embalming authorization

An embalming authorization is the express permission of a family member or other authorized person to embalm. Under the Funeral Rule, a firm may charge for embalming only with that approval, or in two narrow cases the Rule lists.

Cremation authorization

A cremation authorization is the form the authorizing agent signs to permit a cremation. The CDC handbook adds that a state may require a further authorization, normally from the medical examiner or coroner. Schedule nothing until both are on file.

How is a person cared for before disposition?

A person in care is identified at every handoff and preserved by refrigeration or embalming.

Chain of custody

Chain of custody is the documented record of who held a person’s remains at every step, from the removal to the final release. Each handoff gets a signature and a time. See the chain of custody guide.

Identification tag

An identification tag is the band, tag, or numbered disc that stays with a person’s remains, so identity can be checked at each step. For cremation, CANA’s model law calls for a unique number on a non-combustible disc.

Refrigeration

Refrigeration means holding a person’s remains in a cooled unit instead of, or before, embalming. The FTC’s guide says that where state law requires refrigeration or embalming after a set time, a firm with refrigeration must offer the choice.

Trade embalmer

A trade embalmer is a licensed embalmer who works for several funeral homes under contract, instead of on one firm’s staff. Record who did the work and when, so the case file and the custody record stay complete.

What are the terms for burial, cremation, and other disposition?

Disposition means the placement of whole or cremated remains in a final resting place, in the FTC’s wording. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the projected 2025 cremation rate is 63.4% and the burial rate is 31.6%.

Crematory

A crematory is the building, or part of a building, that houses the cremation chamber and the holding facility, as CANA’s model law defines it. A funeral home without one relies on the custody record between the two firms.

Retort

A retort is the cremation chamber, the enclosed space lined with heat-resistant brick or tile where a cremation takes place. CANA says cremation usually occurs between 1,400 and 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. The identification disc stays with the person throughout.

Cremated remains

Cremated remains are the bone fragments recovered after a cremation and processed into small particles. CANA says adult cremated remains weigh between four and six pounds on average. CANA’s model law calls "ashes" and "cremains" erroneous terms.

Columbarium

A columbarium is a structure, or a room inside a building, with niches for placing cremated remains in urns or other approved containers. Ask the cemetery which containers its columbarium accepts, and what it charges for opening a niche.

Niche

A niche is a space in a columbarium, a mausoleum, or a niche wall that holds an urn, in the FTC’s definition. Confirm the niche’s inside measurements with the cemetery before the family selects an urn.

Interment

Interment means burial in the ground, inurnment, or entombment, in the FTC’s glossary. The cemetery’s charge for opening and closing a grave is a cemetery service, which the FTC lists among cash advance items when the firm pays it.

Inurnment

Inurnment means placing cremated remains in an urn, in the FTC’s glossary. CANA’s model law also uses the word for permanent placement in a columbarium niche. Ask which meaning a cemetery intends when it quotes an inurnment fee.

Entombment

Entombment means burial in a mausoleum, in the FTC’s glossary. The casket rests in a crypt, a space in a mausoleum or other building. The US Standard Certificate of Death lists entombment as its own method of disposition.

Mausoleum

A mausoleum is a building in which remains are buried or entombed, in the FTC’s glossary. A mausoleum holds caskets in crypts and urns in niches. Confirm the crypt location and the opening time with the cemetery beforehand.

Outer burial container (vault, grave liner)

An outer burial container is a container placed in the grave around the casket. A grave liner covers the casket, and a vault completely encloses it. The FTC’s required disclosure says either kind satisfies a cemetery that requires one.

Green burial

Green burial is a more natural, environmentally conscious approach to death care, in the Green Burial Council’s words, without embalming or vaults and with biodegradable containers. NFDA’s 2025 consumer report found 61.4% of respondents interested in green options. See green and natural burial.

Alkaline hydrolysis

Alkaline hydrolysis is a process that uses water, alkaline chemicals, heat, and sometimes pressure to reduce a body to bone fragments, also called water cremation or aquamation. Alkaline hydrolysis is legal in some states only: CANA counted 26 as of March 2026.

Natural organic reduction

Natural organic reduction is the conversion of a body into soil inside a closed chamber packed with plant material, also called human composting. Natural organic reduction is legal in some states only, and Washington was the first, in 2019, according to CANA.

What does preneed mean?

Preneed means arrangements made, and usually paid for, before a death.

Preneed

Preneed means funeral arrangements made before a death, usually under a contract with payment in advance. The FTC’s guide says the Funeral Rule covers preneed arrangements. State law governs how the money is held, and the FTC says protections vary widely.

Pre-arrangement

A pre-arrangement is a record of a person’s funeral wishes made in advance, with or without payment. Note on the record whether it is funded, and file it where the person taking a first call can find it.

Preneed trust

A preneed trust is a state-regulated trust that holds money a person prepays for funeral goods and services until the death. The FTC says a state may require a funeral home to place a percentage of each prepayment in trust.

Preneed insurance

Preneed insurance is a life insurance policy bought to fund a prearranged funeral, with the death benefit assigned to the funeral home or cemetery, as the FTC describes it. At the death, the firm claims the benefit from the insurer.

Money and the office

Assignment of proceeds

An assignment of proceeds is a signed form that directs a life insurance company to pay part of a death benefit to the funeral home. A signed assignment is not cash received. See the funeral insurance assignment form guide.

Insurance assignment funding

Insurance assignment funding is a service that advances money to a funeral home against a pending life insurance claim. Express Funeral Funding, one such company, says it typically pays within 24 to 72 hours. Ask each company for its fee in writing.

Accounts receivable

Accounts receivable means the money that families, insurers, and other payers owe the funeral home for services already provided. Tracked by case, accounts receivable shows whether a balance waits on an insurance claim, a payment plan, or an estate.

Phones and coverage

On-call

On-call means being the person assigned to take death calls and go out on removals outside office hours. The US Department of Labor says an employee on call at home is usually not working, unless added restrictions apply.

Answering service

An answering service is an outside company whose operators answer a funeral home’s phone when staff cannot, take first call details, and reach the on-call director. Compare options in the funeral home phone system guide.

Call forwarding

Call forwarding is the phone setting that sends calls made to the funeral home’s number on to another number, such as an answering service. In ASD’s 2017 survey of 1,791 funeral professionals, 13% had experienced call forwarding problems within 12 months.

Case volume (call volume)

Case volume, also called call volume, is the number of families a funeral home serves in a year. A call here means a case, not a phone call. Connecting Directors’ 2024 survey reported an average of 377 calls managed annually.

Software and records

Case management software

Case management software is a program that keeps each case in one record: the decedent, the family, services, documents, tasks, and payments (see a complete funeral home software system in outline). Any staff member can then pick up a case. FuneralHQ case management is one example.

E-signature

An e-signature is an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to a record and adopted by a person with intent to sign, as federal law defines it. Compare funeral e-signatures with DocuSign before you choose a tool.

Aftercare

Aftercare means the contact a funeral home keeps with a family after the service, such as delivering death certificates, a follow-up call, and an anniversary note.

How FuneralHQ handles this

FuneralHQ keeps the work behind these terms in one case record, from first call to final payment. First call intake opens the case. The General Price List is kept once, and the Statement of Funeral Goods and Services is built from the same line items. Documents go out for e-signature. Custody forms are signed and timestamped, alongside QR and barcode scan checkpoints for chain of custody. FuneralHQ syncs with QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, and includes cemetery mapping, plot inventory, and deeds.

FuneralHQ is not the right choice for every firm. FuneralHQ does not file with any state electronic death registration system, and offers no Spanish documents, no Spanish family pages and no Outlook sync. A firm already well served by its current system has no reason to switch.

Common questions about funeral home terminology

What is the difference between at-need and preneed?

At-need means arrangements made after a death. Preneed means arrangements made, and usually paid for, before a death. The FTC’s guide applies the Funeral Rule to both. A preneed contract becomes an at-need case when the person dies, so the director reads the contract first.

What is the difference between a first call and a removal?

A first call is the contact that reports the death. A removal, also called a transfer, is the physical act of bringing the person into the funeral home’s care. An answering service can take a first call. Only staff the director sends carry out a removal.

Can a funeral home add a charge to a cash advance item?

A funeral home may add a charge to a cash advance item under the Funeral Rule. The FTC’s guide says the Rule does not prevent a service charge, but the statement must say the firm charges for obtaining the item. State law may prohibit any mark-up.

Does the family keep the General Price List?

Yes. The Funeral Rule requires a funeral provider to give the General Price List, to keep, to anyone who asks in person about funeral goods, services, or prices. The FTC does not require a copy of the Casket Price List to keep.

What is the difference between a vault and a grave liner?

A grave liner is a concrete cover that fits over a casket in a grave. A vault is a grave liner that completely encloses the casket. Both definitions come from the FTC’s consumer glossary, and both are outer burial containers on the price list.

Is embalming required by law?

Embalming is not required by law except in certain special cases, according to the disclosure the FTC requires beside the embalming price on a General Price List. The same disclosure says embalming may be necessary for a funeral with viewing. State law sets the special cases.

Who signs a death certificate?

Two parties complete a death certificate. The CDC’s handbook says the funeral director completes the personal and disposition items, and the attending physician, a medical examiner, or a coroner completes the cause of death. The funeral director then files the certificate.

How should a new hire learn funeral terms?

A new hire can learn funeral terms in the order of a case, with the firm’s own documents in hand. Read your General Price List, then a completed statement, then one closed case file. See how to onboard a new funeral director.