Afterword

Changelog

Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.

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new

Summer 2025

Hello everyone,
We hope you’re all having a great summer. The team at Afterword was hard at work this June and July, focusing on improving our core products and rolling out our first AI-powered tool for directors. Here are all the product updates and highlights from the summer so far:
Want us to add a feature or make an adjustment? Email us with your requests!
Feature Highlights:
  • Introducing "Grace," our AI Assistant.
    We’re incredibly excited to release the first version of Grace, our AI assistant for funeral homes. Grace does administrative work for you and helps you stay on task. It helps research past cases, transfer your handwritten notes into Afterword, and email standard templates to families. If you’re interested in trying it out this beta feature, please let us know!
  • We launched eSignature Envelope Tracking.
    You can now see if and when families have opened, viewed, or clicked on all eSignature request emails. This helps you know when to follow up and brings more transparency to the arrangement process.
  • Chain of Custody now includes Personal Belongings Tracking.
    We've expanded our Chain of Custody app and desktop view to include the ability to log and track a decedent's personal belongings.
We're already deep into July's developments and look forward to sharing more soon. As always, your feedback is invaluable – please keep it coming!
The Afterword Team
---
Full List of Updates - June/early July 2025
We've made numerous other improvements and fixes across the platform, all aimed at making Afterword more powerful and easier for you to use. Let’s dive into the complete list of what we’ve been working on:
Documents & eSignature
We're continually enhancing your document management and electronic signing capabilities:
  • Document Instructions
    : You can now include instructions or guidance to families that appear before eSigning documents. This is helpful if you include third-party documents from a crematorium, cemetery, or municipality that don’t have your logo or name on it.
  • Document Template Variants
    : You can now create different "Variants" of a single document template, which is perfect for handling slight differences (like letterhead versions) without creating entirely new documents.
  • Batch Document Creation
    : You can now save significant time by generating documents for all cases in a report. Early customers are seeing most benefits in printing invoices or annual reminders.
  • Resend eSignature Link
    : We've added the option to easily "Resend" an eSignature link to signers.
  • Hiding Deleted Documents
    : We've improved the logic to correctly hide deleted documents or documents from deleted envelopes.
Chain of Custody
  • Personal Belongings Tracking
    : In addition to the mobile app, you can now view and manage a decedent's personal belongings from the desktop view in Afterword.
Case Management
Improving the core of how you manage case and family information:
  • Locking the Case for Families.
    You can now prevent a family from further edits to a case. This is useful if they’ve submitted an Arrangement Form or finished the Vitals planning experience, and you want to ensure they can’t go back and edit the Vitals.
  • File Manager:
    For funeral homes that want to digitize ALL records related to a Case, we’ve created a File Management solution similar to Dropbox or Google Drive for storing images, slideshows, scans, and other files.
  • Weekend Services Filtering
    : You can now automatically create packages based on whether the services are on the weekend. This is helpful for homes that have different pricing based on the day of the week.
  • Case Duplication Warning
    : To prevent accidental duplicates, we've added a Case Dupe Checker that is now also visible on the First Call page.
  • Case Number Generation
    : We now support more flexible case number generation, such as iterating by month while using a yearly number (
    25-07-001
    ) and allowing for location-specific suffixes.
  • Product Search Improvement
    : You can now search for products by their description, not just their name.
  • New Case Number Options
    : We've added support for new, more flexible case numbering formats.
  • Direct Deposit Option
    : Added "Direct Deposit" as a payment option.
  • Improved Permissions
    : Enhanced our permissions system for more granular control across the Whiteboard and Pricebook. You can now share certain Whiteboards with specific users and groups of users, and you can also give the permission for a user to edit your funeral home prices.
  • Joint Whiteboards
    : If you manage multiple brands or properties with Afterword, you can now view your entire set of cases in a single Whiteboard dashboard.
  • Site-Specific Reviews
    : We've added the ability for Google/Facebook reviews to be site-specific for multi-location funeral homes.
Vital Forms
  • New Contact Role
    : "Estate Trustee" has been added as a standard contact role.
  • Copy From Address
    : The system now allows you to copy an address from any other address on the case (decedent, main contact, place of death, etc), making it easier to duplicate addresses between family members. We’ll be rolling this out over the next week.
  • Automatic Township Information
    : We've started automatically grabbing township information in addition to city and state for more precise location data.
  • "Not Applicable" Fields
    : Added the ability for certain fields to be marked as "N/A" or “Unknown.”
Integrations
  • QuickBooks Export
    : For funeral homes that prefer to import data manually, you can now export case financial data for QuickBooks, using the same field mappings you’ve already set up for live syncing.
  • ASD Integration Updates
    : We've improved the mapping of service event values to ASD service types based on how you use ASD. To prevent errors, the button to sync with ASD is now disabled if all associated services for a case are in the past.
  • Yahrzeit & Hebrew Date Calculator
    : We've added a Yahrzeit date calculator that automatically stores the calculated date on the Case.
Migrations
We performed significant data migration work for new partners including from Crakn, MIS, and PartingPro.
Bug Fixes
Our team has been addressing issues to ensure a stable platform:
  • AI Obituary Writer
    : Fixed a bug where calls to our AI endpoints were returning inconsistent results.
  • Case Conversion:
    Fixed a bug where new pre-need cases were converted to at-need cases incorrectly.
  • Default Views
    : Fix an issue where “Default Views” weren’t being treated as the default view.
  • Shopify Integration
    : Corrected an issue with Shopify webhooks.
  • Duplicate Widget IDs
    : Fixed a bug caused by one of our integration partners related to duplicate widget IDs in forms.

new

May 2025

Hello everyone!
We hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend. We’re excited to share another round of Afterword updates. This month we’ve focused on key features like eSignatures and Vital management.
Want us to add a feature or make an adjustment?
Email us with your requests at founders@afterword.com.
May 2025 Highlights:
  1. We've rolled out
    Major eSignature Upgrades,
    including support for up to 7 Next of Kin signers, Witness signers, and significant enhancements to the user experience to make it easier for families to understand where to sign on any device. Funeral homes who collect vitals online can collect multiple NOK information and generate multi-signer contracts directly from the Online Planner.
  2. We launched our
    Chain of Custody app
    in the App Store     for all our existing customers! After months of testing with our early adopters, we’re making our Chain of Custody App available for everyone. Our app uses your GPS and barcodes/QR codes to streamline the body tracking process. If you’re interested in using Chain of Custody at your funeral home, please reach out to us.
  3. We released our
    Aftercare Emailing system
    , which allows you use to send email reminders for Yahrzeit, death anniversaries, or other emails to check-in with your families. If you’re interested in using this at your funeral home, please reach out to us.
We're already looking ahead and working on what's next. As always, your feedback is invaluable – please keep it coming!
Full List of Updates
These key features are just part of the story for May. We've made numerous other improvements and fixes across the platform, all aimed at making Afterword more powerful and easier for you to use. Let’s dive into the complete list of what we’ve been working on:
Documents & eSignature
We're continually enhancing your document management and electronic signing capabilities:
  • Multi-Signer Sequences from Planner
    : Generate eSignature sequences involving multiple signers directly from the online planner. We support up to 7 Next of Kin signers.
  • Witness Support & UI Overhaul
    : You can now capture Witness names and emails directly within the eSignature process. The overall eSign modal and signing page have been significantly updated for a clearer and more user-friendly experience.
  • iOS Zooming
    : Added dedicated Zoom in and Zoom out buttons to make Zoom easier for Mobile users.
  • Default ID Requirement for eSign
    : Added a setting to make requiring an ID upload for eSignatures the default, enhancing security and compliance.
  • "Scroll to Next" page
    : Added the ability for signers to "scroll to next" forms for smoother navigation through signing multiple documents.
  • Static Field Borders
    : Borders around fields are now removed after they have been filled in on documents, creating a cleaner final appearance.
  • Closing Tab Warning
    : We warn families if they attempt to close the tab before completing the signature process.
Chain of Custody / Body Tracking
  • Live in the App Store.
    Launched our mobile Chain of Custody App in the App Store.
  • Barcode Support
    : Added support for different types of barcodes and included counties/states for auto-generation in relevant contexts.
Aftercare Emailing System
  • Scaleable Emailing System:
    Our ****system scales to support tens of thousands of emails per month based on your needs. You can use this to send simple emails like a request for a Review or for templated emails with specific data.
  • Yahrzeit Email Template
    : Designed a dedicated email template for Yahrzeit notifications.
Case Management & Vitals
Improving the core of how you manage case and family information.
  • Expanded Next of Kin (NOK) Support
    : We've added support for up to 7 Next of Kin signers.
  • Informant & Contact Data
    : We’re indexing all family members in Afterword to make searching even easier.
  • State/Province Customization
    : State/Province abbreviations are now a toggleable feature for each funeral home to ensure we’re using the correct name where appropriate. We can also easily rename fields like “State” to “Province” or "County" to "Parish" for specific regional needs.
Financial Management & Payments
More flexibility and control over your financial operations:
  • Dynamic Payment Method Configurations
    : Funeral homes can now have dynamically configured payment methods, e.g. ACH for pre-need, Affirm for direct cremations, or Credit Cards for at-need.
  • Late Fee Calculation
    : Late fees can now be calculated automatically based on your monthly late rate.
  • Tax Rate Overrides
    : The system now respects Vital case tax rate overrides in financial calculations.
  • Statement Presentation
    : Addressing requests to show "Funeral Home Charges" as a clear summary of Service + Merchandise on statements.
Online Planner & Family Experience
Enhancing the tools families use to make arrangements and stay informed:
  • Multi-Signer Sequences
    : Families can initiate complex, multi-signer eSignature sequences directly from the planner.
  • First Page Dropdown
    : The dropdown on the first page of the planner now shows all available pages that have names, for clearer navigation.
  • Offline Warning
    : If a family gets disconnected from the internet while filling out a form, we warn them now so they can make sure to re-connect to the internet before continuing.
Migration Support
  • Prepared our platform to migrate data from Crakn. (Customer Request)
  • Prepared our platform to migrate data from PartingPro (Customer Request)
Bug Fixes & Testing
Our team has been diligently addressing issues to ensure a stable platform:
  • Initials Fix
    : Fixed an issue where signatures and initials were appearing in the wrong places on documents.
  • Document Field Validation
    : The system will no longer consider signature-based date/time fields as "required fields" for form completion, improving workflow for automated fields.
  • Whiteboard
    : Fixed an issue with multiple users editing simultaneously in the Whiteboard.
  • Forms
    : Addressed an issue where street addresses were sometimes defaulting to
    {}
    and causing case load errors.
  • Testing
    : We can now test
    every single form and document
    for each client before we release new changes. This means we can verify all code releases before making them live without affecting your experience.
  • Google Translate.
    Implemented a Google Translate hotfix in 12 minutes after reports of a user in Austria using Google Translate to view Afterword’s Online Planner in Russian.
May has been a month of significant foundational improvements and exciting new functionalities. We're already looking ahead and working on what's next. As always, your feedback is invaluable – please keep it coming!
Best,
The Afterword Team

new

April 2025

This month, we've focused on delivering enhancements that bring more precision to your financial management, depth to your case information, and overall ease of use to the platform.
Full List of Updates
April was a busy month filled with a wide range of other valuable updates and refinements across the entire platform. We believe in keeping you fully informed, so let's dive into the comprehensive list of what we've been working on for you:
Financial Management & Integrations
We're dedicated to making your financial processes as smooth as possible:
  • Payment Management
    :
- Added support for "Returned Payments" (e.g., bounced checks), ensuring they are flagged and don't incorrectly count towards totals.
- You can now quickly add Credit Card (e.g., 3%) or Late Fees as cash advances on a given case.
  • QuickBooks Integration
    :
- Discounts can now be synced with Journal Entries in QuickBooks.
  • Reporting & Statements
    :
- Funeral home charges and cash advances are now shown broken out to Funeral Directors for clarity on statements.
- Adjusted the order of items on migrated case Statements pages for better readability.
Case Management & Vitals
Enhancing how you capture and manage critical case information:
  • Vitals - Informant & NOK
    :
- Expanded support to allow for up to six Next of Kin (NOK) to be recorded.
- The "US Citizen" field, if previously missing for some, has been addressed.
  • Case Conversion
    :
- Ensured that payments are correctly handled and converted with the case.
  • Service Events & Disposition
    :
- Burial events are no longer private by default, offering more flexibility in how these events are initially set up.
  • General Case Operations
    :
- A "State/Province" field is now supported for broader geographical accuracy.
Documents & eSignature
Improving the creation, management, and signing of your important documents:
  • eSignature Experience
    :
- You'll now receive a warning before leaving an unsigned eSignature page, helping to prevent accidental data loss.
  • Document Content & Generation
    :
- User-inputted default values can now be stored in document annotations and are automatically applied when documents are generated.
- An "Obituary Confirmation Document" can now be generated from the Obit page.
- New document templates added to the global list: Authorization for Embalming, Acknowledgement and Waiver, Assignment of Proceeds, and a Third-Party Casket Document.
- Added two Veteran Forms to the global list of documents.
Platform Enhancements & User Experience (UX)
Focusing on making Afterword more intuitive, powerful, and user-friendly:
  • Admin & Site Customization
    :
- Admins can now edit site logos, website links, and phone numbers directly through the platform.
- We've opened up some editing capabilities to Admin-like funeral home users for greater flexibility.
- New staff records are now created with appropriate permissions.
  • User Interface (UI) & Forms
    :
- Changed "Finish and continue" button text to "Accept and continue" in relevant flows.
- Required input fields are now visually highlighted (e.g., in red) and are now strictly enforced.
- Currency fields are now supported in forms.
  • Navigation & URLs
    : Ensured that users don't end up with
    //
    (double slashes like
    /plan//plan
    ) in URLs.
  • Permissions & Roles
    :
- Task/Card assignments for Check Lists can now be made visible to everyone as an override.
Online Planner & Family Experience
Refining the tools families use for planning and communication:
  • Arrangement Flow
    : Funeral directors can now more easily change the order of the online arrangement flow.
  • Confirmation Alerts
    : Changed when the final confirmation alert is sent to families and now show it in the Case Timeline for better visibility.
  • Communication
    : Ensured emails can be sent correctly from an online planning flow.
  • Vitals Editing
    : Supported editing of Vital boolean (true/false) values directly in the online planner.
Product Catalog & Service Offerings
Giving you more control over how you present and manage your services:
  • Cart Preview
    : Multiple tax rates can now be shown in the Cart Preview.
  • Custom Items
    : Ensured custom items are only added to orders when they are fully ready and configured.
We're always grateful for your partnership and feedback. Please reach out with any questions or to discuss these new features.
Thank you!
The Afterword Team

new

March 2025

March was all about enhancing workflows, expanding integration capabilities, and giving you more powerful customization options. We're thrilled to share our top highlights this month:
  1. We've rolled out
    Sequential eSigning (In-Series Signing)
    ! You can now easily set up documents to be signed in a specific order by multiple parties, with notifications automatically going to the next signer once the previous one has completed their part.
  2. We're very excited to announce our
    initial integration with Answering Service Directors (ASD)
    , a big step towards streamlining communication between Afterword and your answering service.
Full List of Updates
Here’s a detailed look at the updates:
---
Documents & eSignature
We're continuously refining how you create, sign, and manage documents:
  • Sequential eSigning (In-Series Signing)
    : As highlighted, you can now set up documents to be signed in a specific order by multiple parties. This feature is enabled by default and includes UI improvements. Static fields will also be applied correctly based on the SignerRole in sequential signing.
  • eSign Copy Updates
    : We've updated some of the copy text related to the eSigning process for clarity.
  • Document Bundles
    : You can now edit document bundles more easily, and we've ensured that adding document bundles shows all intended documents.
  • Image Handling in DOCX
    : Improved support for 'auto' dimensions and borders for images in DOCX documents.
  • Envelope Creation Logic
    : Envelopes (for eSigning) will now only be created if the document has roles assigned to it.
  • Canva Integration
    : Updated our Canva integration to meet specific "Paper" requirements.
---
Integrations & Financials
Connecting Afterword with your essential services smoothly:
  • ASD Integration (Basic)
    : Launched our initial integration with Answering Service Directors (ASD).
  • QuickBooks
    : Handles batch requests that have more than 30 items
  • Payment Portal
    : Added better tracking for payments to each case.
---
Product Catalog & Service Offerings
More power and flexibility in how you manage and price your offerings:
  • Custom JS Formulas for Quantity Calculation
    : You can now use custom JavaScript formulas to calculate product quantities, allowing for complex scenarios like tiered pricing or intricate mileage calculations (e.g.,
    (X-50)/10 * 25
    ).
  • Default Quantities & Custom UI
    : Improved support for
    defaultQuantities
    in packages and enhanced the UI for custom quantity input.
  • Tax Rate Overrides
    : Custom tax rate overrides are now supported and visible in the CartPreview.
  • Service Options
    : Adjustments have been made to service options for IRL (In Real Life) planning scenarios.
---
Case Management & Vitals
Enhancing the core of your case management workflows.
  • First Call
    : Updates have been made to the First Call data entry process.
  • Contact Roles
    : Added primary purchaser back to contact roles and included extra Next of Kin fields along with a
    primaryPurchaser
    helper function.
  • Temporary Fields
    : Added DC (Death Certificate) Temporary Fields.
---
Online Planner & Family Experience
Improving the tools and communication touchpoints for families:
  • Form Submissions & Communication
    :
- Forms can now email the family a link to go back to the same form if they need to complete it later or make edits (where allowed).
- Ensured the family form email is only sent once to avoid duplication.
  • UI/UX
    : Added/removed padding for better mobile web usage of the online planner.
---
Platform Enhancements & User Experience (UX)
Focusing on system-wide improvements, performance, and usability:
  • Whiteboard
    :
- Introduced a specific "Whiteboard" permission for more granular access control.
- Added a Whiteboard setting in the admin panel.
  • Maps & Mileage
    :
- Added support for calculating distance in Kilometers (KM).
  • Image Handling
    :
- Added support for border widths with ImageKit transformations for more versatile image display.
- Introduced two new display styles for images:
imageBox
and
thumbnail
.
- Ensured thumbnail settings correctly override other image display settings.
  • User Settings
    : Added an editing panel to user settings for easier profile management.
  • Developer Experience & Tooling
    : Added tooling to make our developers more productive.
---
Reporting
  • Added a "Pickup location" report
---
Your feedback is crucial to our process, so please keep it coming! If you have any questions or want to learn more about these updates, don't hesitate to reach out.
Warmly,
The Afterword Team

new

November 2024

Whiteboard & Forms
  • [customer request] Added new Whiteboard functionality for new customers
  • [customer request] Added support for custom 'success' color for rows
  • Added support for getting product quantities by name match
  • Fixed updating Dates in whiteboard to empty values
  • Fixed missing relationship values
  • Fixed field name issues
  • Fixed choiceMap behavior in CategoryEditor
Payments & Accounting
  • Full ACH Support
  • Added support for negative payment todos
  • Updated migration scripts to catch missing transactions
  • Enhanced processJournalEntry function methods
  • [customer request] Improved QuickBooks client functionality
  • Updated DA sync migration scripts
Aftercare
  • Dedicated Aftercare settings
  • [customer request] Custom Email Templates and Editor
eSign
  • [customer request] Easily resend eSign envelopes
  • [customer request]Generate Links to sign/plan on Afterword vs. emailing
Infrastructure
  • Updated Apryse to version 11
  • Added support for 'example' subdomain
  • Added Tasks to importing functionality
  • Fixed various typos in components
  • Internal settings page upgrades
Data Migration
  • Copied example whiteboard into other environments for staging
  • Added support for DA migrated externalIds
  • Disabled validation for controllingField behavior
  • Added script to remove invalid QA cases

new

October 2024

User Experience & Forms
  • Added spouse helper fields
  • Improved handling of missing data in spouse helper fields
  • Added snackbars to InviteToVitals
  • Added basic GAE wrapper
  • Enhanced Rich Text fields formatting with floats
  • Added additional Vital getter for spouse
  • Setup PreferenceRoute types
Payments & Processing
  • Updated payment intent processing
  • Added handling for processing fee updates when total and payment method changes
  • Enhanced logging for payment intents
  • Improved Stripe payment intent status change handling
Infrastructure
  • Added support for nested paths
  • Implemented wildcard subdomain support
  • Updated current wildcard app
Security updates:
  • Updated several dependencies
Document Management
  • Added multiple tags support in docs
  • Added import default categories button
  • Improved string value trimming in Vitals/FieldGrid
  • Updated BCC logic
  • Enhanced email signatures

new

September 2024

User Experience
  • Added BCC functionality to planner settings
  • Updated case header title customization
  • Improved mobile UI adjustments
Infrastructure
  • Added wildcard subdomain support
  • Improved test environment configuration
  • Various dependency updates and security patches

new

August 2024

Payments & Accounting
  • Updated payment email notification system
  • Added support for bank account payment methods
  • Updated payment intent processing
  • Improved QuickBooks integration with journal entries
Data Migration
  • Added support for DA migrated externalIds (ExportIDs)
  • Updated migration scripts for DA
  • Added Tasks to importing functionality
  • Added script to remove invalid QA cases
  • Fixed missing transaction syncing
  • Improved handling of changed entries for DA
Forms & Documents
  • Added validation and comments for form fields
  • Added single page confirmation page option
  • Added support for maximum fees for bank accounts
  • Enhanced support for complex tags in if/then doc formulas

new

7/12/24

Enhancements
  • Huge UI overhaul!
  • Ability to override Relationship choices
  • Ability to download all uploaded photos from an Obituary page
  • Add Document Names to eSign notifications
  • New Reporting Landing page
  • eSign supports optional initials
  • Speed up mobile eSign experience with new infra
  • Faster Calendar Syncing for Google Calendar systems
  • Obituary links automatically open in a new tab
Fixes
  • Fixed how Entombment was treated in some packages
  • Removed legacy code related to products/packages
  • Removed legacy code related to our older version of document generation'
  • Fixed an issue with DOCX eSign templates in the Online Family planner
Task Lists
  • Required fields
  • Drag/drop
  • Process Category Editor
  • Showing incomplete tasks first
  • Starred tasks
  • Showing the completed by and audit logging

new

improved

fixed

July 6, 2024

Enhancements
Case Management
  • Support Additional Service Events
  • Enable Spellcheck in the Obituary editor
  • Support a variety of other Case Number generation formats
  • Reduce work that Afterword does in the background to make all pages load faster
  • Add the Documents page to the top navigation
  • Remove Tax Line in the Cart Preview and Contracts if you are in a state with no taxes
Documents & eSignature
  • Speed up mobile eSign loading by ~62%
  • Allow you to download your Statement of Funeral Goods and Services from the Packages page
  • Add a Header to every Case across all pages, so you always know which case you're viewing/editing
  • Add the ability to hover over a Rolodex entry while entering vitals
  • Add a custom eSign message when sending out documents for eSignature
Forms
  • Support Custom Notifications on custom web intake forms
Obituaries
  • Added an additional 40 Obituary Backgrounds
Integrations
  • Include additional information in our QuickBooks sync integration
Fixes
  • Fix Case Number generation if you generate numbers by location, by case type, AND there are large gaps between how frequently you create cases in that area
  • Included the Spouse and Additional Family Members in the Print Confirmation Screen
  • Fixed an issue where clicking "Start Over" as a funeral director redirected you to the first page as a family
  • Website Editor: The text editor should respect line breaks exactly
Load More
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