First Memorial Streamlines Finances with PlotBox

| Read time: 10 mins

2024 marks 50 years as a family-operated business for First Memorial Park Cemetery & Mausoleums. 

Located just outside of San Antonio in Texas, First Memorial offers plots, mausoleum crypts and cremation niches, as well as a range of headstones and monuments. 

Partner, Camero Crematory and Funeral Home, located on the same site, offers funeral, cremation and pre-need services.

Key to their operation is providing every family in their community with unique opportunities to learn, share, and remember, with a range of events designed to 'enrich lives, educate minds, and ease sorrows'.

We spoke with owner Abe Camero about the need to modernise their systems, having taken over the business from his grandfather, and the benefits of streamlining their sales and finance processes with PlotBox.

Please provide some background on your business.

My grandfather started the cemetery 50 years ago. He was in the funeral industry selling pre-need insurance, and saw a rundown cemetery that was no longer in use - he found out who owned it, made them an offer, and then worked very hard for the next 25 years bringing it up from nothing.

25 years ago, he wanted to pass it on, and that's when my father and myself came on board. So I've been with the company for half the time [it’s been operating] and have been trying to bring it into the modern age a little bit.

Basically, we try to provide services that keep in mind our community’s traditional wants and needs.

90-95% of our clientele is Hispanic, around 30% of whom speak Spanish only. Some are Mexican natives and prefer a very traditional funeral with a lot of flair and emotion.

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) must be a big occasion for you, then?

It’s huge - we have a large celebration every year. We hire mariachis and food trucks, we make up t-shirts, and provide all kinds of goodies and giveaways - that sort of thing. It’s probably our biggest event of the year.

It’s the No.1 thing we do to try and give back [to the community] - to make it really special for everybody.

Being such an important aspect to our clientele and their culture, means they really come back to us, as opposed to, say, another type of cemetery who may provide only one type of service.

They’ll stop in and see grandma or mom, and stay for a picnic. It becomes part of their lives, so in turn, we become part of theirs. 

In trying to realise that, I impart that onto our staff - saying that our families are very important to what we do - they’re our lifeblood, and because of that we have to be very cognisant and respectful.

You mentioned wanting to bring the cemetery into the modern age. Tell us more about that.

When we took it over 25 years ago, everything was done just with pen and paper - all record-keeping, all contracts, and using a typewriter.

That was just the way my grandfather did it. He wasn't ‘tech savvy’ and didn’t have any employees - it was him and his wife acting as a secretary - that's all they needed, really.

They kept things simple, so when we took over, we thought, “Wow, how do we get all these records, that are on index cards, into a computer system?”.

Back in 1999 we had a couple of programs such as Microsoft Works that you could use to create a database. We started transferring all of our records onto these databases in three different forms - one was sales, one was interments, and then one had our accounts receivable.

Fast-forward several years and Microsoft discontinued that program. [At that point] I would have to copy and paste the program from an old computer onto a new one just so we could [keep that information].

That helped us for a time.

How did you discover PlotBox?

My brother went to an ICCFA conference in San Antonio, where he visited the PlotBox booth, and was shown a demo.

We liked that it was web-based - you didn't have to keep all your files on a computer that could possibly derail, succumb to a fire, or require large storage onsite.

That was definitely something that was of interest to us - that, and the mapping.

We like that [the mapping team] could come out and carry out drone flights - everything was located.

There were a lot of features that basically combined all three of the databases we were using - holding our sales, our interment data records and our inventory - and of course, it enabled us to draw up contracts right then and there.

It all became integrated - everything we did into one nifty, neat website. That was a nice selling point. 

What did the data migration process look like for you?

It wasn't like we were moving from a different cemetery management program into PlotBox - we were going from zero.

It took us a little longer because we had to take [the information from] the Microsoft Works databases and get them into the right format - the right columns etc., so that PlotBox could utilise it.

That was probably our biggest hurdle.

And now?

Since then it's been a work in progress of learning the system. Now I feel I’m ready to really start utilising more of the deeper tools that are really useful - I've done training earlier this year to help us to keep track of our commissions.

Our next step will be to use PlotBox to manage our memorials - helping keep track of ordering, inventory and things like that.

There’s always something new, and as we continue our relationship into the future, it will even be more beneficial.

How did you and your team adapt to the change in processes?

It was mainly getting used to logging or uploading certain items into the system - for example, when creating a contract, knowing you have done everything [that you need to] before getting a signature.

And instead of just putting that in the file like we used to, we now upload that into PlotBox where it's accessible in the cloud.

Are there any other functions of the solution you are using more of?

Where we’re really at now is the CRM. That’s something we never had before and I'm now requiring staff to use it.

That allows us to log all of our customer relations - any phone call, email or face-to-face meeting. I want staff to log all of that there to help us keep track of our aftercare and follow ups, and in turn our sales down the road.

That’s the big engine that’s going to make the difference. 

I keep telling my people this is like a big brain. It just needs information. The more information we can plug into there, the better we can serve and keep track of our customers - we won’t, for example, call them twice for the same thing, because we’ll know exactly when an interaction was logged and what was spoken about.

It's a very good feature that I would highly recommend - anybody that's looking into PlotBox should take advantage of it.

How has PlotBox helped you to manage your sales and financial processes? 

One example is where a customer, having previously purchased a plot, has stopped making payments. Now it’s much easier to see that that plot is now available again for sale.

That’s a helpful tool - especially in sections that don’t have a lot of available space. I know families that are going to want them and, “Boom”, the sales now pop around them.

So that has been a nice feature.

And then also, being able to make up a contract from wherever you are. Say our people are working from home - before they'd have to give out individual numbered contracts to each agent, who would have to come back and ask for more if they ran out. Now, as long as they have their computer they are able to make one of their own.

How has the digital mapping helped your sales processes?

That has been nice. Now we’re able to say to customers, “Well, here's grandma, and here’s a plot available right next to it. We can walk out there and take a look if you like?”.

It gives them a bird's eye view of what you're talking about - especially if someone wants a plot next to a relative - now we can clearly show plot locations near to them.

Going back to your financial processes, how has PlotBox integrated with your current accounting systems?

We have Quickbooks, so we’ll use PlotBox to make a report of all the contracts written for a particular time period - say, a month - then we’ll reconcile it to ensure everything is OK.

Same with payments - in making sure all the payments that come through PlotBox are in there, we can start closing out the month, happy that the numbers are correct.

We will also use a report within PlotBox for expected payments - we have automatic payments set up within the system and report on those.

We then check that against what has actually come into the bank, which helps us to find any discrepancies. That then allows us to contact the customers to let them know, should we need to.

I’ll take that report and turn it into a .IIF (Intuit Interchange Format) file that Quickbooks can understand.

That ‘data dump’ from PlotBox into Quickbooks will update all of the payments.

I would like to do more - I have a Master's degree in accounting and financial management, so I try to trickle down my knowledge [to the team]. That said, I don't know everything, and I'm willing to learn more.

How are you utilising PlotBox’s reporting functionality?

For sales and anything based on contracts, it is definitely very helpful, as I can get a snapshot of everything that is currently written, or if I want a quick understanding of where our sales are.

I can look in PlotBox and find out how we’re doing much faster.

How does PlotBox help with internal auditing?

Yes, it does. You can time and date stamp contracts, along with who created them.

Because I can see who did what, when - if need be, I can ask the person what was happening at a particular time and why a certain action was taken.

There is so much it can tell you, that we’ve come to depend on it; you almost take for granted having everything at your fingertips.

The key thing is having your users input as much information as possible - whether that be into the CRM, or uploading supporting documents.

A person coming in for a burial now may have an old deed or contract, so it’s important to know that it’s been uploaded into the system and all the information we need is in there.

What has the support you have received been like?

The support’s been great, especially when getting set up. My wife and I were having a small child at the time, and with everyone working from home, it made for an interesting time.

Everyone was really nice, very dedicated, and they helped us out through any problems [we had]. Even to this day, if I need a meeting, they're really good at scheduling it.

Your Customer Success Manager (CSM) has been great and the training team we were working with on commissions prior to that was the best.

Your CSM will be working with us on memorial training to enable us to start using that module to its fullest capability.

And in terms of commissions, that will be a godsend. Previously we had one of my accounting clerks every month keeping track of everything by hand, using one of those little databases.

It was a running total - we’d have to go in, plug in every payment, subtract it from the balance, then add it all up at the end. It was kind of a nightmare to be honest and something we had done for a long time.

Now I’ve been doing a commission report, giving it back to the salespeople and asking them to have a look to tell me if it’s fine. Going forward, it’s going to be very helpful.

It’s definitely going to be the way to go and we're very happy to have it.

Have you any other future plans for using PlotBox?

We own 40 acres of undeveloped land, so we’ll be doubling in size and using PlotBox to help map out new sections, prepare everything and get it ready for sale.

There will also be new sections with niches, mausoleums and things like that, so PlotBox is definitely going to be in use there.

Beyond that, learning and making sure our CRM is being utilised to its utmost, with a big push for our aftercare - we're going to be using PlotBox to keep our finger on the pulse of what we’re doing with our customer outreach.

I also like how that will relate to sales - for example, our CRM report will tell us how many customers we’ve talked to, and then the sales based on that.

It’s very important to what we’re going to be doing.

Would you recommend PlotBox to other cemetery operators?

I would, and I have - I’ve been asked for a reference from other cemeteries in Texas and Arizona and have definitely recommended it.

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