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Tools

Deceased Person Tool

Learn more about the Deceased Person tool, including instructions to mark a person as deceased, best practices, and more.

It's difficult when a person passes away, but handling their records doesn't have to be. With the Deceased Person tool, you can identify and update their records all at once.

Warning: Use the Deceased Person tool with care. You cannot automatically undo the changes made by this tool. You must manually undo any changes by referencing the audit logs of each affected record.
  • The tool is available on the Contacts page, and you must launch it from an open record.
  • The person's user account password become null, preventing future logins with that account.
  • Each suggested change is optional. You can hover over each option to see what change will be made.
  • If an option is not applicable for the individual, it is grayed out and you can't select it. For example, you won't have the option to transfer donations to the spouse if the person wasn't married.
  • The tool clears all applicable options by default. You must select the changes you want to make.

Screenshot of the Deceased Person tool displaying the options for the selected contact, including removing personal data, updating family data, and donation data

Note: To use this tool, you must have access through your security role. SPoCs can grant user access to this tool.

Mark a Person Deceased

  1. Go to Contacts, and open the record.
  2. Click Tools, then click Deceased Person.
  3. Review the applicable options, and make your selections.
    Here are a few things to note when making selections:
    • You can remove a contact from their household, keep them in it, or move them to a separate household. See our best practices for more information.
    • When you select Change Status to Deceased, the participant record and any current attributes will be end-dated with the current date. If the contact doesn't have a participant record, one will be created with the selected participant type and end-dated.
    • When you select Change Spouse Status to Widowed, the "Married To" relationship will be end-dated and a "Widowed Spouse of" relationship will be added.
  4. In the Date of Death field, set the date of death. It defaults to the current date, but you can click the calendar icon to change it.
  5. In the Participant Type field, select the participant type. This defaults to the participant type set in your configuration setting for COMMON, defaultParticipantType.
  6. Read the important message, then click Save to confirm.
    A success message displays.
  7. Close the tool.

Best Practices for Using the Deceased Person Tool

Add a Reviewer to the Process

If you want someone to review any contact marked as deceased, create a process that sends an email to ask them to review the record. See the example below, which uses the Table Name of Contacts, Trigger Field of Contact_Status_ID, and Dependent Condition of Contacts.Contact_Status_ID = 3.

Example process for triggering an email to the church admin when someone is marked as deceased

Transfer Donations

Deceased Head of Household — For donations to transfer from a head to a spouse, the following must be true before you use the Deceased Person tool. Both the deceased individual and spouse must:
  • Have the contact status of Active.
  • Be in the same household.
  • Have the household position of Head of Household.
  • Have the contact marital status of Married.
  • Have a married contact relationship record in common.

Deceased Child — If the deceased person is a child with two remaining heads of household, the donations transfer to the head with the lowest Donor ID. If there is only one head, the donations transfer to that person.

Remove from or Moving to a Household

We recommend removing deceased people from a household with active members. Here are some tips when making a decision:
  • If the deceased person is the last person in their household, leave them in it to maintain their last known address. Do not select Remove From Household.
  • If the deceased person is not the last one in their household, remove them. Select Remove From Household. Otherwise, they'll continue to show up in places like label reports and check-in.
    • This removes the individual from their original household.
    • Any existing care case and household care log records remain linked to the original household and are unaffected.
    • If you remove deceased people from their household and they still have donations, the Standard Statement routine creates a household for them.
  • If the deceased person is not the last one in their household but you need to maintain their household name and congregation, select Move to Separate Household and move them to a separate household.
    • This creates a new household using the same household name and congregation, then moves the deceased contact into this household.
    • This option is only available if the selected individual is not the only person in the household.
    • This option is useful for Catholic organizations that need deceased people to remain in households to ensure they stay in their parish of registration.

Reversing the Changes

Did you save too soon? Or mark the wrong John Smith as deceased? Don't worry! The audit log saves all changes, and you can manually reverse them. Run the User Audit Log Detail report to determine which records the tool updated. A SPoC can contact Support if you need assistance.

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Last updated: November 24, 2025

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