Funeral business: business plan, calculation with examples, paperwork, services offered, pricing, taxes and profits

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

As sad as it is to admit, all people are mortal. We are born, we live the time allotted to us, and then we die. So far, modern science is unable to stop this process. A he althy lifestyle and huge financial investments in one's he alth cannot make a person immortal. But everyone deals with death differently. For some, this is a great grief, but for others, an inevitability. In addition, for some people, the ritual part of the event is an opportunity to earn money. Of course, the funeral business is quite specific and not suitable for everyone. But if you are ready for such work, then you may well become the owner of a profitable business.

Advantages and disadvantages

Before you start considering a business plan for a funeral business, you need to talk about the main pros and cons of such work. This is the only way you can make an informed decision about opening your funeral home.

Here are the main benefits:

1. Demand: especially in big cities. Firstly, residents there earn more and easily part with the required amount. Many simply do not know what to do with the dead, and are ready to give any money for help in this matter.
2. Space for activities: you can deal not only with solving all the problems associated with organizing funerals, it is also recommended to run a related business selling ritual goods.
3. Relatively small starting capital.
4. The ability to independently form your own competitive advantages that will distinguish you from other funeral agencies.
5. High profitability: according to experts, it can reach up to 22%.

However, the ritual business has its drawbacks. The most significant of these is the high level of competition. Since 2004, this type of activity is not subject to compulsory licensing. Therefore, many ritual offices have appeared in modern settlements.

Features

Let's take a closer look at them. Before studying the business plan of the funeral business, be sure to familiarize yourself with the main features of this business.

Here are some of them:

1. You will have to deal not so much with the dead as with their friends and relatives. As a rule, these people are heartbroken, and you need to communicate with them extremely delicately. Not everyone is capable of this.
2. To get a good income from the ritualbusinesses, it is necessary to expand the range of services offered as much as possible. This can be the manufacture of related products (coffins, urns, monuments, wreaths, clothes and shoes for burial), organization of funerals, musical accompaniment, work with documents, and so on. In other words, the client can simply contact you, pay the agreed amount and not worry about anything else.
3. In addition to the traditional middle-income services, you can also include original high-value offerings such as making a textile from ashes or a vinyl record from ashes. Many today are willing to pay for the ritual burial of pets.
4. In the early stages of starting a business, you can save a lot. For example, a business plan for a funeral home may involve renting a hearse or signing an agreement with a driver with their car. It is also advised to earn money on the percentage paid by the owners of the restaurants chosen for holding funeral dinners.
5. The profitability of a funeral home largely depends on the established reputation. An honest and respectable organization may well charge higher prices than its competitors.

How to find clients?

Suppose you decide to go into the funeral business and have already drawn up a rough business plan. Funeral services are a rather specific type of activity, and the first thing to think about is the search for clients. The competition here is quite high. Besides, not everyone is ready.pay a significant amount for organizing the funeral of relatives and friends. Therefore, novice businessmen in this area will have to work hard to find customers. And to help in this difficult matter can:

1. Quality marketing. A ready-made business plan for funeral services must necessarily include the costs of an advertising campaign. Here you can use any tools: the Internet, banners, ads, etc. If you seriously decide to go into the funeral business, you can even make your own website, which will publish a complete list of services provided with their prices.
2. Word of mouth. If customers are satisfied with the quality of services provided to them, as well as the prices offered by your company, then they can recommend your funeral agency to their acquaintances and friends when they need help in such a sensitive matter.
3. Establishing partnerships with those who can directly help you with finding clients: emergency doctors, district doctors, mortuary employees, government employees. Many refuse to go down this path because it comes with many difficulties: you will have to visit relatives who have just lost a loved one yourself and offer them your services.

Calendar plan

How to open a funeral agency? A business plan must necessarily include a work schedule and a financial component. Before you calculate how much time and money you will need to start your own business, you cannot start an activity.

Requireddescribe the main stages of the implementation of the funeral agency, as well as an approximate list of actions required for each stage. This way you will know how much time you need. The preparatory period can stretch for six months. You can shorten this period by contacting professional lawyers to complete registration actions. You yourself can spend time searching for suitable premises, purchasing equipment, and searching for personnel. In this case, it is quite possible to open a funeral agency in just three months.

Main steps

What should a funeral services business plan look like? An example describing the main steps is given below:

• business registration;
• search and preparation of premises;
• acquisition of furniture, office equipment and other equipment;
• state formation;
• advertising campaign;
• opening a funeral services agency.

Register

So what do you need to know about this? When registering a funeral business, you should choose the LLC form. It is more difficult to register it than an individual entrepreneur, so it is better to hire a qualified lawyer to carry out this procedure. As for the taxation system, there are several options. You can pay tax under a simplified scheme - 6% of income. They also recommend choosing UTII, but not in all regions taxes from the ritual business are paid according to this scheme.

Before starting your own business, you will also need to obtain permission from the fire department and SES. If you are planningformalize your employees, you will have to deal with the employment center.

Geolocation

One of the hardest things about starting a funeral home is choosing a location. If you are going to make a hall for parting with the dead and your own mini-mortuary, then the requirements for choosing a room will be more stringent: it should not be in a residential building, be 50 meters away from private houses, children's, educational, he alth and cultural institutions. However, if you open a bureau somewhere outside the city, it will not begin to bring you the desired profit. It is ideal to choose a place in a densely populated residential area. Here it is quite possible to find a room that meets all the norms of the law. When opening a ritual agency "in the yards", be sure to take care of the signs so that customers can easily find you.

Costs

What does an approximate business plan for funeral services with calculations look like? To enter this niche, it is not at all necessary to have a large start-up capital. If you are going to provide all possible services, open your own production of coffins, monuments, wreaths, equip a farewell hall on the basis of your own office, then you will need at least 2-3 million rubles of investment. If you only plan to provide funeral services and sell ready-made goods, you will need much less money.

We give the approximate costs required to open a funeral services office in a small town with a population of 200-300 thousandhuman. To accommodate shops and offices, you will need to find a room of approximately 50 m22. If you are not going to equip a farewell hall and a mini-mortuary, there are no special requirements for the location of the office. A small private house with a personal plot is best suited. It is not worth investing a lot of money in repairs. Keep everything simple and tasteful: light ceilings and walls, dark floors.

To work, you will need to purchase equipment and furniture: tables, chairs, computers, a multifunction printer, a telephone, a cabinet for storing documents and personal belongings of staff, equipment for a bathroom. These purchases will require approximately 120 thousand rubles.

To work, you will also need to purchase counters, glass display cases, open shelving and shelves for goods. To place monuments and coffins, special stands will be required. There is also a cash register and furniture for visitors. Approximately 150 thousand rubles are allocated for all these expenses.

Staff

The business plan of the funeral business must necessarily include such an important stage as the selection of employees. Working in this area is not easy. You need to find people with a stable psyche. They should not be afraid of everything connected with the dead and death, but at the same time they must be sympathetic to the grief of others.

To open a small office, you will need 6 employees: a salesperson, a secretary manager and a cleaner (3 employees per shift). Administrative and accounting services can be takento myself. On average, employees will have to spend about 80,000 rubles a month on salaries.

Thus, it will take about 800 thousand rubles to open your own funeral services bureau. It should be borne in mind that the larger your business, the greater the costs.

Profitability

What is the profitability of the funeral business? You can calculate it using a standard business plan for funeral services. An example with calculations is shown below:

• organization of one funeral - 30-35 thousand rubles;
• if you have 10 orders per month, your earnings will be 300-350 thousand rubles;
• your profit from this amount will be approximately 100 thousand rubles, the rest of the money will go to service the funeral business.