Below are some suggested processes for common life events. While these are just suggestions, you’ll want to have documented processes for each of these events so your staff handles them consistently.

Death of a Family Member

The death of a loved one is a very hard thing. It’s made even harder, though, when the remaining person is constantly reminded of their loss. When someone notifies your organization about a death, we suggest taking the following steps:

1. Mark the individual’s record as Inactive with the reason of Deceased.
2. Move the deceased individual to a new family by clicking the ti ti-external-link button from the Edit Family page.
3. Remove all contact information from the record.
4. Add a note to the deceased person marked as Alert with the text of "Deceased" and the date they died.
5. If married, create a Previous Spouse relationship back to the spouse. It's generally best to leave the surviving spouse as Married as a matter of respect unless they indicate otherwise.
6. Don’t forget to talk to your finance department about how to deal with regular contribution records. We recommend that the contributions assigned to the deceased person be moved to the surviving spouse. This can be done from the Person Profile page.

For optimal data management, we recommend removing deceased individuals from their original families in all scenarios. While this may have minor impacts on certain features, the overall benefits outweigh these considerations.

Divorce

Before making these changes, be sure to discreetly get as much information about the family situation as you can. This will ensure you get the information right and not create an awkward situation in the future.

1. From the Edit Family screen, click the ti ti-external-link icon for one of the adults to move them to a new family.
2. Depending on the custody status, you may want to ensure the children are in both families. To do this, find the new family and add any children to it, without removing them from their current family.
3. Create a Former Spouse relationship to both adults.
4. Update phone and address information.
5. Add any name changes on the Edit Individual screen (under Advanced Settings).
6. Update the Marital Status for both individuals.
7. You may need to use the Reassign Transactions button to transfer financial transactions from one spouse to the other. This can be found under the Contributions tab in the Person Profile page, at the bottom of the transaction list.

Marriage

After the wedding, you'll want to complete the following steps.

1. Go to the primary record (usually the husband or person with the primary address).
2. From the Edit Family screen click the Add Person button and select the individual from the database, removing them from their current family.
3. Update the female’s title to "Mrs."
4. Update both adults’ marital status to "Married."
5. Add the anniversary date, if known.
6. Add the wife's maiden name as a previous name on the Edit Individual screen (under Advanced Settings).

Child Turns 18

When a child reaches adulthood it’s a good idea to move them to a new family, even if they are still living in their parents’ home.

1. From the Edit Family screen, click the ti ti-external-link icon.
2. Create Parent relationships back to the parents.
3. Update the individual’s status from Child to Adult.

You can use the notes to document the reasons for the changes. While it may seem obvious now, it won’t in a couple of weeks, especially for the next person who views the records.