To whom it may concern,

The Ferncliff Cemetery Association of New York is nearing the successful implementation of the most comprehensive overhaul of its recordkeeping system in its 107 year history thanks to Axiom Business Systems’ Charon Cemetery Management Suite.

Ferncliff Cemetery is a 75 acre memorial park with three community mausoleums and a crematory located 30 minutes north of midtown Manhattan in suburban Westchester County. It annually performs 1000 – 1200 interments and 2500 – 3000 cremations (almost 10% of New York State’s annual cremations). Ferncliff is the final resting place of a number of notable individuals including Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Basil Rathbone, Ed Sullivan, Malcolm X, and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, and is the site of the cremation of, among others, John Lennon, Jim Henson, Yul Brynner, and Nelson Rockefeller. It is a prestigious cemetery known for both the quality of its service and products and its financial strength, and has been considered a pioneer in the development of both the community mausoleum concept with the construction of the classically designed Cathedral of Memories in the 1920’s and in the field of cremation service with the opening of its crematory in the 1930’s.

Prior to contracting with Axiom Business Systems in June 2008, Ferncliff had been developing its own proprietary cemetery software system. A few years ago, however, in an effort to expedite the integration and digitization of its records and overcome the deficiencies inherent in a proprietary system, Ferncliff management decided to search for an “off the shelf” or package system that would meet the needs of its administrative system.

Ferncliff management expended considerable time and energy deciding whom it would entrust with the critical and difficult task of converting its recordkeeping from a fragmented paper system to an integrated digitized one. After conducting a two year review of virtually every integrated cemetery software system on the market, Ferncliff narrowed its choices to three. After months of thoroughly analyzing and testing all three systems, Ferncliff realized that the one that best met its needs and best matched its administrative system was Axiom’s Charon Cemetery Management Suite.

Whereas one competitor’s product was too complex in a desire to meet the needs of large corporate operations and the other’s was too simple in a desire to meet the needs of small family operations, Axiom’s Charon product best fit Ferncliff which, like many cemeteries, occupies a stratus somewhere between the corporate conglomerates and the family businesses.

Axiom further enhanced the appeal of the Charon product by working closely with Ferncliff management to incorporate modifications that make Charon even more compatible with the administrative systems of Ferncliff and its other cemetery clients. Axiom staff have also worked diligently and tirelessly at two almost indescribably difficult and tedious tasks: (i) mapping every square foot of Ferncliff’s 75 acres and almost half million square feet of community mausoleum space and (ii) converting hundreds of thousands of interment, cremation, and ownership records, any number of which may have conflicting information in their data fields that need to be reconciled.

As a result of the implementation of the Charon product by Axiom, Ferncliff will acquire both a digitized system that will enable authorized staff to both access and enter all cemetery records via computer and an integrated system that requires each transaction to be entered only once rather than multiple times to sales, inventory, accounts receivable, and general ledger. The benefits of such an integrated and digitized system are many and include both a decrease in recordkeeping errors as each transaction is inputted only once and a related increase in staff efficiency as multiple data entry for the same transactions are eliminated thereby freeing staff to attend to other duties.

The Axiom Charon system will also create at least three critical improvements to the management of Ferncliff’s inventory. First, during the inventory mapping and data conversion process, Axiom staff uncovered approximately $200,000 of unsold interment space that had been mistakenly identified as sold by the old manual inventory control system. Second, the Charon system will also enable Ferncliff field staff to utilize mobile computer devices with digitized spatial images that will allow them to review every record related to a particular burial space without having to either return to the office or request office staff to obtain a particular record. Finally, the visitor information kiosks will be updated in a more timely manner allowing for a more accurate public inquiry system and improved customer service.

Axiom staff, led by John and Anne Field, have not only been diligent and tireless in their efforts, they have been a pleasure to work with. As excited as I and my staff may be to complete the implementation of their Charon product, their presence in our office will be missed as they move on to another cemetery fortunate enough to have selected Axiom to revolutionize their recordkeeping and administrative system.

Sincerely,

Kevin M. Boyd
President