Level 4: Make MonuDesk Match Your Shop

Level 4 is the proper setup, done after you've seen what it powers. Every setting here removes manual work from future orders: cemetery fees calculate themselves, taxes apply themselves, and to-dos appear on their own. Takes about 12 minutes.

As you work through Settings, two small markers tell you what an entry needs before you open it. A page that requires the Pro plan carries a small Pro chip in the menu (Website Leads, Website Gallery and AI carry a Max chip until you have MonuDesk Max), and an option that only applies to QuickBooks carries a small green qb mark with a tooltip explaining it.

Step 1: Cemeteries, done properly

Go to Settings → Cemeteries and configure each cemetery you work with: fees by size or fixed, Foundation Required, application requirements, plot detail enforcement, and reference files. Each toggle feeds the to-dos and fee math on every future order for that cemetery. If your cemeteries already sit in a spreadsheet, bring them over in Settings → Import first, then open each one here to check its fees and rules.

Learn more: How to Add and Configure a Cemetery

Step 2: Counties or Zones

Set up Settings → Counties/Zones so each cemetery's county drives the tax rate automatically, or switch to Zones if you route installs geographically. With Automatic Tax Calculation on in Settings → Taxes (new accounts start with it on), a new quote first takes the rate for the purchaser's ZIP code, read from the address picked in the suggestions, and, when no ZIP rate is found, falls back to the cemetery's county or zone rate, then your location's Default tax rate, then your company Sales Tax %.

Learn more: How to Set Up Counties or Zones

Step 3: Photo, Vase and Urn presets

Create your photo, vase, cremation urn, QR code and vault presets once with cost and price, and they show up as one-click options in every future quote. Urn, QR code and vault presets can each carry a picture, added from the photo cell at the start of the row, and every preset stays in step with its matching product on the Inventory page.

Photos come in three lists: Porcelain photo, Steel photo and Granite photo. Steel photo already holds 32 common sizes in inches, oval and rectangle, with starter prices you edit like any other row. Each row keeps its size in its own Unit, and the Search variants, e.g. 9x12 box finds a row by size, shape, mode or price. In a quote you pick the photo's Material type first, and its price comes from that material's own row.

Your urns are already built. Every company starts with a ready-made catalogue of 32 cremation urns under Settings → Accessories → Configure accessories → Urns, listed in the Variant Matrix with Name, Capacity (cu in), Material, Price ($), Vendor Cost ($) and Enabled columns, sortable by clicking a header. The prices are retail, Vendor Cost is blank for you to fill in, and only urns with Enabled switched on are offered in the wizard's Cremation Urns card. Work down the list, price what you sell, switch off what you do not, and delete anything you will never carry.

Vaults come ready too. Every company has 24 vault templates under Settings → Accessories → Configure accessories → Vaults: urn vaults, cremation vaults, grave liners, lined and unlined vaults, single and double depth vaults and an infant vault, for example Urn Vault · Polystyrene · 12 x 12 x 14 in at $145. The prices are retail, Vendor Cost is blank for you to fill in, and they show in New Quote under Accessories.

Learn more: How to Set Up Your Photos and Vase Options

Step 4: Pipeline stages

Add, rename, reorder, or delete stages so the board matches how your shop actually flows. Some stages are locked because automation depends on them. You can add stages between Quote and Confirmed Order, such as Contacted or Quote sent. They count as quote stages: no invoice and no confirmed-order to-dos until the order reaches Confirmed Order.

Learn more: How to Manage Pipeline Stages

Step 5: Configure To-Dos

Rename the built-in to-dos to your shop's language (rename, don't recreate) and add custom tasks that should appear on every order.

Learn more: How to Configure To-Dos, What Triggers Each To-Do

Step 6: Customize your contract text

Edit the pre-loaded contract in Settings → Documents with your warranty terms, payment policies, and installation conditions. Save once, and every contract from then on uses your version.

Learn more: How to Customize Your Contract Text

Step 7: Your color list

Go to Settings → Colors and put your granite catalog in order. Search it, click a card to rename it, click the swatch to upload a photo of the granite, or remove one you do not sell. Removed colors drop into Hidden colors with a Restore button, and removing only keeps a color out of new quotes, orders that already use it keep it.

The page is five buckets, and every color lives in exactly one of them:

• All: offered everywhere, on monuments, bases, inventory and every kind of vase.

• Granite catalog: monuments, bases, inventory and granite vases. Never offered on a metal or bronze vase.

• Granite vases only: granite colors that should never turn up on a monument.

• Metal vases only: MetalCraft and other metal finish names.

• Bronze only: bronze finish names, offered on bronze vases and on a Bronze Marker, never on a granite vase. Once it has colors, a Bronze Marker offers those instead of the granite list.

To move a color, drag its card into the bucket it belongs in. It stays where you drop it. If you would rather not drag, click the card and use the Shown on dropdown instead. Each bucket has its own add button, Add Color, Add Granite Color, Add Granite Vase Color, Add Metal Vase Color and Add Bronze Color, so a new color starts in the right place. The Metal vases only and Bronze only buckets come already stocked with common finish names. Fill Bronze only with the bronze colors you sell, for example Government Brown, Vet Brown, Brown, Dark Brown, Light Brown and Black, and remove the starter colors you don't use. A company in Germany, Austria or Switzerland also has an Add German stone list button, which adds the granites and natural stones German stonemasons sell, each with a picture.

Nothing you already had changes. Colors you never restricted sit in All, so they show up everywhere. If you had already set some colors to vases only, they sit in a temporary bucket called Any vase (unsorted). Drag each one into Granite vases only, Metal vases only or Bronze only, and that bucket disappears once it is empty.

Learn more: How to Configure the Monument Type, Color, Size and Finishes

Step 8: How stones are itemised

Go to Settings → Stone Itemisation and, on the How stones are itemised card, decide whether a stone's die and base bill as one line or two, on your customer's documents and in QuickBooks Online (QBO). Standard stones (upright, slant, bevel, marker, ledger, footstone, bronze, bench, corner posts) offers One line or Two lines and starts on Two lines. Custom stones adds a third choice, No inventory item, which bills a custom stone to a plain line so QBO takes nothing off stock, and starts on One line. An Invoice shows: preview under each dropdown shows what the choice prints.

Each change saves on its own as you pick it. It applies to new orders only: orders you already made keep the format they were created with, and a stone with no base price stays on one line either way.

Step 9: Your own monument types

If you sell a stone the built-in monument types do not cover, go to Settings → Monument Types and click Add Monument Type. Give it a Name, pick what it Looks like (the built-in shape it resembles, which sets its automatic thumbnail and whether New Quote offers a base), set Base on by default, and keep the automatic Thumbnail or upload your own image. The type then shows in New Quote's monument type list with its thumbnail, and picking it applies its base default. Click Reorder on the same page to set the order New Quote lists the types in for the whole company: drag them into place and click Save order. New custom types go last.

Learn more: Custom Monument Types

👉 Continue to: Level 5: The Customer Portal