We are excited to announce plans for a day of group training in April. The training seminar will be held at Albin International's premises. The cost is heavily discounted and space is limited.

This holiday season, instead of sending out Christmas cards, Eulogica Ltd will be supporting the Care and Love Orphanage in Hyderabad, India.

The recent NAFD Yorkshire Area Federation meeting was held at Hainsworth Mill in Pudsey West Yorkshire. Hainsworth Mill produce the Natural Legacy range of woollen coffins, along with a huge range of products ranging from Ceremonial paradewear, Billiard/Snooker & Pool cloth, Firefighters fabric, Piano cloth & felt to Hot air balloon fabric and car head linings. The list is endless and extremely varied. David Wright from Eulogica was one of the attendees.

This October Nick Armstrong of Armstrongs Funeral Service, Bury St. Edmunds will be hiking the length of Hadrian's Wall from his homeland of Newcastle to Carlisle. Nick will be walking the 86 miles in just three days, carrying all his equipment, sleeping on the wall and, just to make it more of a challenge, will be doing it in full funeral attire.

The recent BIFD Region C regional meeting and annual general meeting was held at the funeral premises of Gateway Funeral Services in Birkenshaw, Bradford.

The recent Yorkshire Regional Area SAIF meeting was held at the offices of Hygeco Lear (http://www.hygeco-lear.co.uk) in Leeds. Hygeco Lear provide mortuary equipment, refrigerators, embalming and hygiene products to name just a part of their product line up. David Wright from Eulogica was one of the attendees.

Congratulations to Tony Davey from Arthur E Davey & Sons, North Somerset, who won the Eulogica/Adstate competition. The prize is a weekend trip to Bergen in Norway for two. We will have more photos and details later in the year.

This weekend saw the NAFD AGM and Conference 2011 come and go.

It is coming to that time again when plans for the National Funeral Exhibition are well under way. Eulogica Ltd, of course, will be attending. You will be able to find us on stand L2, in the link corridor.

A & M Hadfield Funeral Directors have operated in Barnsley for 100 years. Beverley Hadfield is the 3rd generation of the family to work in the business. When the only computer in the office failed, taking their Dignity Software installation with it.

David and Adele Gallagher have recently converted their business’ computer system over to the Eulogica Funeral Management Software after being a Dignity Software customer.

Uninterruptible Power Supply, or UPS, systems provide battery backup for when the power goes off. You will probably have had experience with power cuts turning off the computer. This can cause problems for your server PC, as some Eulogica clients have unfortunately experienced. A UPS system can help in this type of situation.

From the 4th January 2011 the standard VAT rate increases from 17.5% to 20%. If your business is calculating VAT, you will need to set the correct rate in Eulogica. Here we will focus on how VAT is handled in Eulogica.

November was a much anticipated month for the Eulogica staff as the very first Eulogica Expert Event, known now as E3, became a reality. A lot of planning and hard work went into the event which was designed to bring together forward thinking individuals from in and around the Funeral Profession. Participants from Norway, Sweden, the UK and indeed other countries took part.

The 2010 BIFD AGM and Conference Weekend rolled around again, on the 29th to 31st October. This time the event was hosted at the Bellhouse Hotel in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire and was presented by the BBC News presenter Bill Turnbull. As usual, some of the Eulogica staff were there to show support.

Earlier this year we opened a new office in Sheffield, South Yorskhire and Andrew Deighton of Charles Stephens Funeral Directors, Birkenhead, has had the honour of being the first person to take part in a day of Training and Configuration at the new office. In September he spent the day working with a tailored version of the system, in preparation of rolling out Eulogica across their office.

It is possible for us to import your data from outside of the Eulogica system into your Eulogica database.

Every now and then we get asked if Eulogica will work OK on a laptop computer, rather than a desktop computer. Eulogica works just as well on a laptop computer as it does on a desktop one. In fact, having Eulogica installed on a laptop can provide additional benefits.

We have now set the dates for the first International Eulogica Conference.

The event will take place in Oslo, Norway, on the 10th and 11th November 2010.

We would like to invite all clients and friends around the profession to the first ever International Eulogica Expert Group Conference!

The event will take place in Oslo and will be of interest for advanced users of Eulogica and others who are interested in how the industry will evolve in the future.

At the beginning of April we opened a new office to act as a base for the new staff members to operate from.

The BIFD National President, Ken Satterly, hit the road in April and June with a series of roadshows. David Wright went along when the tour visited Sheffield.

Nick joined the Eulogica team in April 2010 to take on the role of Client Support Manager. He is 27 and lives in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

In April two new staff, Dave and Nick, joined the Eulogica team. Here is a brief profile about the first of them - Dave Ball.

'I consider Eulogica an asset to my company which has allowed my team to benefit from lower stress levels and to also become more involved with the business' says Michael Kennedy at Michael Kennedy Funeral Service. 'They now see and deal with matters they were never able to find the time to analyse before.” The company has been serving bereaved families in the Greater Manchester area since 1986. Michael grew up in the area and so knows the community very well.

Lately we have been looking at ways to improve the support that Eulogica Ltd offer for existing clients. We have decided to streamline this process by introducing a separate e-mail address as well as a new fax number for support and configuration issues.

Unfortunately, as we all know, things don't always go to plan! Last year Eric Eyre Funeral Service in Sheffield started to work on considerable refurbishment and new building work at their premises.

Last Winter, Eulogica Ltd reached an agreement with former competitor Dignity Software Ltd, to purchase the rights and ownership of Dignity Software. It was agreed that Dignity effect a gradual transfer of its support and maintenance contracts to Eulogica. What is the status of this project now?

'The Eulogica Software is very much a comprehensive system and gives a far better end result than our previous system,' comments Edward Williams-Price at the funeral business of Stanley J. Nicholas in Wales. 'Although it took some time to get used to using the new software, once all the data and other information has been entered into the system it is quite easy to use...'

Laptop computers have become incredibly popular over the last few years, but very few of these machines have found their way into the Funeral Profession...

Funeral Directors are often reluctant to invest in back-office functions and would rather like to put the money where the families can benefit more directly from it - often this involves wheels!

If you are an avid user of an office software suite like Microsoft Office, you are probably aware of the many capabilities it offers. But unfortunately this software package can cost quite a bit...

Eulogica Ltd, supplier of the Eulogica funeral software, has reached an agreement with former competitor Dignity Software to purchase the rights and ownership of Dignity Software. The deal takes effect from 1 February, 2009.

Hundreds of companies abroad have been using our software for many years. Here are some of their comments about the software - translated for your convenience!

From the New Year, the standard VAT rate was reverting from 15% to the old rate of 17.5%. If your business is calculating VAT, you will need to set the correct rate in Eulogica. Here we will focus on how VAT is handled in Eulogica.

Over the years we have completed several new versions of Eulogica, each introducing new functions. Here is a list of some of the improvements over the last year or so.

Many funeral directors like to offer printed order of service sheets for their customers. Traditionally some funeral directors have been using software like MS-Office for this. Which works fine, but it tends to be quite a time-consuming way, even for the skilled computer user. Time is of course precious, so... Enter the Eulogica Service Sheets module!

From 2009, Intelligent Software UK Ltd was changing name to Eulogica Ltd.

Eulogica Ltd has reached an agreement with Lodge Brothers to deliver Eulogica software to all their branches. Based primarily in Surrey, Middlesex and the South West London area, Lodge Brothers also have offices in Cambridgeshire and Wiltshire.

Eulogica had a central stand at the National Funeral Exhibition in June, at Stoneleigh Park Exhibition Centre. It was great to see so many old contacts at the event!

'Eulogica saves us time and money and gives us a more professional edge with everyone we are in contact with - ministers, clients, press, florists, and on and on!' says Nick Armstrong in in Bury St Edmunds.

Although Eulogica Ltd only provide software for the Funeral profession, part of the Eulogica Funeral Management software includes a contacts database and obviously an invoicing system. With some configuration and programming, a most suitable system has been created for the BIFD and still enables Eulogica Ltd to remain true to their motto 'Dedicated to the Funeral Profession'.

'Our company was established in the year 2000, but there was no IT in place, except a very old second hand computer formerly owned by Noah to check his animals onto the Ark', jokes Adrian Pink of A & D Pink Funeral Directors in Croydon...

'I have been in the funeral profession all my life,' says Rodney Beaney at J. Markfield, Loughton in Essex. 'We as a company try to uphold the traditions, sympathy and respect for the whole funeral and the aftercare of the families. We have found Eulogica does everything we need and more. Eulogica is now an integral part of our company.'

During a substantial refurbishment programme and move of premises, Kevin Matthews Funeral Services of Northampton also decided it was time to upgrade their funeral management software. After reading an article about the Eulogica bespoke software, the proprietor Kevin Matthews called Eulogica...

Funeral Directors from Norway and the UK gathered at the Norwegian ambassador's residence in London in the Autumn of 2006, for a reception where Eulogica Ltd and the Eulogica funeral software was presented. Invitations had been sent to various contacts and clients of Eulogica. Some 40 people signed up for the arrangement, including Funeral Directors and their partners, officials from the embassy, and other interested parties.

Back in 2005, Eulogica Ltd were proud to announce that David Wright from Sheffield was taking up employment as their Client Support Manager. The Funeral profession was not new to David as he holds the NAFD Diploma in Funeral Directing, is a BIFD member and also has over 5 years experience of working as a Funeral Director for his step father's business, Eric Eyre of Sheffield.

“Eulogica offers a degree of customisation and an easy learning curve not seen elsewhere”, says Barry Albin-Dyer, F A Albin & Sons Ltd.