Jessica Lantz

Sep 30, 2026

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What’s New in September: AI-Powered balance sheets, Estate Diagrams in Vanilla Scenarios®, and more

With Estate Planning Awareness Month just around the corner, now is a natural time to bring estate planning into more client conversations. September’s releases help you get there faster, starting with a new way to build balance sheets using AI. 

AI that elevates you

Use AI to build a balance sheet in Vanilla

The challenge: Data entry is one of the most time-consuming parts of getting a new client plan underway, and one of the least valuable places for you to spend your time. 

The solution:

• Upload a PDF of your client’s financials, and Magic Balance Sheet (powered by VAI®) maps each account and asset to the corresponding category in Vanilla
• Capture a wide range of holdings, from brokerage accounts and IRAs to 529 plans and trust-owned assets, so you can move straight into strategy with a strong foundation in place 
• Review every upload as a draft before saving, allowing you to stay in control of the final numbers

The minutes you used to spend transcribing account details are minutes you can spend somewhere more valuable: understanding what a client actually wants for their family, and walking them through what’s possible.

Confidence in every client conversation

Show clients how a strategy reshapes their estate

The challenge: Recommending a strategy like a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT) or Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT) means showing clients how their estate changes, and without a clear visual, the most important part of the recommendation can get lost. 

The solution:

• Model and compare a household’s baseline against other active planning strategies using the new Estate Diagram in Vanilla Scenarios, a visual flowchart tool that maps how a client’s estate is structured
• Tailor the diagram to each conversation with full estate or inside/outside estate views, and export your customizations to the PDF report 
• Weigh the impact of structural strategies like SLATs, GRATs, Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGTs), and Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs), giving you a clearer way to demonstrate the value of advanced planning 

Every advanced strategy starts with a recommendation, and a clear visual helps make that recommendation concrete enough for clients to act on.

Carry your brand into every chart and diagram in your PDF reports

The challenge: Every report you deliver represents your practice, and your firm needs its charts and diagrams to match the brand your clients already know.

The solution:

• Fully customize the colors of your charts and diagrams in the PDF report with a palette built around your firm’s brand
• Update every chart and diagram in a report at once, keeping outputs polished without extra formatting work
• Keep deliverables consistent across your team by locking in your firm’s palette, or give advisors room to fine-tune colors themselves

A consistent look across every report helps reinforce the professional impression your firm makes and keeps your brand at the center of each planning conversation.

Additional color customization across Vanilla is coming soon.

Coming Soon

Estate Health Check makes it easy to start the estate planning conversation by turning a short client questionnaire into a clear view of planning gaps, and the next steps to address them. The refreshed experience is built mobile-first for clients and flexible for you, working equally well as a personalized invite, a mass-send across your entire book of business, or a public link for evaluating new prospects. Every completed health check becomes a first touch that moves the relationship forward. Our refreshed Estate Health Check experience is slated to come out in the next few weeks.

Exploring Vanilla for the first time? Schedule a demo. Already a Vanilla customer? Reach out to our CSM team to see these features in action. 

Note that all unpublished features and enhancements mentioned are subject to change in both content and timeline without notice. Vanilla reserves the right to modify or cancel roadmap items at any time.