Rachel Pettis

Jul 05, 2023

Print Share

Visualize estate plans holistically with Class Distributions designations

Today, we are excited to announce the latest feature to go live on the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform, Class Distributions designations for advisors and wealth and estate planning strategists.

Class Distributions designations

What this means for Advisors
Our newest feature, Class Distributions, allows advisors to visualize how their client’s assets flow to future generations when a beneficiary predeceases the client.  The addition of this new fact pattern allows the advisor and client to have a more holistic view of the entire estate. 

Within Vanilla, advisors can align their clients’ Family Tree with the Balance Sheet by selecting per stirpes (deceased beneficiary’s shares divided between their descendants) or per capita distributions (descendants and living beneficiaries receive equal shares) when designating shares in retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and transfer/pay on death accounts. Designations made in the Balance Sheet will also be reflected in the Waterfall and display which shares will go to each beneficiary or living descendent.

What this means for Wealth and Estate Planning Strategists (WEPS)  
With Class Distributions, WEPS users can now include additional fact patterns and more complex scenarios when abstracting a client’s estate plan in the Estate Builder. During the document abstraction process, WEPS users can select between separate shares outright, separate trust shares or add a custom disposition. These designations will be represented in the Estate Diagram, Waterfall, and Beneficiaries sections in the Vanilla platform along with footnotes identifying the distributions.

New PDF Report Enhancements

The Vanilla PDF report is an easy way for advisors to send their clients a physical deliverable that summarizes what’s going on in their estate plan. The latest enhancements to the entity tables, now displayed in a table format, make it easier to add information and understand the entity structure within the estate by owner, entity, and holdings. It is now also possible to edit the display names of dispositive documents in PDF diagrams while maintaining the original names on the Vanilla platform.  Finally, advisors can reorder specific pages based on what is most important for them and their clients.

For more information about these new features, check out the recording of our latest What’s New with Vanilla webinar.

Interested in a demo?
Contact Sales