What’s New

Rachel Pettis

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May 25, 2023

Creating a complete estate profile for a client requires blending family, estate plan, and financial information together in one place. Today, we’re happy to announce a new partnership and integration between Addepar and Vanilla to simplify bringing financial data into the Client Profile. Addepar is one of the leading portfolio management systems for wealth advisors, and by bringing the account data from Addepar into the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform, we will help advisors create a more comprehensive picture of their client’s estate plans. During the onboarding process, advisors can save time and avoid unnecessary manual data entry by connecting their...

Rachel Pettis

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May 18, 2023

With the launch of taxable and non-taxable sample profiles, advisors can now review an example of a completed client account in Vanilla. Their clients can see how the complete picture of their estate and financial plan would be represented on the platform before onboarding their own family, financial, and estate information.  During client and prospect conversations, advisors can share the completed sample profile or download the taxable or non-taxable estate PDF report. The Taylor Family is an example of a high-net worth family living in Florida with a taxable estate of $117,050,000. Their estate plan includes revocable trusts, an irrevocable...

Gene Farrell

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May 17, 2023

  [Watch Legacy Now on demand, to learn more about Vanilla’s vision for estate advisory.] I believe that technology – when used thoughtfully – can be truly transformative. And this week at our Legacy Now event, with the help of Vanilla co-founder Steve Lockshin, I had the opportunity to share how Vanilla plans to transform not just estate planning, but financial advising as a whole, with the new Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform.  The technology itself is only a part of the picture. It’s a tool. It’s the enabler that, when paired with exceptional advisors, will allow for a new kind...

Vanilla

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May 16, 2023

Wealth advisors can now help clients with document creation and on-going estate advice At Vanilla, we believe it’s every wealth advisor's job to ensure that their clients have an estate plan that matches their values and goals.  But more often than not, clients have out-of-date estate planning documents or no documents at all. In fact, according to a 2023 Wills and Estate Planning Study, while 64% of Americans think having a will is important, only 34% of Americans have an estate plan.  When asked why they don’t have those basic documents in place, complexity and time required to hire an...

Jennifer Brooks

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Apr 11, 2023

Many clients today don’t have taxable estates.  But they might once the current exemption levels automatically expire on January 1, 2026,  reverting back to ~$6.8 million per person (adjusted for inflation).  Therefore, it becomes increasingly important for advisors to explain to their clients how their estates will look in the future so that they can make the right planning decisions. With the release of Projections, advisors can now demonstrate how estates will behave at various levels of wealth and show their clients simple projections of their estate at a future date.  Projected values flow through the Estate Tax Detail, Waterfall,...

Jennifer Brooks

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Apr 03, 2023

One of the reasons advisors love Vanilla is the on-demand PDF estate report, which enables them to show up with their clients in a whole new way.  Now, our custom branded reports have received a major refresh to coincide with the launch of our new brand. Based on feedback from our existing customers, we have made the client PDF deliverables easier to digest and share with updates to the visualizations, diagrams, notes, and balance sheet.  The balance sheet now contains different sections for all assets and accounts that are inside and outside the estate. And the detailed estate notes now...

Jim Sinai

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Jul 01, 2022

Organization administrators can now require users to enable multi-factor authorization (MFA) for their personal accounts. Users will be required to enable MFA through either SMS or an app-based authenticator (ideally both) before accessing Vanilla. MFA is an extra layer of security that helps prevent malicious actors from gaining access to your organization's data. Please reach out to your rep about having this feature turned on! Notes: Organizations that exist will have to contact Vanilla to turn this feature on. Newly onboarded organizations will have to tell sales/customer success if they want this on when they create an org.

Jim Sinai

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Apr 18, 2022

Users can now enable multi-factor authentication for their own accounts. After enabling multi-factor authentication, you are required to enter your Vanilla password and a temporary one-time password every time you sign in. To enable and use multi-factor authentication, you must have a mobile device or password manager which supports multi-factor authentication installed.