Category: What’s New

Rachel Pettis

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Aug 17, 2023

Today, we are launching a refreshed Balance Sheet Builder to help advisors bring client financial information into Vanilla more quickly. The new ownership-driven balance sheet makes it easier to enter client accounts and data.  Instead of creating individual assets, entering a client’s information now begins at the account level through one centralized drop-down menu. New dynamic fly-outs for each account or asset type require minimal information to get set up which allows for a faster and more intuitive data entry process. Or if you’re using one of our integration partners, your client’s data will be reflected in the balance sheet...

Rachel Pettis

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Aug 08, 2023

Today, Vanilla is excited to release a new feature available during the document abstraction process. Advisors who use the Vanilla Document Abstraction Services will now receive in-app messages and e-mail notifications after submitting their client’s estate planning documents, if additional information is required. Additionally, advisors will receive a status update in Vanilla with detailed notes indicating exactly what is needed to finalize the abstraction submission. With more direct feedback between an advisor and Vanilla during the document review, advisors can onboard their clients onto the Vanilla platform faster, enhance communication, and speed up the document abstraction process for them and...

Rachel Pettis

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Jul 27, 2023

Build a more comprehensive balance sheet with new partner integration features Today, we are excited to announce several upgrades to our integrations with Black Diamond, Orion, and Addepar that enable advisors to import client financial data faster onto the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform. With these new enhancements, an advisor can bring in more data from portfolio management systems to their client’s balance sheet for a more accurate representation of their estate. Advisors can select any number of clients in an estate to sync to a single Vanilla client profile when building out the balance sheet in the WealthCenter. Multiple clients'...

Rachel Pettis

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Jul 05, 2023

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...

Rachel Pettis

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Jun 09, 2023

At Vanilla, we are continually iterating to expand our product features and support more complex estate planning scenarios.  First-to-Pass analysis We are excited to announce our newest feature, First-to-Pass. First-to-Pass allows advisors to have deeper conversations with their clients with the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform. Now, advisors can dynamically switch between death pattern sequences, allowing advisors to provide a holistic view of the client’s estate plan. The advisor can also decide which death sequence they want to add to the PDF report before sending it to their client.  And if the advisor chooses, they can send out two reports with...

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 Software.  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...

Jim Sinai

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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,...