Financial Advisor

Aug 13, 2025

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Vanilla Rolls Out Estate Planning Scenarios Tool For Advisors

Vanilla, an estate planning technology firm, has introduced a new tool advisors can use with existing and potential clients to illustrate what their retirement plans will look like under various scenarios, such as when they are subject to estate taxes in various areas.

 

Vanilla Scenarios Advanced Planning is an all-in-one financial planning tool that models, compares, and presents estate planning strategies instantaneously for advisors.

 

Advisors can plug in as much information as they have on their clients and examine multiple scenarios to determine how these would change the overall plan. Advisors can incorporate major changes that take place in a person’s life, including a move to a state with a different tax regime, a death in the family or the creation of charitable plans.

 

It also highlights how federal and state taxes could alter a plan. A person’s wealth might not trigger a federal estate tax, yet the client could still face those taxes in a particular state. The advisor can demonstrate their worth to a client or potential client here by bringing these issues to light and then planning ahead to minimize the impact, according to Vanilla.

 

“A lot of tools out there in the estate planning space, they only focus on trusts [and] they only focus on changes to those documents,” said Patrick Carlson, product counsel at the Bellevue, Wash.-based Vanilla, in an interview. However, he added, “maybe there’s going to be a law change or you sell your business.”

Read more: Vanilla Rolls Out Estate Planning Scenarios Tool For Advisors

Edward Hayes