Vanilla Blog

Madison Eubanks

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Oct 24, 2024

A sub-trust, often created within a larger trust, is a type of estate planning tool that can allow you to customize how portions of your estate are managed and distributed to specific beneficiaries. They can add both flexibility and control to your plan, bringing peace of mind that your estate will be distributed according to your wishes and your beneficiaries will be cared for. Whether you want to set aside funds for minor children, protect a special needs beneficiary, or create tax-efficient structures, sub-trusts offer a tailored approach to address the unique needs of your family. In this blog post,...

John Costello

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Oct 24, 2024

Vanilla recognized as a leader in modernizing estate planning for wealth management  NEW YORK, October 24, 2024 – CB Insights today named Vanilla to its seventh annual Fintech 100, showcasing the 100 most promising private fintech companies in the world. “The 2024 Fintech 100 winners are high-momentum companies shaping the future of financial services,” said Laura Kennedy, Principal Analyst at CB Insights. “Unsurprisingly, this year’s cohort is deploying AI across a wide variety of solutions. But they’re also diverse in their reach in emerging and developing economies, and focus on everything from fraud prevention to financial inclusion.” "As Vanilla continues...

Jim Sinai

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Oct 16, 2024

this blog was originally published on 8/15/24 and updated on 10/16/24 to reflect new investors in the round Award-winning estate planning software company to accelerate investments in AI, expansion of platform, and customer adoption.  Welcomes Edward Jones, Nationwide, and Allianz as strategic investors Vanilla, the award-winning estate planning software company, today announced it has closed its latest fundraising round at $35m, led by returning investor Insight Partners, in addition to contributions from Venrock, Vanguard, and other previous investors. Vanilla also welcomes new strategic investors, Edward Jones Ventures*, Nationwide, and Allianz, and new investor Alumni Ventures. In addition to supporting its...

Rachel Pettis

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Oct 16, 2024

Vanilla, the award-winning estate planning software, is excited to announce a strategic integration with eMoney, the industry’s leading financial planning platform. This collaboration delivers a seamless, unified planning experience for financial advisors, combining sophisticated AI-powered estate planning tools with comprehensive financial data to offer a more holistic approach to client wealth management.  With this integration, Vanilla is the first estate planning solution to bring together the best of both worlds: AI-powered estate planning combined with eMoney’s industry-leading financial planning capabilities. This allows advisors to provide their clients with a truly holistic financial plan that includes not only investment strategies and...

Vanilla

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Oct 11, 2024

At Vanilla, we believe in making estate planning accessible to everyone—and that means providing advisors and financial professionals with the education and resources they need to deliver estate planning services.  On October 30th, we’re hosting Vanilla Academy Live, a free half-day estate planning summit featuring two hours of free CFP® CE credit, an estate planning tech spotlight, and an advisor-led panel discussion on streamlining the estate planning experience day-to-day.  Curious to learn more about what’s in store? Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect at Vanilla Academy Live for Fall 2024. Register to attend here. Welcome & Tech...

Rachel Pettis

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Oct 10, 2024

At Vanilla, we’re constantly innovating to help advisors and planners streamline their estate planning process, and we’re thrilled to share a preview of some powerful new tools coming soon to the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform. These new features will enhance how you work with clients, improving everything from initial conversations to advanced estate planning. Here’s what’s coming later this month: Legacy Planning Calculators for quick, detailed insights IDGTs, a new table view, and other enhancements in Vanilla Scenarios™ The Client Portal available to all Vanilla customers My Notes Library in Vanilla Estate Builder™ Provide clients with quick, actionable insights with...

Madison Eubanks

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Sep 24, 2024

Whether your firm embraces or resists it, artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay in the wealth management industry.  Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, use cases for AI in day to day processes have taken off, with nearly three quarters (73%) of US companies using AI in some aspect of their business.  Recently, Vanilla hosted a panel of three AI thought leaders to discuss how AI is being incorporated in the wealth management and financial technology spaces: Amjad Hussain, CTO, Vanilla; Parker Ence, Cofounder and CEO, Jump; and Greg Matusky, Founder and CEO, Gregory FCA Public Relations.  Here,...

Madison Eubanks

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Sep 19, 2024

Estate planning strategies are like tools in a toolbox: Different tools do different jobs. Deciding which estate planning strategies to employ depends on any number of personal factors including (but not limited to) marital status, level of wealth, whether or not someone has children, charitable inclination, liquidity, and many more. A savvy planner takes all these variables into account and chooses the most appropriate tool for a person’s situation, values, and goals. In this article, we provide fictional examples of when someone might use six different trust strategies, and illustrate how the right strategy can achieve their estate planning goals. ...

Today, we’re excited to announce VAI Automatic Profiles to instantly transform clients' existing plans into powerful visuals, saving hours of time wasted diagramming plans in powerpoint. You can read more about the announcement on our blog: Here are several new features for advisors and planners to help clients achieve their estate planning goals, coming in the next few weeks: Document creation now included in most subscriptions, joint trusts in several separate property states, and an Advanced Trust Package available with Vanilla Document Builder™ New Funding Options available in Vanilla Estate Builder™ A new Client Portal where your clients will be...

Vanilla

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Sep 12, 2024

Now every advisor can create modern, visual reviews of every client’s estate in seconds Vanilla, the award-winning estate planning software company, announces V/AI Automatic Profiles, a new AI enabled capability that makes it easy for advisors to quickly create and share a visual summary of their clients current estate plan within minutes of uploading their estate documents.  With V/AI Automatic Profiles, Vanilla can now read estate planning documents using AI and automatically create an estate profile, including visual estate diagrams, beneficiary summaries, fiduciary summaries, and more. Advisors can edit key information such as names, dates, trust details, and other relevant...

Madison Eubanks

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Sep 10, 2024

For the ultra wealthy, a well-planned gifting strategy can be a great way to reduce the size of the taxable estate over time.  However, various tax laws mean gifting isn’t always as straightforward as it may sound. When gifting, it’s important to understand annual and lifetime exclusions, when gifts must be reported to the IRS, and how to plan for tax exposure.  Read on for a complete overview of gifting.  For a deeper dive on gifting strategies, download the Vanilla Guide to Gifting here. Introduction to gifting In the eyes of the IRS, a gift is any property or assets...

John Costello

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Sep 09, 2024

Out of 3,500+ eligible emerging B2B tech companies, Vanilla is recognized for creating a strong workplace culture where humans thrive and do great work together Vanilla, the award-winning estate planning software company, announced today it has been named to Will Reed’s Top 100, a curated list of one hundred emerging tech companies that are building values-driven cultures where employees and customers thrive.  Will Reed, a leading go-to-market executive search firm, in conjunction with PitchBook, a private market database, releases Will Reed’s Top 100 every September, this year honoring Series A and Series B B2B tech companies who are actively building...