Vanilla Blog

Madison Eubanks

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Aug 28, 2024

As a financial advisor, you don’t need to be an expert on estate planning documents. However, you do need enough foundational knowledge to understand what makes quality documents, to spot red flags, and ultimately to ensure your clients’ documents serve their long-term goals.  Documents vary widely from client to client, with the complexity, density, and number of documents often increasing as wealth does. With so much nuance, how is an advisor to know what to look for in a client’s plan?  Dana Foley, Founder and Partner at Accelerant Law, outlines the four hallmarks of quality estate planning documents that advisors...

Madison Eubanks

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Aug 16, 2024

Where you live (and where you own property) can have a major impact on your estate planning. Taxes, probate, documents, and other estate planning processes vary from one state to another, and a quality plan takes these factors into account to ensure a person’s family isn’t left high and dry when they pass.  The best course of action is to hire a professional planner or attorney who’s experienced with the laws in your state, but familiarizing yourself with the basics is a good place to start. Here are some of the most notable state-specific estate laws to know.  States with...

Vanilla

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Aug 15, 2024

Award-winning estate planning software company to accelerate investments in AI, expansion of platform, and customer adoption.  Vanilla, the award-winning estate planning software company, today announced strategic fundraising led by returning investor Insight Partners, in addition to contributions from Venrock, Vanguard, and other previous investors. Vanilla also welcomes a new strategic investor, Edward Jones Ventures*, and new investor Alumni Ventures. In addition to supporting its rapid growth and customer adoption, the company will use the funding to expand its platform, including its first-of-its-kind embedded AI technology, to revolutionize how financial advisors and estate planners help households of all wealth levels build...

Rachel Pettis

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Aug 14, 2024

Summer may be winding down but we’re busier than ever at Vanilla. This month we’re eagerly anticipating several new features coming next week to the platform: Unlimited document creation through Vanilla Document Builder A customized overview of a client’s estate plan with Plan Snapshot A new eMoney import template New funding options in Vanilla Estate Builder (coming in late August) The ability to easily update documents in Vanilla Document Builder New educational videos in the Basic Trust Package questionnaire Unlimited document creation with with Vanilla Document Builder™ Last year we announced that we would begin to offer on-demand documents using...

Vanilla

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Aug 07, 2024

We are thrilled to announce that Sarah McDaniel has joined Vanilla in the newly created role of Head of Enterprise Enablement. With her extensive industry experience and strategic insight, Sarah is set to lead our efforts in expanding and enhancing advisor enablement at RIAs and enterprise wealth divisions across our customer base. Sarah brings a wealth of expertise to Vanilla. Her background in financial services and her dedication to advocating for and guiding innovative solutions for trust, tax, and estate practices make her an invaluable addition to our team. In her new role, Sarah will be instrumental in shaping the...

Daniel Brockley

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Aug 06, 2024

How to take back control with thoughtful financial and estate planning My dad has dementia. He survived stage-four esophageal cancer against every medical prediction, and then, just a couple years after his remission, his memory began to falter. It was hardly noticeable at first. Over a glass of wine, my mom confided in my brother and sister and me that she felt like something wasn’t right, that he wasn’t able to hold on to what they had just talked about or done.  We didn’t see it, not at first. We listened to my mom and nodded along, but we all...

Vanilla

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Aug 01, 2024

A new IRS ruling issued on July 18, 2024 cleared up lingering confusion around inherited individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and required minimum distributions (RMDs). Here’s a quick overview of why this long-awaited ruling was necessary and what it can mean for the beneficiaries of IRAs going forward.  Summary In short, the new IRS ruling says that non-eligible designated beneficiaries (which includes most non-spousal beneficiaries) of inherited IRAs from someone who died on or after their Required Beginning Date (RBD) do have to take the annual RMD each year after an inheritance, and that the account must be fully depleted at...

Vanilla

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Jul 29, 2024

Vanilla continues its investment in the tools and education that help advisors to empower a higher level of estate planning Vanilla, the company behind the leading estate advisory platform, announces the relaunch of Vanilla Academy, the first estate planning educational hub specifically designed for financial advisors and planners. The updated offering features free, on-demand continuing education, multimedia content, and a range of downloadable guides and resources. Several of the courses offer continuing education credit for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals. The new educational hub highlights the company’s commitment to providing its customers and their clients not only with the technology they...

Madison Eubanks

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Jul 26, 2024

Traditional estate planning advice revolves around moving as many assets as possible out of the estate to minimize estate tax liability. However, most people’s estates will never approach taxability, meaning they need a different approach to estate planning.  At the most foundational level, planning for non-taxable estates—those valued at less than $13.61 million—means ensuring clients have appropriate documents like wills, trusts, and powers of attorney in place.  However, just because a client isn’t subject to federal estate tax doesn’t mean they can ignore tax planning. In this blog, we’ll look at tax planning strategies for non-taxable estates where the owner...

Madison Eubanks

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Jul 26, 2024

Whether or not you’re a financial planning professional, being on top of trends and facts about estate planning can help you make informed decisions with regards to finances.  In this article, we’ve rounded up 50 estate planning statistics from 2024 from Vanilla research and sources around the web that you’ll want to remember.  Why estate planning matters  Why is estate planning important, and why does it seem like more people are talking about it now?  Not having a plan can cause problems down the road Over a third (35%) of US adults say they or someone they know have experienced...

As summer heats up, so do the new features at Vanilla. This month, we’re excited to introduce several enhancements designed to streamline your estate planning processes and provide even greater value to your clients. Here’s a quick summary of what's new: V/AI for Estate Builder improvements: Estate Builder users now get automatic document summaries and can automatically import text into the client profile. Generation Skipping Transfer Tax - Direct skip calculations: We’ve expanded the power of our platform to support GSTT calculations for direct skips so that each client profile reflects comprehensive tax analysis. Additional distribution customizations: Now you can...

Amjad Hussain

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Jul 22, 2024

We think a lot about artificial intelligence at Vanilla. The promise of AI is enormous – arguably greater than any new technology to come along since the dawn of the internet – and yet it is in its infancy and carries some risk, especially if not approached carefully. At Vanilla, we are thrilled by the prospect of how AI can improve the everyday lives of our customers and their clients, making estate planning more efficient and delivering insights, but we are keenly aware that we operate in a sensitive space. The security of customer and client data is sacrosanct, and...