Balance Sheet Compliance Review FAQ
Holistiplan is introducing a Balance Sheet feature that lets advisors record and organize a client's assets and liabilities directly within the platform. This document gives your team a clear picture of what the feature does, how data is handled, and what advisors are responsible for, so you can confidently decide whether to enable it for your firm and the advisors that have access to the P&C Insurance Product.
- The Balance Sheet is currently in BETA and is off by default. A firm admin must explicitly enable it before any advisor can access it.
- It is not a tax planning tool. It does not affect tax return analysis, tax projections, or tax letters in any way.
- It does not generate advice or recommendations. It surfaces data and calculations. The advisor interprets and applies them.
- All data stays within Holistiplan under the same security and privacy practices that govern the rest of the platform.
The questions below cover the areas compliance teams most commonly ask about. If something is missing or you would like to talk through a specific scenario, contact your Holistiplan enterprise relationship manager.
Feature overview
QWhat does the Balance Sheet do?
It gives advisors a single place within a client's household to record assets and liabilities. Once populated, it powers two things in the current release: a per-client net worth summary and a direct feed into the Umbrella policy section of the P&C Insurance report, where it helps advisors assess whether a client's liability coverage is sized appropriately relative to their creditor-exposed assets.
QWho can turn this feature on?
Firm administrators control access. The feature is off by default and cannot be activated by individual advisors. Once a firm admin enables it, all advisors within the firm will see the Balance Sheet tab on household screens.
QIs this connected to tax planning?
No. Balance Sheet data does not flow into tax return analysis, tax planning projections, or tax letters. That is an explicit limitation of this release and will be addressed in future versions of the balance sheet.
Data handling and privacy
QWhat client data is entered and stored?
Advisors may record the following for each asset or liability:
- Name, asset type, and institution
- State where the asset is held
- Titling (JTWROS, TOD, Tenants in Common, Tenants by Entirety, or Other)
- Whether the asset is held outside the U.S.
- Dollar value, value date, and value type (fair market value, cost basis, surrender value, death benefit, or retirement account basis)
- Ownership percentage per client in the household
- Asset Protection Override flag
- Estate planning fields: valuation discount, probate status, community property, and separate property designations
All of this is stored within Holistiplan's existing infrastructure under the same security practices that apply to the rest of the platform.
QWho can see Balance Sheet data?
Access follows the same household-level permissions model used throughout Holistiplan. Any user with access to a household can view its Balance Sheet. Existing firm-level permissions and household sharing settings apply.
QDoes the Balance Sheet integrate with any external data sources?
Yes, for firms that use Orion. The Balance Sheet includes an Orion integration that pulls a limited subset of account data to reduce manual entry. Holistiplan retrieves the following from Orion:
- Client name and ID, for household mapping
- Basic account metadata: custodian, account type, account ID, and active status
- A single current dollar value per account, which advisors can refresh on demand using the “Update All Account Values” function
That is the full extent of what is stored or displayed.
Firms that do not use Orion are unaffected. All Balance Sheet data for non-Orion firms is entered manually or imported via CSV or Excel template.
QIs any data shared outside of Holistiplan?
No. The only movement of this data is within Holistiplan itself, when an advisor manually chooses to populate the Umbrella policy's Estimated At Risk Value field from the Balance Sheet.
Umbrella coverage connection
Why the Balance Sheet matters for Umbrella coverage
The Balance Sheet connects directly to the Umbrella policy section of the P&C Insurance report. As advisors build out the Balance Sheet, they designate each asset as either protected from creditor claims or exposed, using the Asset Protection Override field. That classification work at the Balance Sheet level feeds a running Total No Asset Protection figure, which represents the household assets a creditor could potentially reach in a liability judgment.
When an advisor opens the Umbrella policy details, they can pull that figure directly into the Estimated At Risk Value field with a single button. Holistiplan then uses that value as the basis for evaluating whether the client's umbrella limit is adequate. The higher the at-risk total relative to the umbrella limit, the more exposed the client may be.
- The pull is manual and one-time. It does not sync automatically, so advisors need to refresh it if the Balance Sheet changes.
- The at-risk calculation reflects exactly what the advisor has classified. If assets are incorrectly marked as protected, the resulting figure will understate the client's true exposure.
- The feature surfaces the gap. It does not generate a recommendation or tell the client what coverage amount to purchase.
Advisor responsibility
QWhat is the advisor responsible for when it comes to Asset Protection classifications?
The Asset Protection Override is a checkbox the advisor sets manually on each asset. When checked, it marks that asset as protected from creditor claims under applicable state or federal law, and removes it from the creditor-exposed total used in the liability analysis.
Holistiplan does not automatically determine whether an asset qualifies for protection. Asset protection rules are state-specific and fact-dependent. The advisor is responsible for verifying applicability before checking the box.
QWho is responsible for the accuracy of the Estimated At Risk Value in the P&C report?
The advisor. The Balance Sheet's Total No Asset Protection figure can be pulled into the Umbrella policy's Estimated At Risk Value field using a manual button. This pull is one-time and does not sync automatically. If the Balance Sheet is updated after the initial pull, the advisor must re-run it.
Holistiplan surfaces the data and produces the calculation. The advisor is responsible for reviewing it for reasonableness before using it in a client conversation or report.
QDoes Holistiplan provide legal or asset protection advice through this feature?
No. The Balance Sheet is a planning tool, not a source of legal guidance. The platform does not determine whether an asset is legally protected, does not verify protection status, and does not make recommendations about asset structuring. Any client-facing use of Balance Sheet outputs should be presented as financial planning context within the advisor's professional scope. Clients with questions about legal protection strategies should be directed to qualified legal counsel.
QWill the feature change during the BETA period?
Yes. Holistiplan is actively developing the Balance Sheet. Planned additions include state-level protection guide and expansion of use into our Tax and Estate products. Firms should anticipate updates and communicate relevant changes to advisors as they occur.
Enabling the feature
QWhat does a firm need to do to enable it?
A firm administrator enables the Balance Sheet through Holistiplan's firm admin settings. No contract amendment or separate agreement is required for the BETA release.
Before enabling, firms may want to:
- Brief advisors on what the feature does and does not do, particularly around the Asset Protection Override.
- Establish internal guidelines for documenting asset protection classifications.
- Determine whether existing supervisory review processes should apply to Balance Sheet outputs when they are used in client-facing contexts.
QCan the feature be turned off after enabling it?
Yes. Firm administrators can disable it at any time through the same admin settings. Advisor access is removed immediately, but existing Balance Sheet data is retained and will be accessible again if the feature is re-enabled.