Overview
Initiating a conversation about Trusts offers a powerful advantage in helping clients visualize the true scope of their legacy and estate planning. By clearly illustrating these entities—whether Revocable or Irrevocable—you transform abstract legal concepts into a tangible part of the client's financial picture. Adding a trust and isolating on the trust and its financials on the client's Asset-Map not only simplifies complex ownership structures by linking assets directly to beneficiaries but also opens the door to essential discussions about tax efficiency and long-term asset protection, ensuring their estate plan is as robust as their ambitions.
Add a Trust to a Household
In Asset-Map, a Trust is an "Entity" that can be added when first creating a household manually or anytime thereafter by choosing the "Entity" option in the Actions menu on a Household. Asset-Map also provides customization features for these entities, allowing users to tailor how trusts and other structures appear alongside other financial relationships.
Attributes of a Trust
There is no difference in the financial or technical behavior of a Revocable Trust or Irrevocable Trust in the platform.
The features that differentiate the two trust types are the category listing and the avatars that represent them: revocable = open lock, irrevocable = locked.
A trust can be added and is displayed on the Member & Entities page in the Entities section.
A trust can be displayed on the
Beneficiaries page
Policy Summary page
Balance Sheet page
Notes page if notes are added on the Trust's Notes tab
Asset-Map page
Assign financials to a trust as desired (assets, liabilities, insurance, cash flows).
A trust can be designated as a Beneficiary from the Details tab of a financial.
A trust can be assigned as a guardian/controller of an asset from the Guardian/Controller picklist of a financial.- To further customize trust layouts, access the entity settings to adjust visibility settings (e.g., unchecking the 'Entity' toggle) and save layouts, ensuring trust assets are isolated for clarity while other maps remain focused on individual members' assets.
Nesting entities (one trust controlling another entity like an LLC or other trust) is currently not possible. Enter the owned entity as an asset with a dollar value instead.
Link Assets on Trust to Member(s)
We provide a display feature option to link a trust's assets to a member (or members) to replicate the assets on those members. This does not multiply the value of the asset. It displays the asset(s) on the Member as a yellow tile. Additionally, users can create distinct layouts for trust-owned assets by saving them as custom maps (Layouts), which can be shared or included in reports for detailed presentation.
Trusts and Taxes
Taxes on assets held by trusts are not calculated. If any taxes need to be considered, you may use Target-Maps™ to modify the Loss to Tax percentage on the asset to discuss tax advantages in estate planning.
1/2026