How to Make Holistiplan Part of Your Year-Round Workflow
- Olivia Allen
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
TL;DR — Too Long; Didn’t Read
Most advisory firms underuse Holistiplan because they lack a repeatable process: not because the tool is hard. This post covers the five-step framework Village Financial Services uses with clients to make Holistiplan a consistent, year-round part of financial planning.
Step 1: Set expectations at onboarding so tax return collection is never a surprise.
Step 2: Build a standardized request and follow-up workflow that runs the same way across your whole book, every year.
Step 3: Process each return efficiently: household setup, tax report review, current-year scenario, and tax letter.
Step 4: Embed Holistiplan updates into existing workflows: review meetings, QCDs, backdoor Roth contributions, quarterly estimates.
Step 5: Run a readiness checklist to lock in consistent setup, naming conventions, and team training before scaling.
Most advisors who have Holistiplan don’t have a problem with the tool itself. They have a problem with consistency.
You upload a return, run a report, maybe model a quick scenario, and then tax season ends and Holistiplan goes quiet until next April. The tool is capable of so much more, but without a clear process, it stays underutilised.
That’s the gap we’re closing in this post. What follows is the same implementation framework we walked through in our co-hosted webinar with Holistiplan: a practical, step-by-step approach to making tax planning a consistent, year-round part of your client service model.
Step 1: Set Expectations Early: with Every Client
The foundation of consistent Holistiplan adoption isn’t a workflow. It’s a conversation.
When clients understand why you’re asking for their tax return, they’re far more likely to provide it without multiple reminders. That means setting that expectation before the first tax season arrives.
For New Clients
Position tax return collection as a standard part of onboarding and comprehensive financial planning. Frame it around their benefit:
Tax returns give you the full picture needed to identify planning opportunities.
Without them, you can’t make decisions in a vacuum: you need to understand every piece of a client’s financial world.
Reviewing returns lets you be proactive throughout the year, not just reactive in April.
For Existing Clients
If you’re rolling out Holistiplan to an established book, position it as an upgrade, not a correction. You’re enhancing the planning process, not acknowledging something was missed. Benefits to speak to:
Identifying additional planning opportunities with more complete data.
Spotting potential errors or omissions on the return before they compound.
Adding a layer of tax-informed strategy to advice you’re already delivering.
Step 2: Systematize the Tax Return Request Workflow
Requesting a tax return isn’t a one-time ask: it’s a repeatable process that should run the same way across your entire book, every year.
Send a Purposeful Request Email
Your initial outreach should remind the client why this matters and make it easy for them to respond. Include:
A clear explanation of the benefit to them: even if you covered it in onboarding.
A direct upload link: either the Holistiplan client upload link or your firm’s secure portal (Box, ShareFile, etc.).
The option for a direct CPA send, if that relationship exists.
The DIY Toolkit includes ready-to-use email template language you can adapt for your firm’s voice.
Monitor and Follow Up Consistently
One of the most common breakdowns: firms send the initial request and wait. Without consistent follow-up, clients don’t feel urgency and returns don’t come in. A few things to build in:
Check that the Holistiplan upload link is still active before resending (these links expire).
Tag chronic extenders in your CRM so their workflow kicks off later in the year automatically.
Set a follow-up cadence: weekly, biweekly, or monthly: as a recurring CRM task so it runs without thinking about it.
Step 3: Process the Return the Right Way
Once a return lands, move efficiently through four connected steps: build the household, review the tax report, draft the current-year scenario, and build or refresh the tax letter.
Create or Update the Household
The only required fields in Holistiplan are Spouse 1 name and date of birth. Add Spouse 2 and DOB if applicable, and include the state: it unlocks state-specific tax hints even though Holistiplan doesn’t process state returns.
Using Wealthbox or Redtail? The CRM integration pulls client names, dates of birth, and state into Holistiplan automatically: one click instead of manual entry.
Review and Save the Tax Report
Once uploaded and processed (typically about two minutes), the tax report gives you a clean visual summary: total income, total tax, filing status, marginal bracket, and more. At this stage:
Toggle sections on or off depending on whether the report will be client-facing or internal.
Review observations and items for consideration: some are planning flags worth acting on.
Export and save as a PDF to your standardized file location.
Draft the Current-Year Scenario
Create a new scenario for the current tax year by copying from the prior year. Holistiplan carries the data over and flags anything to review. Then enter the easy wins: data you can add right now:
Social Security income, adjusted for the current COLA increase.
RMD withholdings from accounts you manage.
Quarterly estimates, if already set.
Year-to-date transactions from your custodian: QCDs, backdoor Roth contributions, gifting of appreciated stock.
On a team? CSAs or associate advisors can handle the easy wins; the advisor layer adds context from client meetings: bonus income, wage changes, planning decisions.
Rename the scenario clearly (e.g., “2026 Baseline”) so it’s easy to duplicate for scenario modeling later.
Build or Refresh the Tax Letter
The tax letter is the deliverable that ties everything together: what a client hands to their CPA at year-end with confidence that it captures everything. To build it:
List all managed accounts, adding or removing any that have changed.
Add year-to-date transactions under the relevant section types.
Note the anticipated tax forms derived from those transactions.
Two additional sections worth adding via the custom notes field:
RMD amounts for the current year. Charitably inclined clients benefit from knowing this early: it shapes year-end giving decisions.
Quarterly estimates. If set or updated, note them here for the CPA’s reference.
Step 4: Embed Holistiplan into Your Year-Round Service Workflows
Here’s where adoption either sticks or doesn’t. Advisors who use Holistiplan consistently don’t do a big push once a year: they update it incrementally as things happen throughout the year.
Review Meetings
Advisor prep should include pulling up the tax report and current-year scenario. After the meeting, any new data: income changes, planned transactions, updated estimates: goes directly into the scenario before the workflow closes.
Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs)
When a QCD is processed and confirmed at the custodian, update both the tax letter and current-year scenario immediately. Don’t rely on memory or year-end transaction reports.
Backdoor Roth Contributions
Log the traditional IRA contribution and Roth conversion in the scenario at the time they occur. Update the tax letter to reflect the transaction and the anticipated 1099-R and 5498 forms.
Quarterly Estimate Changes
When coordinating estimate adjustments with the client’s CPA, review the scenario for updates, communicate the change, and update the tax letter accordingly.
The pattern is consistent: whenever something affects a client’s tax picture, open Holistiplan and update it in the moment. That’s what makes January a 30-minute task instead of a 3-hour scramble.
Run Through the Readiness Checklist
Before rolling Holistiplan out across your full book, get these setup items right first:
Complete household list: Confirm your Holistiplan household list matches your active client list. If using a CRM integration, verify the data is accurate before syncing.
Standardized file storage: Tax returns should be saved in the same location for every household. Everyone on the team should know where.
Review your settings: Check disclosures, tax letter section descriptions, and branding in Holistiplan before drafting letters. Changes update retroactively, but cleaner to get it right upfront.
Reliable source for custodian data: Define where your team pulls transaction data: custodian directly, Orion, Tamarac, or another reporting tool.
Document which transactions trigger which entries: CSAs and associate advisors need a clear reference for what goes on the tax letter and what goes in the scenario.
Naming conventions for accounts: Decide how accounts are labeled on tax letters and stay consistent. It reduces confusion for clients and CPAs alike.
Ready to Build This Out for Your Firm?
The DIY Toolkit covers all of this in a format you can act on immediately: workflow templates, tax return request email language, and a readiness checklist you can work through with your team.
If you’d rather have it built for you, that’s exactly what Village Financial Services does. From Holistiplan implementation to Advyzon CRM consulting & workflow builds, to ongoing fractional CSA support, we work with advisory firms to turn good tools into consistent systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Holistiplan and how do financial advisors use it?
Holistiplan is a tax planning software platform for financial advisors. It allows advisors to upload client tax returns, generate visual tax reports, model current-year and multi-year tax scenarios, and build tax summary letters to share with clients and their CPAs. Financial advisors use Holistiplan to integrate tax analysis into their planning process, identify tax-saving opportunities, and communicate proactively about clients’ tax picture throughout the year: not just at filing time.
Why do many financial advisors underuse Holistiplan after purchasing it?
The most common reason is the absence of a repeatable process. Many advisors upload returns during tax season but never build the workflows needed to use the tool consistently year-round. Without a standardized tax return collection workflow, a consistent follow-up cadence, and clear team responsibilities for updating scenarios and tax letters, Holistiplan tends to sit idle between filing seasons. The tool itself isn’t the barrier: the missing piece is an implementation framework.
What is a Holistiplan tax letter and why should advisors send one?
A Holistiplan tax letter is a client-facing summary document that lists a client’s managed accounts, year-to-date financial transactions, anticipated tax forms for the upcoming filing season, and relevant notes such as RMD amounts or quarterly estimates. Advisors send tax letters to clients and their CPAs near year-end to ensure nothing gets missed on the return. Benefits: fewer client questions during tax season, a clear and professional handoff to the CPA, and a tangible record of the advisor’s year-round involvement. CPAs frequently cite tax letters as a value-add that strengthens the collaborative relationship.
What CRMs integrate with Holistiplan?
Holistiplan currently offers native CRM integrations with Wealthbox and Redtail. These integrations import client household data: names, dates of birth, and state: directly into Holistiplan, eliminating manual data entry when setting up new households. Advisors using Advyzon, Salesforce or other CRMs will need to enter household information manually, as no direct integration exists for those platforms at this time.
How do you track tax return collection status across a full client book in Holistiplan?
Inside Holistiplan, advisors can filter their household list by tax year to see which clients have returns on file. The platform uses a status workflow that includes: Started/Draft, Ready for Review, Reviewed, Complete – Not Sent, Complete – Sent, Complete – Will Not Send, and Opted Out. Many firms supplement this with CRM tags or keywords at the household level so status is visible alongside other client service tasks.
Can you attach documents like 1099s directly to a Holistiplan tax letter?
Holistiplan tax letters do not currently support direct file attachments. A common workaround: create a year-specific folder in a secure file storage platform (Box, ShareFile, etc.) and add both the exported Holistiplan tax letter PDF and any relevant tax documents. Share the folder or a zipped file with the client, giving them a complete bundled package to hand to their CPA.
How does Village Financial Services help advisory firms implement Holistiplan?
Village Financial Services offers Holistiplan implementation support on both a project and ongoing basis. Services include building the full Holistiplan workflow from scratch: household setup, tax return collection processes, scenario drafting, and tax letter templates: as well as team training for consistent usage. Village also provides fractional CSA (Client Service Associate) support, meaning firms can access an experienced CSA to handle ongoing Holistiplan maintenance without a full-time hire. A DIY Implementation Toolkit with workflow templates, email language, and a readiness checklist is also available. More at villagefs.com.
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