Puritas Springs Software
Living Trust & Estate Planner-Version 3 (Trust3) merges the wizard and document windows of prior versions. Now you see the entire document in a single scrollable window and all the editable fields are ready and waiting.
These automation features listed below give you a formidable set of tools for preparing estate planning documents such as wills, trusts, living wills, durable power of attorneys, health care power of attorneys, HIPPA forms, DNRs and more. You can concentrate on content instead of formatting and editing. Speaking of formatting, every document in Trust3 has been re-formatted for better handling of widows, orphans*, and page break placement.
The few programs that attempt to do all these things are considerably more complicated than most law office would like them to be. In addition, the cost of some of these programs―at the entry level―is $800! A good rule we tend follow is that if you visit their web site and you can't find the price, it's not worth pursuing. Trust3 doesn't require you to learn a new system. Simply tab from field to field, make your on-screen entries, and press the Print button. All previewing and printing is done with your feet on familiar ground―Microsoft Word.
Worksheets
Each client file is built around the Personal Information Worksheet and Child Worksheet. That's because that information is part of almost every document, and that's why it's transferred automatically.
Global Variables
Trust3 has a set of variables that are common to almost every document, i.e., attorney name and address. They're referred to as the "global variables" and they can be transferred to any document in one click.
Setting Defaults
If you've used any of our applications, should be familiar with the default file already. If you're not, here's a short YouTube video that you may find interesting and helpful.It's a file Trust3 uses to start files when you use the New command. The default file allows you to set a value for every field of every document. It's handy for values that don't typically change from client to client, but are unique to a particular document.
Modifying Templates
Trust3 lets you customize documents for your law office. Documents change from one law office to the next based on local custom and practice. Trust3 allows you to change the document templates, so if, for example, you always use special language in your revocable living trusts, you may insert your handcrafted clauses. You'll use Microsoft Word to do the editing, so you'll feel right at home. When you're done, every new document opf that type will have your language in it.
For users of Version 2 (which came with free upgrades for 6 years), the cost of ownership worked out to about $2 per month (actually $21.67 per year). Not a bad price for hundreds of pages of essential estate planning documents.
Trust3 has you do all your formatting, previewing and printing in your own word processor. For attorneys who touch-type and for all legal secretaries, this is a major convenience because law office computing typically involves large amounts of word processing. So what could be more comfortable and user-friendly than to use your own word processor to format and print Trust3 documents? Character formatting such as Old English fonts, special formatting, and editing in general, including spell-checking and grammar-checking, is all a piece of cake once you're in Microsoft Word. The link between Trust3 and Microsoft Word is seamless and invisible. Just click the Trust3's Print button. Due to the use of sophisticated formatting commands, Trust3 is not compatible with WordPerfect or Open Office.
Living trust software seems to fall into two categories: generic forms that are essentially useless and complicated packages designed to plan the estates of the rich and famous. If you're looking for trust software for your typical small to medium-sized law office that services ordinary people, you'll look long and hard and you may not find anything!
Trust3 was created to fill the chasm between these two extremes. It's an extraordinary program designed for ordinary estates. Trust3 isn't just trust forms, it also contains many of the complimentary documents that are necessary or useful in completing the estate plan. See the complete list below.
Personal Information
Children
Tangible Personal Property
Real Property
Business Interests
Bank Accounts
Stocks & Bonds
Insurance
Retirement
Miscellaneous
Revocable Living Trust
Revocable Credit Shelter/Marital Trust
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust
Irrevocable QTIP Trust
Irrevocable Discretionary Trust
Irrevocable Qualified Personal Residence Trust
Simple Will
Pour Over Will
Durable Power of Attorney
Notice to Principal
Notice to Agent/Attorney
HIPAA Authority
Health Care Power of Attorney
Living Will Declaration
Do Not Resuscitate Order
Bill of Transfer to Trust
Anatomical Gift
Inter Vivos Gift
Deed of Gift
Acceptance of Gift
Renunciation of Gift
Transfer on Death Designation Affidavit
Warranty Deed with Survivorship
Ghost Prompts. Each document field that you're responsible for completing contain light gray text that give you an example of the information that expected. Ghost prompts can be turned on and off.
Balloon Hints. If the ghost prompts aren't enough, each editable field has a help button you can click for a bit of additional information about what goes in that field. For veteran users, these hints can be thought of as having the old wizard available, but only when you need it.
On-Line Resources. Many of the documents (i.e., all of the trusts) have an on-line resource page that provides helpful information about that document―simply double-click on the document in the Main Window's tree view.
Windows Copy/Paste Compatibility. If you have a lengthy legal description in your word processor, you can utilize Trust3's Copy/Paste functions with any other Windows program.
Quick Keys. Use quick keys for entering things like today's date (<Ctrl><T>) or an underline (<Ctrl><L>).
Tool Bar. Not that you don't have the menu bar and pop-up menus for performing common functions, we've included a tool bar to provide one-click access to most common commands.
Pop-Up Menus. Right-click your mouse to access pop-up menus for handy functions like saving files, starting new files and previewing and printing documents.
Living Trust and Estate Planner--Version 3 (Trust3) is compatible with Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Vista; also Mac OSX Versions 10.8 and higher. Microsoft Word is required for both the Windows and Mac versions.