Minutes are drawn to record how important business issues were discussed, what decisions were made when they needed to be completed, and who is responsible. This article will consider the fundamental aspect and legal requirements for board minutes in the board portal solutions.
Board meeting minutes as a reflection of the collegial way of making decisions
The board meeting minutes are used to document the activities of collegiate and advisory bodies, both permanent and temporary. Often, minutes of board meetings are kept to fix the agreements reached by the parties or other conditions developed jointly. Board meeting minutes contain a consistent record of the discussion of issues and decision-making at meetings, meetings, conferences, and meetings of collegial or advisory bodies.
The board meeting minutes reflect the activities for the joint development and adoption of management decisions. The most fundamental issues in the organization’s activities that require collective, collaborative discussion and decision-making are subject to the collegial decision. The collegial decision-making method is used in almost any organization’s activities, regardless of its legal form and nature of the activity.
Mandatory details of the minutes include:
- name of the organization,
- name of the type of document (Board meeting Minutes),
- date of the document,
- registration number,
- place of document creation,
- title of the text,
- signatures.
Legal requirements to board meeting minutes in a board software
As for the board meeting minutes’ legal requirements, they are as follows:
- The registration number of the minutes is the sequence number of the meeting during the calendar year or the term of the elected body. When registering protocols, special registration and accounting forms (journal, file cabinet) are not kept; each new minute is assigned a serial number following the number of the protocol filed last in the file.
- The place of drawing up the protocol is indicated following the accepted administrative-territorial division. The name of the place where the document was drawn up can be omitted if the territory’s name is included in the organization’s name.
- The heading to the text is an obligatory requirement of the minutes. It must be grammatically consistent with the name of the document type.
- The text of the minutes consists of two parts – introductory and main. The introductory part is drawn up identically in the full and short forms of the protocol. The names of the board of directors members or persons participating in the meeting with the right to vote are listed alphabetically without indicating positions.
Today many companies implement board management software that can generate all related to the board meeting documents automatically. So, the boards can assess the effectiveness of introducing digital processes and an electronic document management system only after some time – at least six months, and preferably after a full working year of operation. The board software solution gives an additional advantage to companies – a single archive of the organization is accumulated in digital form. It ensures a quick search for information, automated board minutes’ generation, a strict distribution of access rights for each category of employees and the implementation of the required level of data protection and confidentiality.