How to Properly Handle Your Company’s Meeting Minutes


what are meeting minutes

If you have incorporated your business as an S Corporation or a C Corporation, most states require that you keep careful records of the company’s activities. Every time your board of directors meets, your company needs to keep a record on file for regulatory compliance purposes.

There is a long list of possible transaction and resolutions that you might need to keep on record. This can include anything ranging from:

  • The appointment of a new officer.
  • The resignation of a director.
  • Purchasing insurance.
  • Selling stock
  • Obtaining a line of credit/credit card in the company’s name.

Keeping records can be a lot to keep straight, particularly for the small business owner. However, proper meeting minutes are essential to keeping your corporation in good standing and maintaining your personal liability shield. Below are some of the key things you need to know when it comes to keeping minutes of your meetings.

What are Meeting Minutes?

Meeting minutes keep an official account of what was done or talked about at formal meetings, including any decisions made or actions taken.

They are taken during a formal meeting of the board of directors or shareholders of a corporation, such as initial and annual meetings. Typically, meeting minutes are recorded by the corporation’s secretary (or another individual appointed at the meeting).

What Should be Included in Meeting Minutes?

Your meeting minutes do not need to include every little detail. You just need to document the key information and any decisions made or actions taken. In general, your minutes should be detailed enough to serve as your corporation’s “institutional memory.”

Typical minutes will include the following:

  • Basic information about the meeting: date, time, location.
  • Who attended, along with a special note in the cases where attendees came late or left early.
  • Agenda items with a brief description of each item.
  • Voting actions with a detailed account of how each individual voted, along with any abstensions.
  • Time when meeting was adjourned.

In most cases, you don’t need to create minutes from scratch. You can find free templates online to serve as a starting point. Choose your type of minutes/documentations, fill in the blanks, and print it out, and you will have met your recordkeeping obligations.

Who is Required to Keep Meeting Minutes?

The majority of states require both S Corporations and C Corporations to document major business decisions and the major meetings you hold.

At present, the following states do not require minutes to be kept:

  • Delaware
  • Kansas
  • Nevada
  • North Dakota
  • Oklahoma

Additionally, LLCs are not required to keep minutes.

What Should I do With the Minutes After They are Recorded?

Minutes do not need to be filed with the state, but can instead be kept with your other corporate records, such as articles of incorporations, bylaws, and resolutions.

Like other documents, you should keep minutes on hand for at least seven years. Members of the corporation, such as shareholders, officers, and directors, are entitled to review the meeting minutes upon “reasonable request” to the corporation.

While you don’t need to file these documents with the state, they should still be considered important documents and are essential for protecting your corporation’s good standing and your limited liability status.

CorpNet offers business formations, filings, state tax registrations, and corporate compliance services in all 50 states. Express and 24 hour rush filing services available upon request. Click here to learn more.

16 Comments ▼

Nellie Akalp Nellie Akalp is a passionate entrepreneur, recognized business expert and mother of four. She is the CEO of CorpNet, the smartest way to start a business, register for payroll taxes, and maintain business compliance across the United States.

16 Reactions
  1. So that’s how they use it. I thought meetings are mere records of meetings. I did not realize that it can be that valuable to the state.

  2. Keeping good records is a challenge for small business owners, especially when the owner is the manager, sales department, bookkeeper, human resources person and janitor. That being said, identifying key documents to maintain, developing a process to follow for obtaining and keeping those records and getting into the habit of following this advice is vitally important. Incomplete records are like landmines waiting to explode. Want to refinance your debt but don’t have the original loan documents? Problem. Want to sell your business but don’t have a record of when you bought your buddy’s stock in the company 8 years ago? Problem. Having a dispute with a customer over payment but don’t have a copy of the signed contract? Problem. Any one of these can mean a lot of time and expense for a business owner. Every 15 minutes of planning your record-keeping will save you an hour and lots of money when you need the documents later.

  3. Hi Guys,
    I am curious, what tool are you using to keep track of meeting minutes? My experience is that meeting minutes usually land in an email or a word document attachmed to an email and are buried forever….
    Opsi

  4. Hi Nellie,

    My name is Monica and I teach second grade. I have enjoyed reviewing your site which guides us about how to take our best meeting minutes. However, I do believe that we should review some useful meeting minutes formats for batter understanding about minutes. I would like to suggest that you include http://www.dotxes.com/topics/minutes as free source with more modern formats. I think this will be an excellent addition. I do not have any professional connection to this site except that I use this site for my teaching meetings. I believe your readers would really enjoy discovering some meeting minutes samples. Well thanks for a descriptive post on meeting minutes I was searching about what I should include in my meeting minutes to make it more effective and reasonable.

    Thanks,
    Monica Langley

  5. Thank you for the recommendation, Monica. We will definitely look into it!

  6. If anyone is looking for a good record keeping of their minutes I recommend rocket lawyer. Google them. I have been using their services to create my meetings and minutes and very user friendly. I know because as the president, Secretary, and treasurer of my company their services has prevented me from getting headaches. After you create your documents…you can download via pdf or word so you can make adjustments and sign.

    Okay how I helped a little.

  7. Katherine Bento

    Hello,
    I have two questions. Is it correct to start writing my meeting notes after the meeting has been called to order, or am I obligated to record any talk before the official opening?
    Also, is it correct to say “John second the motion” or “John seconded the motion”
    Thank you!

    • Hi Katherine,
      Thanks so much for reading and commenting. I cannot give any legal, tax or financial advice so am unable to provide any information specific to your situation. However generally speaking, once the chair of the meeting calls the meeting to order, the minutes begin there. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Amanda Beren in my office at (888) 449-2638. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

  8. Are minutes a legal and bidding document? What kind of trouble can you get into if you are audited and they find out that you took the minutes but did not distribute to the members?

    • Hi Ava – Thanks for reading and commenting. Sorry for my delay in responding, I am just now seeing your comment. In answer to your question, minutes are a legal and binding document and must be consistently maintained in order for your corporation or LLC to be fully complaint. Failure to properly keep corporate minutes can lead to your corporation or LLC falling out of compliance and running the risk of the corporate veil being pierced.

  9. As a non-profit 501c3 do we have to keep hard copies of the minutes on file (in binders), or can we save them electronically to avoid so much paper storage?

  10. Hello Nellie:

    We are a family business which has been incorporated for a number of years.

    Our corporate record-keeping has been very spasmodic. Do you offer an outsourced service to help firms like ours get up to date, and keep up to date, without taking time away from our main business efforts?

    If not, would you be able to recommend someone?

    Regards,

    Rob

    • Hi Rob:

      Thank you for reading my article and reaching out. My company CorpNet.com can assist you with all of it ourselves and we can get you all caught up with all of your compliance and annual filings and get you up to date. Please reach out at 888-449-2638 and ask for Diana Woodruff at Ext 109 and she will be able to assist you with all of these requests and get your company back on track??

  11. Shelly Dollison Caldeira

    Hi thanks for the very informative article! Question;
    Are meeting minutes a monthly or annual requirement for a married couples small biz (70k annual income) S-Corp? Mahalo!

  12. Hi Shelly – thanks for reading and commenting. Generally speaking all corporations are required to maintain annual meeting minutes of the shareholders and board of directors on an annual basis as a requirement to keep the corporation in compliance even if its a husband and wife team. If you would like assistance with keeping your business in compliance my company, corpnet dot com, has free resources to help.