What Is Board Management Software & How Does It Benefit Modern Organizations?
It may feel inevitable that board meetings generate endless piles of paper. Before the majority of businesses had access to technology, all board meeting minutes were recorded physically in minute books—easy to place somewhere safe and later forget.
Enter board management software—a tool that lets modern-day companies consolidate all board meeting data online and eliminates the need to store board books. This article will provide a detailed insight into the uses and benefits of these kinds of tools. You'll also discover how Harbor Compliance can help you run board meetings efficiently.
What Is Board Management Software?
Board management software provides a shared digital environment that enables directors to organize all board meetings. Firms can also use this tool to store all meeting-related documents online and manage meeting minutes.
While enterprise board management software can provide features like meeting analytics, automated agenda building, video conferencing, and voting capabilities, it is often better suited for large, publicly traded companies with formalized roles and complex reporting needs. Such costly tools might not provide most businesses with the best return on investment.
Instead, it is often more practical for entities to invest in simpler, unified board management solutions with essential features such as centralized storage for key documents and streamlined meeting tracking. These tools provide everything your board needs without unnecessary complexities and steeper prices. Harbor Compliance's Records Manager, sold as part of the Software Suite, is one such solution.
Are Enterprise Board Management Features Necessary for Your Organization?
Enterprise board management often includes capabilities like video conferencing, agenda building, and meeting analytics. While these may seem beneficial, most organizations don’t have use for them:
- Video conferencing—Most boards already use tools like Zoom or Google Meet for online meetings. Introducing a new platform adds unnecessary complexities, forcing members to adapt to something unfamiliar when existing tools work perfectly well.
- Agenda building—While automated agenda tools are marketed as a benefit, platforms like Google Docs already offer collaborative features that make agenda creation simple and accessible for any team.
- Meeting analytics—Advanced analytics features may be useful for large, complex companies, but they are more of a luxury than a necessity for most boards. Boards can typically achieve their goals without needing an in-depth analysis of meeting dynamics or participation rates.
Instead of paying for software with such features, which might be underutilized, boards should focus on tools that provide the essentials without added complexities.
Benefits of Focusing on Essential Board Management Features
When boards invest in software designed around their core needs, they enjoy several benefits, including:
- Paperless meetings—Instead of relying on paper to note agendas and collect meeting minutes, firms can upload, share, and access any key documents online. This also saves money spent on printing meeting documents. Furthermore, using collaborative digital tools ensures vital records are securely stored, significantly mitigating the risk of loss due to disasters or accidental damage.
- Meeting coordination and tracking—Board management tools streamline meeting coordination by creating internal events that send automated reminders to participants. These events can store meeting minutes and participant lists, providing clarity on who participated in discussions and decisions. This ensures future board members can reference past meetings to understand key resolutions and ensure continuity during board turnover.
- Consolidated information—Board management software provides centralized storage for meeting minutes and other essential documents, ensuring that all board members can access important information when needed. This eliminates the need to sift through multiple files.
- Legal compliance—A digital board management tool lets organizations store meeting minutes and documents that can be presented during audits to ensure compliance with complex rules, policies, and practices. Integrating such a tool with your entity, license, and tax management solutions further enhances its utility by centralizing ownership details commonly needed for compliance. This integration is particularly advantageous for small businesses, where board members often overlap with operational leadership, as it creates a unified platform for managing regulatory obligations.
How To Choose the Best Board Management Software
When choosing software that fits your board meeting requirements, consider these factors:
- Ease of use
- Governance
- Features
- Customer support
- Security
Ease of Use
Using a digital platform for viewing meeting documents should be just as easy as flipping papers in real life. Many board management tools are overcomplicated and packed with features that most companies will never need. A simple, easy-to-use solution that focuses on essentials is often advisable.
Choose a platform that is user-friendly and doesn't require extensive training. If needed, you can also consider a mobile-friendly solution to help board members access meeting information from any location.
Governance
One of the most important factors to consider is whether a board management platform helps you improve your current governance practices. Check whether the software lets you organize key documents like agreements or articles of incorporation and if it can send automated reminders for recurring meetings.
Features
Ideally, you'll need a platform that provides all the adequate features without going overboard. Don't spend a fortune for extra features that your board may not need or can get for free, such as video conferencing.
Customer Support
It's important to choose a board management solution that provides proactive customer support. They should be quick to respond and work on resolving any issues your team may face. Check whether they have in-house resource guides for new users.
Security
Ensure that your board management software is safe and follows the latest industry-standard security protocols. Board meetings involve various sensitive paperwork, so a platform that prioritizes security will help protect you against hackers and the like.
If you're looking for board management software with the above features, then look no further than Harbor Compliance.
Make Board Management Easy With Harbor Compliance's Record Manager
Our award-winning Software Suite allows organizations to meet all state requirements by checking their current standing and automating compliance tracking using the Entity Manager while simultaneously managing other tasks like board management.
More specifically, our Records Manager software module includes everything you need to take control of your board's data.
From corporate resolutions to company-wide policies, you can store all organizational documents as per your entity type, such as:
- Corporations—Articles of incorporation, amendments, etc.
- Nonprofits—Articles of incorporation, bylaws, etc.
- LLCs—Articles of organization, operating agreement, etc.
Similarly, the Records Manager helps you track all beneficial ownership information (BOI) from directors, officers, members, and managers. This helps you consolidate all related data needed for BOI reporting in one place and expedite the filing process.
Organizations can also schedule and set up custom frequencies for recurring board meetings and customize meeting notifications. After each meeting, the software stores all meeting minutes and board resolutions, enabling directors to recall and view key documents from one place.
Software Suite—Additional Modules
Apart from the Records Manager, our Software Suite also hosts other modules for streamlining various tasks like licensing and filing tax returns. These include:
- License Manager—Helps you manage all your firm's licenses and delegate renewal tasks to assignees with custom notifications. Event visibility lets you view all licensing events and their due dates, assignees, frequency, and cost, eliminating the need to store data on large spreadsheets.
- Tax Manager—Allows you to add and check all your past tax registrations, assign tax return filings to team members, and save time obtaining key tax account information.
- Entity Manager—An all-encompassing solution that displays all your entities and their regulatory statuses. This module also lets you receive automated notifications to file annual reports. Connected to various secretary of state databases, it allows you to look up public information about your entities, such as registration number, company type, etc.
How To Schedule a Demo for Harbor Compliance's Software Software
Follow the steps given below to schedule a free demo for our Software Suite and enjoy multi-state benefits:
- Visit the Schedule a Demonstration page.
- Enter your details, company name, and website.
- Choose your industry from the drop-down list.
- Click the Schedule a Demonstration button.
Additional Services by Harbor Compliance
In addition to our Software Suite, we also help businesses with key regulatory tasks like licensing and BOI reporting. The table below covers other services from our portfolio:
| Service Category | Services |
|---|---|
| BOI reporting | We centralize your collected BOI in one place and submit up to four initial, corrected, or updated reports in one calendar year via our BOI reporting service. |
| Registered agent service | Harbor Compliance can act as your registered agent to receive legal notices on your behalf. With offices in all U.S. states, no documents can ever slip through the cracks. Already have an agent? Leverage our Change of Agent Service to set us as your new registered agent quickly. |
| Business licensing support | Obtain your general business licenses with our help, and we'll also assist you in maintaining and renewing them. We can also help you get industry-specific licenses for engineering, construction, etc. |
| Entity lifecycle management | We can help you at every stage of your organization's lifecycle and complete key tasks like DBA management, /entity-name-reservation, initial and annual reports filing, amendments, and withdrawal. |
| Document filing and retrieval | Our document retrieval service helps you complete important paperwork like articles of reinstatement, certificates of authority, certified copies, and /certificate-of-good-standing. We can also assist with on-time document shipping via our Drop-off Filing service. |
| Tax registration | Always stay on top of your state's tax requirements with our Employer Identification Number (EIN), sales and use tax registration, and payroll tax registration services. |
| Nonprofit formation | Embark on your nonprofit journey with our incorporation service. Skip the paperwork to start a 501(c) tax-exempt nonprofit, and let us handle your charity registration process. |
Board Management Software FAQs
Below, we'll answer a few commonly asked questions about board management software for corporations. Visit our Information Center if you want to learn more.
Organizations with large boards tend to require complex features like meeting analytics and video conferencing. However, most private companies either won't need such features or will take advantage of free online tools. Ideally, as long as you get a platform that can store all company documents and help you manage meeting scheduling and minutes, you'll be good to go.
While it may not be necessary for every entity, using board document management software can help you centralize all information securely in one place. This also helps you reduce paper-related costs for printing agendas, resolutions, and meeting minutes.
Since nonprofits face higher turnover than for-profit organizations, managing their boards requires more effort and attention. Hence, specific nonprofit board management software available exists as well. However, a comprehensive platform like Harbor Compliance caters to all types of organizations via its Software Suite.
Corporate portals are primarily aimed at larger boards that need extensive document and knowledge base management. Conversely, board management software acts as a meeting tool and document storage platform while being lower priced than corporate portals and is typically made for smaller private firms.
Typically, meeting minutes contain the title and type of meeting along with:
- The date and location
- Agendas
- Discussion summary
- Decisions made and assigned tasks
- Any relevant meeting documents
Store Board Meeting Minutes Efficiently With Harbor Compliance
Board management software enables modern-day organizations to store and access all board meeting documents and minutes digitally, eliminating the need for paper. This helps them save money and space required for minute books.
Using Harbor Compliance's Software Suite enables businesses to securely store all ownership data and meeting minutes online. The Records Manager also helps you set up customized notifications and upload key organizational documents as per your entity type.
Partner with us today and make your board meetings more quick, secure, and efficient or schedule a free software demo to see if our solution is a good match or not. Get your free Harbor Compliance Score™ today and evaluate if your entity meets all state requirements.
