How to draft minutes of directors meetings - top tips

Top tips for preparing minutes of directors meetings

1. Be accurate

It is important that minutes of directors' meetings are an accurate reflection of what was discussed and decided at the meeting. They not only act as a record of the meeting itself, but of the decisions taken by the company’s board. The minutes, therefore, play a key role in a company’s corporate governance and directors ability to demonstrate compliance with UK company law.

2. Use a clear and logical structure

A well-organised structure is essential for clear and coherent minutes. The minutes should start with basic information about the meeting (such as when and where the meeting took place and who attended it) before going on to document procedural matters such as notice of the meeting, quorum and director’s interests. After the basic information and procedural information is set out, the remainder of the minutes will document the matter(s) that were discussed and voted upon at the meeting. In particular, it is important that the resolutions passed at the meeting are clearly recorded in the minutes.

3. Be clear about follow-up actions

Minutes of director’s meetings can be a great way of recording, and monitoring the progress of, action points. Action points following the passing of a resolution should be clearly set out in the minutes. For example, this could be a requirement to file a particular document with Companies House following the passing of the resolution. Any timeframes that the action must be taken in should also be clearly set out in the minutes.

4. Don’t over complicate them

The best minutes of director’s meetings are simple to understand and follow. The minutes should set out the key information about the meeting, decisions made and resolutions passed. They should be drafted in a way that makes it easy for the reader to identify the resolutions that have been passed at the meeting, and understand what next steps are.

5. Know what not to include

The minutes should not be a verbatim account of everything that was discussed at the meeting. Directors' meeting minutes should not be treated in the same fashion as minutes of other meeting types, but rather to reflect the details of a matter, the consideration of the risks of that matter and then the outcome decided. The minutes should represent accurate documentation regarding the board's decisions, where it is a requirement of company law for those decisions to be made by the board.

Using Docue’s directors meeting minutes template can help you to easily follow the steps above and produce high-quality minutes of directors' meetings. Find out more about directors meeting minutes by reading this comprehensive guide.

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