Best Board Meeting Software in 2023

What is Board Meeting Software?

Board meeting software is a kind of software that enables board members to access all the crucial data to make firm and effective decisions.

With its myriad of collaboration tools, it provides easy access to documents, notes, calendars, agendas, and contacts that one can use to inform and brace up the meeting process. Board members can even upload files within the workspace and assign access to the users. Multiple users can view and edit these files simultaneously based on the permissions given.

Board management software is also marketed as board portal software. When it comes to the functionalities of both, one cannot make any specific distinction. Starting from scheduling meetings to sharing minutes and documents, board management software is designed to streamline the board processes and make sure that the organizations follow the best practices.

What are the Benefits of Online Board Meeting Software?

The advancement in technology and enhancement in the speed of communication has urged the board of directors to conduct business differently. Gone are those days when meetings were held on printed board packets. Today, it is essential to provide digital access to relevant documents to all board members in a meeting. Moreover, the need to review the records and schedule meetings frequently has fuelled the creation of board meeting software.

Here is why one should move towards using online board management software.

1. Access Important Board Information Quickly

Traditional boards are limited to printed information provided for specific meetings. Whereas, board meeting management software enables board members to access all the crucial data so that they can make firm and effective decisions. The board members can securely and remotely access important documents like:

• Strategic Plans
• Policy Manuals
• Orientation Materials
• Audit Reports
• Record of Past Meeting Minutes

Paperless board meeting software facilitates members to quickly search for the required information from past documents instead of raising questions or asking the admin department to provide other materials.

2. Streamline Board Processes & Administration

Board portal software reduces the meeting preparation time from hours to minutes. The paperless board meeting software frees administration from the hassles of printing, assembling, and shipping copies of documents. Instead, it enables uploading documents to the cloud.

With business meeting planning software, administrators can systematize committees, arrange meetings, request votes, conduct surveys, and also share files. Meetings agendas created once can be saved as templates for future use.

3. Enhance Board Members’ Engagement

With discussion, voting, and survey tools, board collaboration software allows members to provide feedback as per the scheduled permits. By keeping the projects on schedule, directors can deduce the need for frequent meetings. The boardroom software makes it possible for employees to access relevant documents from anywhere.

4. Control the Access to Information

Board collaboration software provides specific controls over who has access to which information. It facilitates administrators with the rights to add or remove members, edit their profiles, and assist members who have forgotten passwords. They can assign members to one or more committees. Moreover, the committee's information is only accessible to its members.

Administrators also have the right to schedule the archival or deletion of meeting materials. Again, the permissions can be set at the document level.

5. Reduce Board Administration Costs

Paperless board meeting software helps organizations to save on printing and assembling costs. As information is shared digitally, it saves time spent on the distribution process. The reduced use of paper creates goodwill of the company in the eyes of the key stakeholders.

Who uses Board Management Software?

Board management software is mainly designed for the board of executives or directors. Since the basic features of the board of directors software showcase broad applicability to any meeting setting, any high-level group in an organization can use it.

Managers, administrators, or coordinators who frequently arrange meetings to meet the organization's requirements can also make use of board meeting management software. Depending on the application, the board of directors management software can offer customized features. Let’s say; there is some boardroom software that is designed only for non-profit organizations and allows integration with other software. However, the basic elements of board portal software will remain the same no matter which level of management is using it.

What are the Features of Board Meeting Software?

The best board meeting software comes power-packed with a multitude of advantageous features that can benefit an organization in streamlining board processes. Here, we have listed some exciting features of board meeting software that a company can accrue by implementing board meeting management software.

1. Document Storage & Management

Board members can share and store documents within the paperless board meeting software. Anyone with permission to it can view and access the documents during, before, or after the meetings. It ensures secure and safe storage.

2. Scheduling Tools

This feature enables board managers to coordinate and schedule board meetings with visual tools like a calendar and simple automation tools. For example, managers can send or receive emails regarding scheduled meetings through electronic board meeting software.

3. Annotations & Meeting Notes

Board members can record notes publicly or privately throughout the meeting so that they can share it with their team members. They can even attach documents. This feature helps users to keep the meeting details for future reference also.

4. Meeting Agenda

One of the vital features of business meeting planning software is creating the agenda of meetings. Board members can view this agenda before the meeting starts and prepare themselves. They can attach the relevant documents to an agenda so that it can be easily accessible in the meeting.

5. Board Member Directory

"With this feature, one can get the complete list of board and committee members along with their contact details, role and position in the company, and other biographical information. Some boardroom software allows integration with scheduling tools to determine availability and travel preferences.

6. Committee Management

Through this feature, an organization can assign different committees to its employees, for example, a manager committee, audit committee, sales committee, and more. Only the members of a particular committee can access the details of that committee.

7. Guest Management

The best board meeting software offers this feature that allows administrators or managers to create and manage guest accounts. This provides access rights to non-members, auditors, and others on a temporary or permanent basis.

8. Collaboration Tools

One of the staple elements of the board of directors management software is to help teams collaborate in one place. Collaboration tools enable members to work together on documents with tools like commenting, task assignment, change tracking, and document version histories.

9. Feedback & Survey

Business meeting planning software automates the process of soliciting feedback. It helps an organization improve the user experience for boards and committees. Surveys assist in streamlining the decision-making process during the board meeting. Managers can also attach the survey results to a meeting's minutes so that one can refer to them later.

10. Integrations

Some board of directors software allows integration with other software. It can be the most useful when it comes to content management systems as almost every organization have such systems in place.

Potential Issues of Board Management Software

Though the paperless board meeting software helps an organization save a lot of time and money, it has some shortcomings.

• Administrators say that electronic board meeting software exhibits some level of variability in features and functionality. For example, information on some portals is accessible only on laptops and not on tablets or vice versa. It is a critical issue for directors who require attending multiple boards simultaneously. It is not feasible for them to access information from various devices at the same time.
• Board of directors management software lacks standardization across different portals in terms of how information presentation and organization. Let's say; some portals limit the information to committee members, whereas some portals share all the information with all board members. Some portals summarize data on the dashboard, whereas others do not.
• Though the best board meeting software is more secure as compared to paper-based communications, it is more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Moreover, board members need to use their email accounts often to upload or access documents which turns to new threats.

Some of the other potential challenges faced by the board meeting software market are regulatory compliance, and lack of skilled workforce. Further development in these areas can transform electronic board meeting software into practical tools.

Latest Market Trends of Board Meeting Software in 2023

With the latest developments in technology, the market trends of board meeting software also uplift. Some of the significant trends observed among the users of electronic board meeting software include:

• Paperless board meeting software has secured a place in companies of all sizes – be it public, private, or non-profit organizations.
• Organizations are transitioning from paper-based formats to all-digital preparation and distribution of board materials. Thus, paperless board meeting software is making its way in the market.
• Administrators are demanding to have board portal software that outpaces file-sharing tools and secure messaging services.
• Electronic board meeting software is paving the way in most organizations to conduct board meetings that include remote participants.
• When moving to board meeting management software, companies look into aspects like security, cost-effectiveness, and convenience of board members.
• Providers can segment the board of directors management software into two – delivery mode and delivery model. Delivery mode refers to using electronic board meeting software through Android, iPad, Windows, and web-based tools. Delivery methods of board meeting software include a licensed model, Software as a Service (SaaS), and hosted model.
• Developers can offer board management software based on Generations i.e., Gen 1.0, Gen 2.0, Gen 3.0, and so on. Each passing generation denotes how the board meeting software has evolved in terms of technology and usability.