In all but a handful of states, S and C corporations must file minutes for board of directors and shareholder meetings to comply with corporate governance laws and regulations.
Other Items of Business: The template includes space to record any additional items of business conducted at the meeting. Signatures: Members sign the meeting minutes. The secretary who recorded the minutes also provides a final signature.
California corporations are legally required to maintain accurate and timely corporate minutes for shareholder and director meetings.
Board meeting minutes are not only essential for effective governance; they are also legally required in many jurisdictions around the world. These records serve as a vital resource for audits, legal disputes, and shareholder oversight.
Failing to do so can result in fees, penalties, loss of liability protection, or closure of the S corporation. Failing to hold at least one annual meeting and not keeping corporate minutes could also jeopardize the standing of your corporation.
Robert's Rules (Section -16) state that “the minutes should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members.” Minutes are not transcripts of meetings; rather, the document contains a record of actions taken by the body, organized by the meeting's order of business (agenda).
What do the minutes contain? Time, date and place of meeting. List of people attending. List of absent members of the group. Approval of the previous meeting's minutes, and any matters arising from those minutes. For each item in the agenda, a record of the principal points discussed and decisions taken.
Meeting minutes should be a reference if the board or other entities need to reflect on the discussions and actions that happened during a meeting. Including the wrong information can make it difficult to determine what directors discussed, what they decided or even whether they complied with relevant regulations.
At a minimum, minutes should include: Name and kind of meeting. Date, place, and time that the meeting began and ended. Names of the chair and secretary or their substitute. Names of voting members attending and whether a quorum was present. Names of guests and their subject matter.