Many private sector company owners are interested in creating a board of directors in order to increase the entity’s stability and find new growth opportunities. But they stumble upon a lack of illustrative examples that properly organize and concretize the role of councils and their activities. That’s where boar management software comes to the rescue.
What Is Board Management Software?
Board management software (also known as a board portal) is a tool specifically designed to contribute to secure digital communication between members of a Directing Council. Board meeting software is essentially made for boards of directors and effective management of their activities. Such programming support, as a rule, includes messaging windows, tools for voting, meeting notes, the feature of setting agenda, and other tools to assist in making communication as smooth and uninterrupted as possible. The right board meeting software can drastically simplify communication within a business and help a board of directors run efficiently. To put it simply, board meeting management software saves directors’ time.
The Benefits of Board Software
The top benefits of board portal software are:
Quick Access to Important Info
Board software grants access to all the important information necessary to effectively deliberate and make decisions, such as:
- policy plans;
- meeting notes;
- policy manuals;
- guidance and counseling training materials;
- auditors’ reports.
Improved Board Governance
With board of directors software, meeting preparation time can be significantly reduced. Instead of wasting time on paper copies of materials, all documents are instead uploaded to the cloud. A board meeting app also allows administrators to set meetings, organize committees, create surveys, request votes, share files, create templates of agenda, etc. Agendas for meetings can be created once and/or saved as templates for future use.
More Engagement from Board Members During the Meetings
Board collaboration software tools allow directing council members to provide feedback and keep projects on schedule. It even reduces the need for frequent meetings. In addition, board members can access relevant data from anywhere. That is, when necessary, directors can reference materials from their mobile devices and quickly impart information.
Better Data Access Control
Secure board portals provide specific controls over who has access to what information. You can easily add or remove members, edit their profiles, assign them to one or more committees, assist with forgotten passwords, and more. Sensitive information is available to the committee’s members only.
Apart from that, meeting notes and materials can be scheduled for automatic archival or deletion. Administrators can also enable or disable file printing, emailing, and annotations.
Reduced Board Governance Costs
Usually, boards spend valuable time and money on preparing board paper packets before meetings. With the best board portals, data is shared instantly, significantly reducing costs and speeding up the distribution process.
The Main Features of Board Portal Software
Board meeting management software provides a whole host of useful features to automate tasks at various stages of the board meeting lifecycle:
- Board meeting center and board document management With them, you can plan meetings, link calendars, attach documents, track attendance, and more. Also, it’s possible to initiate remote meetings, manage presentation flow, and pass control to other presenters.
- Board agenda software. Set, share, and archive agendas, create agenda templates, and save them for future meetings.
- Meeting notes.
- View everything you need, ranging from calendars to board files, in a single ‘homepage’ view.
- Board documents center. Upload, edit, share/exchange, and store board documents on the portal. Customize folder structure and provide multi-level access to it.
- Task management. Easily assign tasks to committee members and track their conduction.
- Run reports related to user details, permissions, document statistics, meeting attendance, and retention policies.
- Communicate sensitive data with stakeholders by sending alerts to personal email and enabling push notifications. Send and receive notifications when documents are completed, ready for review, or require editing.
- Add annotations and notes to files and share them with specific users. Additional capabilities include highlighting, drawing, and pins dropping.
- Digitize signatures on transactions and other sensitive documents.
- Access control. Set permissions and restrict access for individual documents or entire folders, give specified users access to data in the way it is intended.
- Organize the sign-on process and compliance with the company’s security requirements using a unified login for multiple systems.
- Board meeting management with video integration.
How to Conduct Board Portal Comparison
Choosing board management software, you will need to:
- Look through various board portal reviews to get acquainted with other users’ experiences. The overall rating of the software should be at least 4.5 out of 5 so that it works flawlessly and help you simplify board governance.
- Evaluate your current board management solution and identify its weaknesses. For instance, if your company spends lots of money and time on printing out and distributing paper documents necessary for meetings, you should consider a board portal as soon as possible.
- Decide on what you are looking for in board portal vendors (it may be a secure messenger, D&O questionnaire help, around-the-clock client support, or any other customizable features).
- Utilize different online resources to conduct a board portals comparison and choose the right software for your organization.
Thus, you’ll find the best software for your board’s needs.
What Kind of Companies Need Board Meeting Software?
Board portals are actively used by companies and groups in all industries. There is board software for commercial/governmental/financial companies, healthcare organizations, real estate agencies, board portals for nonprofits, and more! In essence, board management software helps your organization’s leaders to communicate securely, access information easily, and make better decisions sooner. Also, it’s worth noting that board of directors portal use has grown rapidly in recent years due to the broad acceptance of mobile devices and cloud-based software.