Boardroom Software: What Is It?

A board portal is another result-oriented technological addition to business solutions that cater to the effective governance needs of corporate boards. Although this technology has been in the business arena for over a decade, the last few years have seen phenomenal growth in the virtual boardroom market.

So what exactly is board portal software? What does it do, and what are its benefits? Let’s find out!

What is virtual board software?

Virtual board software is a paperless meeting solution designed to maximize the communication and collaboration between senior management in corporations, non-profits, public companies, etc.

Board portal software provides a centralized cloud-based platform where board members and senior business officials such as directors, CEOs, CFOs, chairpersons, and secretaries, can store and access board materials and seamlessly collaborate with each other.

In a nutshell, board portals are:

• Secure data repositories to store board material and other sensitive corporate data
• Virtual platforms that ensure maximum collaboration between board members

Who uses board management software?

Board portals are used by the people sitting at the top of the organizational hierarchy. They may belong to public or private companies, non-profits, enterprises, associations, unions, etc.

In simple words, the following people are usually among the users of virtual boardrooms:

• Corporate secretaries
• Board presidents or chairpersons
• Directors
• CEOs
• CFOs
• Stakeholders
• Legal or financial advisors (usually temporarily)
• Major clients (temporary basis)

What are the notable features of board portal software?

Board portals help boards streamline their tasks. Here are some notable features that must be available in any high-end virtual boardroom.

• Task management tools help in creating, assigning, and managing individual and group tasks to streamline workflows.
• Meeting agenda and minutes: the templates of ready-made agenda or minutes can be easily used as they are or adjusted to the company’s requirements.
• Board book: boardroom software supports multiple file formats, which make it easy to create digital board books and attach them to meeting invitations and agendas.
• Robust search features make it very easy to retrieve a file by entering the keyword, phrase, name, file type, or data range in the search bar.
• The dashboard gives a comprehensive view of tasks at hand, important notifications, calendars, latest updates, meeting invites, etc.
• Document access control allows to define access levels of different users in the boardroom.
• The electronic signature feature allows the board members to sign documents electronically.
• Meeting tools such as audio and videoconferencing, digital voting, etc., help to significantly facilitate online board meetings.
• The remote purging feature is very handy in deleting board-related documents from stolen or lost devices linked to the board room.

What are the benefits of board management software

1. Board document management

Board portals make it ridiculously easy for boards to automate their document management. As boardrooms are online data repositories, board members can store and access documents anytime from anywhere. Easy and instant access to documents helps board members to work on their assigned tasks efficiently.

Furthermore, board members (depending on their permission settings) can edit any document or annotate it; they can also work on shared documents. Most importantly, the modern virtual boardrooms allow users to access board material without an internet connection.

2. Better board meeting management

Board portals have minimized the time and effort required to make preparations for board meetings. Board secretaries can create meeting agendas using built-in templates or make new ones. The meeting agenda can be shared with all participants, and the secretary can request recommendations from them. After finalizing the agenda, the secretary can immediately share it with the meeting participants.

Modern virtual boardrooms come with audio and video conferencing tools to conduct online board meetings. In fact, state or federal laws often require companies to keep a quorum in the board meetings, and videoconferencing is a great way to make sure the quorum is maintained lawfully.

Lastly, board meeting minutes can be electronically signed by the chairperson, and the secretary can share the documents with all the participants.

3. Cost-efficiency

Board portals are paperless solutions and can minimize administrative costs to a great extent. As board material and other important documents are readily available in board portals, members can access them whenever they want. This means the company doesn’t have to spend hundreds and thousands on paper, printing, and courier expenses.

Furthermore, online board meetings mean that the company won’t have to pay for meeting participants’ traveling, residence, and refreshment expenses.

Final words

Virtual boardrooms are online data repositories and collaboration platforms specifically designed to maximize communication/coordination between board members. A board portal allows members to upload, access, share, edit, or download board materials to perform their governance tasks.

Using virtual boardrooms, boards can arrange online board meetings, directly deal with stakeholders and clients, add third parties temporarily, and whatnot. On top of it, boardrooms are cost-effective and easy to use.