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Board Management Software Buyer's Guide
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With the rapid growth in technology, the expectations for boards of directors to conduct their business differently has raised its bars. Their agenda is to hold smarter meetings with less effort but better results. With the introduction of new technology such as cloud technology and digital access to the data and documents, not necessary for boards to rely on printed board docs before meetings to stay up to date. It enables its members to have online meetings to have transparency and accountability in an organization.
The board of directors has realized the challenges of keeping the information updated continuously among all the members that can be accessed at any time and any place. This is where board management software has taken its front seat to streamline administrative work and help board members access the information more easily.
Board Management software is an online tool helpful in managing a board of directors and organization and information more effectively and efficiently. By using board management features, it makes the communication job easy with board members, by recording tasks to hold members accountable, track files, and much more.
What is Board management software?
Board management software provides an effective solution to handle board meetings and related information. It enables the organization to give a platform to a shared, secure space for board directors to access board documents and information, and collaborate with other directors. One of the essential features of the board management tool is that it is accessible only by those for whom the admin provides the accessibility permissions. With the regular scrutiny and auditing of the accounts, it has led to more frequent board meetings and document review. Hence the introduction of board management software has been very beneficial and encouraged the development of more platform features.
What are the features of Board management software?
Board Management software simplifies the task of managing board and board-related information. It is a simple, secure, and comprehensive board management system, board member collaboration, record and document management made easy.
» Access Control - Providing accessibility permissions to access by role for managing board, documents and other related files.
» Secure Communication - The board management tool provides a built-in messaging service for secure communication between board members.
» Creating Records and Meeting Scheduling - The board management tool also enables users to develop paperless documents and dissemination of board packets, agenda, meeting minutes, etc. It allows admin to coordinate with members to schedule meetings, create programs, meeting books, share minutes of meetings, etc. It also facilitates to send and receive notifications about meetings through email.
» Voting - Board management solutions also provide voting tools to have an online voting facility for board elections.
» Collaboration - Collaboration tool feature within the board management software allows board members to comment on documents. It also enables admin to schedule materials archival and deletion when not needed anymore.
» Security - It provides a highly secure facility such as two-factor login authentication and document and message encryption.
» Committee set up - With the board management tools, board admin can easily set up committees and add members to it and manage their profile information. It's also easy to track RSVPs and meeting attendees.
» Integration - Some of the board management software allows integration with other software, which is very useful in content management systems.
What are the benefits of Board management software?
As technology is fast developing, the market trends are proportionally growing in all fields. The board meeting apps is one among them. Some of the significant benefits observed among the users of board meeting software include:
» Secure and easy access of board information - The main advantage of board management software is that the information and documents related to the board are centrally placed, and the board members can access the necessary information effectively to make decisions. This allows board members to have secure, remote access to relevant documents, from minutes to meetings, policy manuals, orientation materials, audit reports, and other information.
» Reduced meeting preparation time - The board management tool has reduced the meeting preparation time. The traditional method of printing, assembling, and sharing physical copies of materials and documents are replaced by sharing them and made available on the cloud. Board software also allows admin to create committees, schedule meetings, request votes, conduct surveys, and share files.
» Reusability - Reusability is one of the benefits of using a board management system. General meeting agendas can be created as a template once and saved for future use. With board meeting software, any last-minute revisions to meeting materials can be updated and made available to users quickly and shared instantly.
» Cost-Effective - Boards typically spend quite a lot of time and money on printing agendas, assembling, and sharing before meetings. By using board management tools, information is shared instantly, efficiently and securely with board members, which reduces costs and speeds up the distribution process. This way, organizations can save a lot of investment made on materials and labour.
» Data backup and Recovery - One of the most important benefits of using a board management tool would be your data back facility. This allows you to schedule the regular automatic data backup activity, which prevents the organization from losing any information. And the information is encrypted for security purposes that are accessible only by authorized users with access permissions. This is achieved by two-factor authentication. Admins can customize and configure settings as per each organization's requirements like enabling or disabling printing options, emailing, and annotations of documents.
Questions to ask a vendor when buying best Board management software
1. Will your board management software provide a member directory?
2. Does the software come in with tools to manage meeting minutes?
3. Does the system equip me to conduct polls and voting?
4. What kind of collaboration tools does this product offer?
5. Does the solution pack in calendar management functions?
6. Will there be any tools to control the approval process?
7. What kind of access controls and permissions can I expect from this solution?
8. Does the software provide tools for document management?
9. Is it capable of offering electronic signatures?
10. Will the product completely automate my administration process?
11. Does the system support nonprofit organizations’ workflow?
12. Can I assign, monitor, and manage tasks through this software?
13. Will the software store information centrally?
14. Will the software send regular and real-time updates?
15. Will it send automated reminders for meetings?
16. Is it possible to have an overview of the latest happenings from a single place?
17. Is the product easy to use?
18. Can I integrate it with other third-party tools we already use?
19. Would the software scale along with my growing needs?
20. What type of reporting does the system have on offer?
21. What are your security standards?
22. What and how long would be the implementation and training process?
23. How do you offer ongoing support?
24. Is the system customizable?
25. Can you breakdown the pricing structure?
26. Have you served a client in my niche before?
What can be the cost of Board management software?
There are many board management software available in the market. Some are open source available for free with basic board management features, whereas there are many paid board management tools available with many advanced features. Pricing of such devices varies depending on the featured offered, and the number of users. However, none of the board agrees upon buying any tools without testing; hence some software companies provide a free 1-month trial before purchasing the product. For the board to buy the software, pricing varies from product to another. Typically pricing may range between $1,000 and $12,000 per year for up to 20 users. However, pricing may change depending on the number of users and file storage space. However, some companies offer plans on per month basis, which again depends on the number of users and file storage space. Ranging from $9.99 per month, five users, 1 GB of file storage to $29.99 per month, 20 users, 10 GB of file storage.
Conclusion
Board management solution is very beneficial in streamlining administration by eliminating the pain points and discrepancies, enhanced communication, better board engagement, and emphasizing organizational governance.