BoardBreeze vs Manual Minutes: The Real Cost of Writing Board Minutes by Hand

Most board clerks, executive assistants, and secretaries write their meeting minutes the old-fashioned way: attend the meeting, take notes, listen to the recording, and spend hours typing up the official minutes.

I know because I did it for years.

As Executive Assistant to the Chancellor at City College of San Francisco, I produced minutes for board meetings that routinely ran 5-7 hours. Each set of minutes took me 4-6 hours of post-meeting work. Between attending the meeting, reviewing the recording, drafting the minutes, and revising for accuracy, a single board meeting consumed an entire workday — sometimes more.

That's what led me to build BoardBreeze. Not because manual minutes are bad (they're often excellent), but because the time investment is unsustainable for people who have other responsibilities.

Here's an honest comparison of manual minutes versus AI-assisted minutes, including the real costs most people don't calculate.

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The True Cost of Manual Minutes

Most organizations underestimate what manual minutes actually cost because they only think about the software (which is free — Word, Google Docs). But the real cost is time.

Time Breakdown for a 3-Hour Board Meeting

Task	Time (Manual)	Time (BoardBreeze)
Attend the meeting	3 hours	3 hours
Review recording for missed items	1-2 hours	0 minutes
Draft minutes from notes + recording	1.5-2.5 hours	0 minutes (AI generates)
Format into proper template	20-30 minutes	0 minutes (auto-formatted)
Identify and label motions/votes	20-30 minutes	0 minutes (auto-detected)
Cross-check accuracy	30-45 minutes	20 minutes (review AI draft)
Total post-meeting work	3.5-6 hours	~25 minutes

The Dollar Calculation

Board clerks in the United States earn a median of $45,000-65,000/year, which works out to roughly $22-31/hour. Executive assistants at the senior level earn more.

Let's use a conservative $25/hour:

	Manual	BoardBreeze
Hours per meeting (post-meeting)	5 hours	0.5 hours
Labor cost per meeting	$125	$12.50
Meetings per year (monthly board)	12	12
Annual labor cost for minutes	$1,500	$150
BoardBreeze subscription	$0	$359.88/year
Total annual cost	$1,500	$509.88
Annual savings	—	$990.12

And this is conservative. If your meetings run 5-7 hours (as mine did), the manual time doubles and the savings grow proportionally.

Over five years, that's nearly $5,000 saved — plus the value of 270 hours of your time redirected to other work.

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Beyond Time: The Hidden Costs

1. Accuracy Under Pressure

When you're taking notes in a 5-hour meeting, you will miss things. It's not a question of skill — it's human limitation. Your attention drifts. Someone speaks over another person. The chair moves quickly through consent agenda items.

With manual minutes, you rely on your notes and the recording. If your notes are incomplete, you're listening to hours of audio trying to find the 30 seconds where Director Garcia made a motion. This is tedious, error-prone work.

BoardBreeze processes the full audio and identifies motions, seconds, and votes automatically. The AI doesn't get tired at hour four.

2. Compliance Risk

A missed motion, an incorrectly recorded vote, or an omitted closed session disclosure can create legal liability for your board. Manual minutes depend entirely on the clerk's thoroughness.

For public bodies subject to open meeting laws (Brown Act in California, similar statutes in every state), incomplete minutes can lead to:

• FOIA disputes and litigation
• Challenged board decisions
• Audit findings
• Public trust erosion

AI-generated minutes aren't perfect — you should always review them. But they provide a comprehensive first draft that catches items human note-taking might miss.

3. Bottleneck Risk

What happens when the person who takes minutes is sick, on vacation, or leaves the organization? Manual minutes create a single point of failure. The institutional knowledge of "how we format our minutes" lives in one person's head.

BoardBreeze produces consistent, standardized output regardless of who uploads the recording. The format is always the same. New staff can produce minutes on day one.

4. Delayed Distribution

Manual minutes often take days or weeks to complete, especially if the clerk is busy with other responsibilities. Delays in distributing minutes mean:

• Board members forget discussion context
• Action items aren't tracked promptly
• The next meeting's agenda lacks approved minutes

With BoardBreeze, a first draft is ready in minutes after the meeting. Review and distribution can happen the same day.

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What Manual Minutes Do Better

I want to be fair. Manual minutes have genuine advantages:

Nuanced judgment. An experienced clerk knows exactly what to include and what to leave out. They understand their board's preferences, their organization's legal requirements, and the appropriate level of detail. AI doesn't have that institutional knowledge.

Contextual understanding. A human clerk knows that when the superintendent says "the same approach as last year," it refers to a specific policy. AI might miss that context.

Relationship awareness. A clerk who has worked with the same board for years knows the dynamics, the sensitivities, and the unwritten rules about what goes into the record. AI treats every meeting the same.

Zero technology risk. No software subscription, no learning curve, no dependency on a third-party service. A pen, paper, and Word document will always work.

These are real advantages. The question isn't whether manual minutes can be excellent — they can be. The question is whether the 4-6 hours of post-meeting labor is the best use of your time.

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The Hybrid Approach

Most BoardBreeze users don't fully automate their minutes. They use what I call the 90/10 approach:

• BoardBreeze handles 90%: Transcription, formatting, motion/vote identification, template structure, action item extraction
• The clerk handles 10%: Reviewing for accuracy, adding context, making judgment calls about what to include or exclude, final approval

This is faster than fully manual work and more accurate than fully automated output. The AI gives you a solid first draft. Your expertise turns it into excellent minutes.

You're not being replaced. You're being given a head start.

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When Manual Minutes Make Sense

Stick with manual minutes if:

• Your meetings are short (under 1 hour) and you can produce minutes in 30 minutes or less
• You have very specific formatting requirements that no software supports
• Your organization has no budget for any tools (though $29.99/month is less than two hours of labor cost)
• You genuinely enjoy the process and it doesn't compete with other responsibilities
• You're in a role where minutes production is your primary job and the time investment is expected

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When BoardBreeze Makes Sense

Switch to BoardBreeze if:

• Your meetings are 2+ hours and minutes production takes 3+ hours of post-meeting work
• You have other responsibilities competing for your time
• You've ever missed a motion, misrecorded a vote, or delivered minutes late
• Your organization wants faster turnaround on minutes
• You want a consistent format that doesn't depend on one person's template
• You want to reduce compliance risk with comprehensive AI-assisted drafts
• You'd rather spend your expertise on review and judgment than on transcription and formatting

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The ROI Summary

Metric	Manual	BoardBreeze
Post-meeting labor per meeting	3.5-6 hours	~25 minutes
Annual labor cost (12 meetings)	$1,050-$1,800	$150
Annual software cost	$0	$360
Total annual cost	$1,050-$1,800	$510
Minutes delivery time	Days to weeks	Same day
Consistency across meetings	Varies	Standardized
Compliance safety net	Human-only	AI draft + human review

BoardBreeze pays for itself after the second meeting.

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Try it free for 30 days — no credit card required. Upload a recording from your last board meeting. If the AI-generated draft doesn't save you hours, go back to manual. You'll have lost 5 minutes, not 5 hours.

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Questions about whether BoardBreeze would work for your specific workflow? Email me at grace@appboardbreeze.com — I personally respond to every message.

Related reading:

• BoardBreeze vs ClerkMinutes
• BoardBreeze vs Diligent
• BoardBreeze vs Otter.ai
• BoardBreeze vs Fireflies.ai
• Best Board Meeting Minutes Software (2026)
• What to Include in Board Meeting Minutes (Checklist)