For anyone taking notes in a client meeting
Meeting Minutes Template With Examples
Attendees and apologies, decisions, actions with owners and due dates, open questions and the next meeting, with a filled client example and a quick-call version.
Minutes · Larkfield weekly project meeting, Wed 9 Dec (example)
Dana Whitlock (COO, chair), Luis Ferreira, Ana Ruiz, Jo Mensah, Sam Ortega. Apologies: Owen Barker.
The Northfield pilot starts on Mon 14 Dec with a 12 p.m. order cut-off, no exceptions. Decided by Dana Whitlock.
Email the 212 pilot customers · Luis Ferreira · Fri 11 Dec. Check the order system can stop late orders · [owner to confirm] · Fri 11 Dec.
Can the two largest customers keep 2 p.m. after the pilot? Dana wants to see the results first.
Next meeting: Wed 16 Dec, 10:00
What you'll get
Decisions, actions with owners and dates, and a filled client meeting example
- Five parts: attendees, decisions, actions with owners and dates, open questions, next meeting
- A filled client meeting example, with a note on why each part works
- A five-line version for quick calls, and a covering email to send
Before and after
Your notes in. Minutes you can send.
Weds 9 Dec, weekly call w/ Dana, Luis, Ana, Jo. Owen off. Dana ok'd 12pm cut-off for all Northfield, no exceptions, pilot still 14th. Luis's team to tell the 212 customers by Fri. Jo briefing the depot Fri. Can the system block orders after 12? Nobody from IT on, someone to check. Big two want 2pm after the pilot, Dana: see numbers first.
Decided: the Northfield pilot still starts on 14 December, with a 12 p.m. order cut-off for all Northfield customers and no exceptions. Decided by Dana. Action: Tell the 212 customers about the cut-off · Luis (his team) · Fri 11 Dec. Action: Brief the depot · Jo · Fri 11 Dec. Action: Find out whether the order system can stop orders after 12 p.m. · [owner to confirm] · [date to confirm]. Still open: can the two largest customers keep 2 p.m. after the pilot? Dana wants to see the numbers first. To confirm: who should check the order system, and by when?
Anything your notes leave unclear is marked to confirm, then asked as a question in the covering email.
Why it works
What goes in meeting minutes, and what stays out?
A meeting minutes template gives every meeting the same short record: who attended, what was decided, who will do what by when, and what is still open. Minutes record outcomes, not the conversation. The Robert's Rules of Order FAQ is blunt about it: “Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not a record of what was said.” This template has five parts: the meeting with its date, attendees and apologies; decisions; an action table with owners and due dates; open questions; and the next meeting.
Each part comes with a rule for filling it in. A decision gets one sentence and the name of whoever made it, and anything the room only leaned toward goes under open questions instead. An action starts with a verb and has one named owner and a real due date. When the meeting didn't settle who or when, write [owner to confirm] or [date to confirm] rather than guess, and ask in the covering email. Then send the minutes within 24 hours, with a date for corrections.
The second doc is a filled example from a weekly client project meeting at an invented food distributor, with a note on why each part works. The third is a five-line version for quick calls. Download all three as Word files with no account, or paste your notes or a transcript excerpt and River writes a first pass. For a whole transcript or a file, the meeting minutes generator reads all of it. Risks raised in the meeting belong in your RAID log.
What lands in your doc
What's inside the meeting minutes template
- The meeting and who was there
Meeting name, date and time, chair, who took the minutes, attendees with their job titles, and apologies. - Decisions, each with a decider
One sentence per decision, credited to whoever made it. Anything only leaned toward moves to open questions. - An action table
One task per row, starting with a verb, with one named owner, a real due date and a status. - Open questions, next meeting and email
Who will answer each open question and by when, the next meeting, and a covering email to send. - A filled client meeting example
A weekly project meeting at an invented food distributor, with a note on why each part works. - A five-line version for quick calls
Call, decided, actions, still open and next, with a filled example and when to use the full template.
How it works
From meeting notes to sent minutes
Open the template
Click Edit with AI. The template opens in River, with the client example and the quick-call version beside it.
Paste your notes
Optional. Paste your notes or part of the transcript, and River writes the decisions, actions and open questions.
Settle owners and dates
Anything your notes leave unclear reads [owner to confirm] or [date to confirm]. Settle each one, or ask in the email.
Send within 24 hours
Run the checklist, put the decisions and actions in the covering email, and ask for corrections by a set date.
Questions consultants ask
Common questions
What are meeting minutes?
Meeting minutes are the written record of a meeting: who attended, what was decided, who agreed to do what by when, and what was left open. They are not a transcript or a summary of the discussion. On a client project, the minutes become the record both sides go back to when someone asks who agreed to what.
How do you write meeting minutes?
Fill in the meeting name, date, attendees and apologies before the meeting starts. During it, note only outcomes: each decision and who made it, each action with its owner and date, and each question left open. Within 24 hours, tidy your notes into the template, run the checklist and send the minutes with a date for corrections.
What should not go in meeting minutes?
Leave out the back-and-forth, who argued for what, and anything nobody agreed. Robert's Rules goes further and calls summarizing the discussion improper. Keep out anything private to your own firm, too, such as fees, staffing or views on people. Quote someone only when the exact words matter, like a commitment or a figure.
What do I write when the owner or due date is unclear?
Write [owner to confirm] or [date to confirm] in the action table, then ask in the covering email, for example: “Who on your team should check the order system?” Don't fill in the likeliest person. People ignore actions they never agreed to, and a visible gap usually gets settled within a day.
How soon should meeting minutes be sent?
Within 24 hours, while people still remember the meeting well enough to correct it. Put the decisions and actions in the email itself, and give a date for corrections, usually two working days. Formal boards approve minutes at their next meeting; on a client project, the correction date does the same job. A week of minutes then feeds your weekly status report.
What's the difference between meeting notes and meeting minutes?
Notes are for you: whatever helps you remember. Minutes are for everyone who attended, or should have, and record only decisions, actions and open questions in a fixed order. Turn your notes into minutes after the meeting. After a requirements workshop, the agreed requirements then go into the business requirements document template.
Is it safe to paste notes from a client meeting?
Your notes stay in your own River space unless you choose to share them. River's privacy policy says nothing uploaded is used to train AI models, and River's AI providers are bound by their agreements with River not to train on it either. If your client agreement limits where meeting records are kept, check it first.
Your next step
More for your project
Send the minutes within 24 hours
Open the template with a filled client example beside it, or paste your notes for a first pass with every unclear owner marked.