Enter the meeting title, date and location, and list who attended.
Record each agenda point with a short note on what was discussed and decided.
Add action items with an owner and a due date for each, then export the minutes as a PDF and send them to the attendees.
When to use it
Minutes exist so that a decision made on Tuesday is still a decision on Friday. For small businesses the useful part is not the transcript but the action list: who is doing what, by when. Use this template for supplier meetings, project kick-offs, staff meetings and partner catch-ups, and send the PDF the same day while everyone still remembers agreeing to it.
What good minutes contain
Title, date, time and place or link; who attended and who sent apologies; for each agenda item, what was decided and, briefly, why; and an action table with one owner and one due date per line. The tool gives you exactly those fields. What it deliberately does not give you is space for a transcript: minutes that record who said what get argued over; minutes that record what was decided get acted on.
Worked example
A café's weekly supplier meeting, 23 September, 10:00–10:30, in the shop. Attendees: the owner, the head barista, the roastery's account manager. Agenda item 1, "Delivery shortfall on 16 September": decided that the roastery credits two bags on the next invoice. Item 2, "Christmas blend": decided to trial 10 kg in November. Actions: "Issue credit note for 2 × espresso" – roastery, 27 September. "Confirm November order quantity" – owner, 15 October. The PDF goes to all three the same morning. If the credit does not appear, the minutes are the reference, not anyone's memory.
Common mistakes
Actions without an owner. "Someone to check the freezer" is not an action. One name.
Due dates like "ASAP". A date, or it is not due.
Sending them a week later. Minutes sent the same day get corrected while people remember; minutes sent a week later get ignored.
Recording opinions. Decisions and actions only. If a discussion ended without a decision, write "no decision; revisit on [date]".
When this tool is the wrong one
Board minutes with statutory requirements, and any meeting whose record may be used in a legal process, need a format your lawyer or company secretary specifies. For tracking the actions after the meeting, a shared task list is better than a PDF; the minutes are the record that the action was agreed, not the tool for chasing it. For structured checklists that repeat, such as a new starter's first month, the Onboarding Checklist.
Good to know
Keep notes short and factual; record decisions and actions, not every remark. Your draft is kept in the browser until you clear it, so you can start the document before the meeting with the agenda already filled in. Nothing is sent to a server.
The Meeting Minutes Generator has a dedicated agenda/discussion section and a separate action-items table (task, owner, due date) that you fill in during or after the meeting, then export as PDF.
Is there a free template for recording meeting attendees and notes?
Yes — add your attendee list, agenda topics with discussion notes, and any additional notes, all in one document.
Can I track who owns each follow-up task from a meeting?
Yes, each action item has its own Owner and Due Date fields so responsibilities are clear in the exported PDF.