Corporate Records Handbook, The: Meetings, Minutes & Resolutions

All the forms you need to keep your corporation valid in the eyes of the IRS and courts. If you've taken the time to turn your business into a corporation, chances are you'd like to see it stay that way. Your business card may say "incorporated," but if the courts and the IRS think differently, it's closing time. Because meeting minutes are the primary paper trail of a corporation's legal life, it's important to know when and how to prepare these minutes. The Corporate Records Handbook provides all the forms (plus instructions) you need, including:
Call of Meeting Meeting Participant List Notice of Meeting Certification of Mailing Acknowledgment of Receipt of Notice of Meeting Shareholder Proxy Meeting Summary Sheet Minutes of Annual Shareholders' Meeting Minutes of Special Shareholders' Meeting Minutes of Annual Directors' Meeting Minutes of Special Directors' Meeting Waiver of Notice of Meeting Approval of Corporate Minutes By Directors of Shareholders Cover Letter for Approval of Minutes of Paper Meeting Written Consent to Action Without Meeting The Corporate Records Handbook also gives you more than 75 additional resolutions – both as tear-outs and on CD-ROM – to insert into your minutes. So take a few minutes and read this book – your corporation deserves it! Summary: A superb collection of forms for an established businessRating: 4This book contains a great deal of ready to use forms for your corporate records on many aspects of business operations but be careful if you are looking for information on minutes of first meeting. The book says not to worry if you don't have organizational minutes; however, such important resolutions as corporate seal or principal office are missing. Apparently these resolutions are covered by other NoLo books, which deal with formation of various corporation types. So just be aware, you may need to pick up one of those books in addition to this one.Summary: Great coverage of exactly what it says it's going to cover.Rating: 5Many other books on corporate forms try to cover everything (from selection of entity type to formation, filings, taxes, legalities, etc.) which means they usually just cover these topics in a shallow and frustrating way. This book covers exactly what it says it covers (meetings, minutes and resolutions) and covers these topics very well, with lots of details, advice, examples and related useful tid-bits. It doesn't try to be an encyclopedia of everything related to corporations, which is GOOD, it has FOCUS. Also, it's from Nolo press, a generally better publisher of these types of books in my opinion, and Mancuso has written lots of good business/legal books. The book is overkill for the typical LLC or small S-corp, but, on the other hand, these are the businesses that are at greater risk of having their corporate veils discarded in court. You can crank down the degree of formality to whatever level you feel comfortable, but at least you'll have a good idea of how the larger and more professionally-managed corporations document themselves. If you're a sole proprietor upgrading to an LLC, or a two-person corp of any type, then this book probably won't be what you're looking for. If you're a newly-minted MBA or lawyer and now you're handling the affairs of a small- to mid-sized corp as an officer or advisor, then I'll bet you'll think the book is great (and maybe you'll secretly hide it in your desk to make everyone think you just know all this "corporate paperwork BS" off the top of your head). In general, the book is very good at clarifying the weirdness of corporate documentation.