How Secretarius works

Set up your organization

The setup wizard walks through the three things Secretarius needs before it can keep a record: the organization itself, the words your body uses, and the plan you are on.

1. Enter the organization name, type, and time zone, and upload your logo.
2. Choose the terminology preset closest to your body, then adjust any word you use differently.
3. Choose a plan and billing interval to start the 10-day trial.
4. Add your officers and members to the roster.
5. Invite the people who need their own sign-in.

Finish the checklist

The dashboard shows a short checklist until the essentials are in place: roster, positions, quorum rule, governing documents, and the first scheduled meeting. The checklist disappears on its own once each item is done.

Signing in

There are no passwords. Enter your email address and Secretarius sends a one-time code. Only addresses invited by an administrator can reach an organization, so an unknown address never reveals whether an account exists.

Administrators

An administrator manages the roster, positions, terminology, branding, governing documents, billing, invitations, export and deletion. Only an administrator can invite another person into the organization.

Members

Members use the member portal: upcoming meetings, agendas, and the minutes their organization has approved. They do not see billing, roster management, or other organizations.

Positions and voting privileges

Positions are defined per organization, and each position carries a flag for whether it votes. Quorum and motion tallies count only voting positions, so a non-voting officer never distorts a result.

Members without email

Not every member needs a login. A records-only member appears on the roster, counts for attendance and quorum, and can move or second a motion. An administrator maintains their record.

Scheduling a meeting

Open the calendar and choose a date. Set the title, time, location or virtual link, and the meeting type. Recurring series can be edited as a single occurrence or as the whole series, and any meeting can be downloaded as a calendar file.

Building the agenda

Add items in order, with a presenter and a time estimate, and nest sub-items where a topic has parts. Items can be marked as requiring action so nothing is quietly carried over. A standing agenda can be saved as a template and reused each month.

Attendance and quorum

Roll call records each member as present, absent, excused, or late/left early. Guests can be recorded by name without being members. Quorum is calculated live from your organization's rule — a percentage or a fixed count — using voting positions only.

Recording a motion

During the meeting, attach a motion to the agenda item under discussion. Record who moved it and who seconded, the text as adopted, and any amendments. Movers and seconders are always shown by full name, never by email address.

Taking the vote

Record the result as yes, no, and abstain counts, or per member where your body requires a recorded vote. The tally is checked against the voting roster and quorum, so a result cannot be recorded against a body that was not quorate.

Drafting

The draft is assembled from the agenda, attendance, and motions, so the structure is already correct. The secretary edits the narrative rather than retyping the record. Optional AI polish tidies wording only; it can never change a vote, a name, or a result.

Approval

Minutes are approved by the body at a later meeting, exactly as governance requires. Until then they remain a draft and are marked as such wherever they appear.

Sealing and amendments

Once signed and sealed, minutes are immutable — they cannot be edited or deleted. A correction is made by motion, and the amendment is stored as its own entry beside the original so the history stays intact.

Distribution

Approved minutes can be emailed to members who have opted in, and every member can read them in the portal at any time. The searchable minute book holds the full history.

The distinction

Committees are advisory: they meet and report, but they do not vote and do not keep their own minutes. Sub-boards are deliberative bodies that may be voting or non-voting, and a voting sub-board keeps its own record.

Reports and ratification

A committee or sub-board report can be attached to the parent body's agenda. Reports remain editable with a full audit trail of who changed what. Where your organization requires it, sub-board decisions can be held for ratification by the parent board.

Visibility

An administrator can restrict members so that they see only the records of the committee or sub-board they serve on, or open the records to the whole body.

How notice is sent

Secretarius sends the formal notice of meeting ahead of each scheduled session, and an optional courtesy reminder shortly before it starts. Both carry the meeting title, date, time, place or link, and the agenda as it stands when the notice goes out.

Notice goes to the body that is meeting. A committee or sub-board meeting is noticed to that body's seats; a meeting of the whole board is noticed to the board roster. Members without an email address on file are records-only and are not emailed.

Setting your lead time

The lead time and reminder are set once, in the Administration area under the calendar settings, and apply to every meeting in the organization.

1. Open Administration and choose the calendar settings.
2. Turn notices on and set how many days before a meeting the notice should go out.
3. Turn the reminder on or off, and set how many hours before the meeting it should send.

No duplicates, ever

Each recipient receives each notice once. A notice sent by hand is not repeated automatically, and a retry after a delivery problem never double-sends. Every delivery is written to the record, so the Activity tab shows exactly what went out, to whom, and when.

What carries forward

Two things follow a body from one meeting to the next: motions that were laid on the table or postponed, and minutes of earlier meetings that have not yet been approved. Secretarius looks back over the earlier meetings of the same body and offers both when you build the next agenda.

Putting it on the agenda

On the meeting screen, the unfinished business panel lists what is outstanding with the meeting it came from. Select the items you want and they are added to the agenda — tabled motions as items requiring action, prior minutes as an approval item — each linked back to where it originated.

Anything already placed on the agenda is marked as such, so the same motion cannot be carried twice.

Recording an action

An action item is a task the meeting assigned: a title, optional detail, the member responsible, and a due date. Items can be added while drafting the agenda, during the live meeting, or afterwards while the minutes are being written, and can be tied to the agenda item or motion that produced them.

Open items follow the body

An item stays open until it is marked done or cancelled. Open items from earlier meetings appear alongside the current meeting's own list, so nothing quietly disappears between sessions. Only administrators can create, edit, or close an item; members see them on their meetings.

What can be printed

Approved minutes, the agenda packet, and the motion register each have a print view. It is laid out for paper: your logo and organization name as letterhead, the meeting title and date, page numbers, and a signature block with dated lines for the secretary and the chair.

1. Open the minutes, meeting, or motion register.
2. Choose Print.
3. Print on paper, or choose Save as PDF in the print dialog to keep a file.

Navigation is suppressed

The sidebar, buttons, and other screen furniture are removed from the printed page, so what comes out of the printer is the record and nothing else.

The audit trail

Consequential actions — minutes approved and sealed, motions recorded, roster changes, plan and non-profit decisions, exports and deletions — are written to an audit trail with the actor and the time. Administrators read it on the Activity tab in the Administration area.

Delivery history

The same tab shows what left the system: each minutes distribution and each meeting notice, per recipient, with the delivery outcome. If a member says they never received the minutes, that is where you check.

Plans and trial

Every plan includes a 10-day trial. A card is required to start it, nothing is charged during it, and you can cancel before it ends. Annual billing is two months free.

The non-profit discount

Submit your documentation from the Admin area. When the claim is approved, a 40% discount is applied to the subscription so every future invoice reflects it, and a credit is issued if a charge was already taken.

Changing plans

Upgrades, downgrades, and interval switches are prorated. Umbrella accounts add further organizations as a per-organization item, and each added organization keeps its own roster, branding, and record.

Exporting

An administrator can export the whole organization as structured JSON — roster, calendar, agendas, motions, votes, minutes, and documents — at any time and as often as needed.

Deleting

Deleting an organization, or closing the account entirely, requires a typed confirmation. It removes the records permanently and ends billing. Export first if you want to keep anything.