Obligations & Compliance

Future Boards helps your board keep on top of what it must do and prove what it has done.

Several of these features are turned on per organisation. If you don't see one described here, contact Future Boards support.

Track recurring obligations

The Obligations page lists the recurring obligations that come from law, your constitution, committee charters and policies, and shows when each one falls due. Open it from Obligations in the sidebar. It has three tabs: Register, Calendar and, for people who can change organisation settings, Starter library.

Add an obligation

1. Go to Obligations and open the Register tab.
2. Select Add obligation.
3. Enter a Title and choose a Source: Law, Constitution, Committee charter, Policy or Other. Add a Reference if you have one.
4. Choose the Space whose agendas it belongs on, or None (register only) to track it without proposing agenda items.
5. Choose an Owner if someone is responsible for it.
6. Set the Due rule: within a number of months of financial year end, every so often from when it was last done, or every year by a date.
7. Optionally set Last done, First due, Propose days ahead and Notes, then select Add obligation.

To start faster, open Starter library, tick the common obligations you want, choose a space under Add to space, and select Add selected.

Mark an obligation done

Open the actions menu next to an obligation and select Mark done, then enter the Done on date. From the same menu you can Edit or Remove it. Each obligation shows as Upcoming or Overdue.

The Calendar tab shows what falls due over the next 12 months.

Obligations on a meeting agenda

When an obligation linked to a space falls due around a meeting, the meeting shows an Obligations due panel. People who run the meeting and can edit the agenda can select Add to agenda to add it as an item, or dismiss the suggestion.

Set governance rules

Governance rules set your board's timings in one place: when papers are due, paper reminders and escalation, the meeting notice period, meeting reminders, how soon minutes must be signed, and circular reminders. Notice can be counted in calendar or business days.

1. Go to Settings and open the Rules tab.
2. Change the values under Board papers and Meetings and minutes. The Example schedule shows how the dates fall.
3. Add a Reason for change (optional) and select Save as new version.

Every save keeps the previous version. A space can use its own rules: in the space, go to Manage Space, open the Rules tab and select Customize for this space, or Revert to organisation rules to go back. With rules on, issuing notice for a meeting warns you if it is shorter than your notice period.

Retention

Retention controls how long deleted records are kept before they are permanently removed. Meeting minutes are always kept permanently.

1. Go to Settings and open the Retention tab.
2. Choose a record type and edit its Retention Period (days). Enter 0 to keep deleted records permanently.
3. Select Save Changes.

Only admins can change retention. If nothing is set, deleted meetings, agenda items and action items are kept for 7 years.

Monitor financial thresholds

A space can record the limits its board has approved and check them every day against your accounting figures. Connect Xero from Settings, then Integrations, and add limits on the space's Thresholds page with Add threshold. Breaches and recoveries are listed on that page.

Export an evidence package

An evidence package is a single ZIP of everything behind a meeting or decision: the papers as voted, votes, minutes, signatures and the audit trail. Every file carries a fingerprint, and the list of fingerprints is signed so anyone can check nothing has changed.

1. Open the meeting, decision or circular.
2. Select Export evidence package, then Export.
3. When it is ready, select Download. Each download link works for five minutes.

Exports are recorded in the audit log. See Admin & settings for the audit log and Registers for your decision, risk and interests registers.