The Corporate Records Handbook: Meetings, Minutes, and Resolutions from Attorney Anthony Mancuso

Attorney Anthony Mancuso’s “The Corporate Records Handbook: Meetings, Minutes & Resolutions” is a 600-page resource book that contains exactly what the cover says. It is a very good book of forms that will allow the reader to use the book to document everything you need to keep records to keep your business incorporated. This is not a book to help you get your business started, in fact Mancuso wrote a separate book titled “Get Your Business Started” to help with business formation. This book is for after your corporation has been formed and you need help conducting business affairs on an ongoing basis. The book is published by Nolo, which means that it is in general language that can be easily understood by everyone, not just lawyers. Although I am a licensing attorney, I still really like the books Nolo publishes. They are good for both the layman and the lawyer. And this book is really a great book of shapes.

This book is designed to help the reader take charge of corporate cleanup responsibilities, such as holding and documenting corporate meetings of shareholders and directors, documenting corporate actions taken without a meeting, and approving ongoing corporate, legal, tax, and business decisions. The book will be most useful for smaller companies with up to 35 shareholders and 50 employees. Larger companies will likely want an attorney to handle most of these, but for smaller, family-run businesses this book will be of great benefit.

The book begins with a very short chapter that advises how to organize your corporate records and search for laws yourself. The second short chapter has information on meetings, minutes and written consents, basically how to document corporate action. Then comes a chapter on the steps for holding a meeting and the forms needed to document it. From there, the chapters continue in a logical and easy-to-follow format, covering: how to hold meetings of directors or shareholders, preparation of various minutes, consents, many types of resolutions including taxes, modification of bylaws, conflicts, loans, etc. . .

There is also a short chapter on how to find the right attorney or tax advisor. This brings the book to page 337, and there is a lot of great information to help you get it right and fill out the forms correctly. The rest of the book is the Appendix. There are instructions on how to use the CD-ROM that comes with the book and contains all the forms, and some information on how to locate state corporate filing offices and state laws online. The book then has all the forms in sample or tear-off form, but I imagine most people will use the same forms that are on the CD-ROM. Having them in the book allows you to quickly look them up and see if that’s what you need before using the attached disc.

This is a very useful guide for small businesses to keep their corporate records accurate and up-to-date. There are sample forms for almost anything you need. If you’re having trouble keeping your records, don’t know which records to keep, or just want an easier way to do it, get this book and use it.