Calculating the ROI of Agenda and Meeting Management Software

Government meetings take planning and preparation. While the meeting itself may only last a few hours, the tasks leading up to and following the meeting may take days. The CivicPlus® Agenda and Meeting Management solution it takes to create and approve agendas, record votes and meeting minutes, and publish the meeting notes online. We hear from our customers that the product has helped them streamline their processes and increase productivity. So we wondered: exactly how much time were they saving?

In order to better understand the impact of the CivicPlus Agenda and Meeting Management software, we conducted a survey of our customers. We asked our customers to estimate their time and cost savings since implementing our solution. Using their answers and our qualified team members (former Clerks), we designed a calculator to aid in your determination of how much you could save with our solution. Calculate your ROI here.

Our customers gave us quantitative and qualitative answers to our survey questions. Here’s an overview of what we learned about their experiences.

Prep Time Cut in Half

We asked how much time customers were saving creating the first draft of a meeting agenda packet — and it is significant. The average customer has reduced the time spent on agenda creation by half, and some saw even greater time savings. One customer told us that the system had made it much easier to collaborate with others and lessened the burden on the clerk’s office.

“Preparing agendas has moved from a week’s worth of work to a day of simple review and pulling together. Integrating the item report preparation has spread the responsibility across all departments, not just mine. This allows me much more time for other work.” The City of Escondido, CA, estimates that they’ve reduced the time spent on agenda preparation by 40-50%. They love that the software collaborating with the entire team easy. Sometimes they have as many as 40, so it’s important that everyone be able to log on to upload or review meeting content. Read the full story of Escondido’s journey to comprehensive meeting management here.

After the first version of an agenda packet is complete, changes often need to be made and have to be incorporated, sometimes at the very last minute. We asked how much time customers were saving on agenda finalization tasks, like reprinting, renumbering, and even scrapping an entire packet and starting over. One meeting organizer reported spending eight hours per meeting on these tasks and now spends only 30 minutes; another spent six hours and now spends one. With flexible templates, streamlined user experiences and robust collaborative features, our software makes changes easy.

Meeting Minutes Are a Breeze

When the meeting is over, one of meeting management’s most time-consuming tasks begins – producing meeting minutes. But the CivicPlus Agenda and Meeting Management software help clerks easily move from agenda creation to minutes taking, allowing you to quickly record roll calls, discussions, motions, votes, and speakers. Using the Live Meeting Manager feature, you can even update in-chamber displays, queue items for board members, add speaker timers, call up speakers, and enable electronic voting.

Again, customers told us that the time they spent has been cut by over half. One customer was spending 16 hours on average creating minutes, and now they are spending only three. Meeting recordings are more complete, and more information is taken by the Live Meeting Manager. This makes minutes easier to draft and finalize.

Saving Thousands of Dollars

Saving time is saving money. While the work of government is never done, staff have more time for other work and projects when they aren’t spending hours revising, printing, and manual note-taking.One of our customers is saving an estimated $75,000 a year on agenda and meeting management, largely due to reduced labor costs.

Our customers also reported saving on printing costs since implementing our software. One customer’s $58,000 savings is largely due to reduced printing costs. Our solution allows the review, revision, and distribution of agenda packets to happen online, which greatly reduces or eliminates the need for printing physical copies.

Make Meetings Easy with CivicPlus

CivicPlus is committed to empowering governments with technology that helps them streamline operations, increase revenue, and create positive civic experiences for residents and meeting participants. We knew our Agenda and Meeting Management software was helping customers improve the efficiency of their meeting transcription and processes, but we’ve been happy to learn more about the big-picture impacts of the solution.

We used key insights from CivicPlus employees who were previously government clerks and the data we received from our customers to create a return on investment (ROI) calculator. Read more about our methodology here. Answer questions about your current agenda preparation process, and the calculator will estimate how much time and money you could save with the CivicPlus Agenda and Meeting Management solution. How much could you benefit from a smoother agenda and meeting management process? Try the ROI Calculator and find out.

If you’re interested in learning more about how our Agenda and Meeting Management solution can help your organization, you can take a self-guided tour of the software here. You can also download the Agenda and Meeting Management product information here.