For HOA Community Managers ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have Otter.ai set up to record and transcribe your board meetings. You'll use the AI transcript as the raw material for Claude or ChatGPT to format into polished, professional meeting minutes — cutting 2-3 hours of post-meeting work down to about 20 minutes.
What you'll need
What you should see: Your Otter.ai home screen with a big orange microphone button and "My Conversations" area.
What you should see: Your spoken words appear as text, attributed to "Speaker 1." Troubleshooting: If the transcription is inaccurate, check your microphone permissions in your phone settings. Otter needs access to your microphone to work.
Before your board meeting, open Otter.ai on your phone and:
Tip: Place your phone near the center of the table. The further from speakers, the more transcription errors you'll get.
When the meeting ends, tap the microphone button to stop. The recording will process and appear in "My Conversations" within a few minutes.
What you should see: A text file or clipboard with the full meeting transcript.
Now open Claude.ai or ChatGPT.com (free). Paste this prompt followed by the transcript:
Convert these HOA board meeting notes into formal meeting minutes. Include these sections:
1. Meeting Details (date, location, board members present, quorum confirmed)
2. Call to Order
3. Approval of Prior Minutes
4. Financial Report
5. Old Business (list each item with discussion summary and outcome)
6. New Business (list each item with discussion summary and motion/vote if applicable)
7. Homeowner Forum
8. Action Items (who is responsible, by when)
9. Adjournment
[Paste transcript here]
What you should see: Fully formatted minutes with all sections, drawn from the transcript content.
Read the AI-formatted minutes carefully. Otter.ai may have transcription errors on names, amounts, or technical terms — correct these manually. Add any details that weren't captured (e.g., vote counts, specific dollar amounts, CC&R section references).
Basic minutes formatting:
Convert this HOA board meeting transcript into formal minutes with sections for: attendees, old business, new business, action items, and adjournment. [paste transcript]
Extract action items only:
From this meeting transcript, extract only the action items — who committed to do what by when. List them as a numbered table. [paste transcript]
Identify motions and votes:
From this meeting transcript, identify every formal motion that was made, who moved it, who seconded it, and the outcome (approved/denied/tabled). [paste transcript]
Homeowner forum summary:
Summarize the homeowner forum portion of this transcript in 3-5 bullet points, capturing the main concerns raised and any commitments made by the board or manager. [paste transcript]