How to turn a meeting recording into minutes
Transcribe the recording, ask for an AI summary of the key points and actions, then write the minutes yourself: who attended, what was decided and who does what by when. Voqia does the first two steps in your browser; the decisions, the wording and the approval stay with you.
You recorded the board meeting, the team call or the club AGM, and now someone has to write the minutes. Listening to the whole hour again and typing as you go is the slow way. The faster way is to get the full text first, then build the minutes from it. This guide shows how, with an honest list of what AI does well here and what it should not do for you.
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Minutes are not a transcript
A transcript is everything that was said, word for word. Minutes are the official record of the meeting: who was there, what was discussed in short, what was decided and why, and who will do what. In the UK, the Charity Commission's guidance for trustees puts it plainly: minutes should record decisions, the reasons for them and the follow-up actions, and they do not need to be a word-for-word record.
So the transcript is your working material, not the final document. It saves you from relying on memory or scribbled notes, and it lets you check exactly what was said before you write a decision down.
Official sources: GOV.UK: Charities and meetings (CC48)
From recording to minutes in 5 steps
- Before anything else, make sure everyone knew the meeting was being recorded, and that your organisation allows it.
- Sign in to voqia.fr with Google and open File mode. Upload the recording: the MP4 exported from Teams or Zoom, the M4A from your phone, or any MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WebM or MOV file, up to 500 MB. Leave Speaker detection on.
- When the text appears, open Options, then Rename speakers, and replace Speaker 1, Speaker 2… with roles such as Chair, Treasurer or Secretary.
- Ask for the AI summary. It gives a title, the context, the key points and the action items, written in the language of the interface (English if you use Voqia in English). Copy it or download it.
- Write the minutes in your usual template: attendance and apologies, a short summary of each item, the decisions in your own words, and each action with an owner and a deadline. Before you circulate them, tap any sentence of the transcript to replay that moment and check names, figures and decisions. Export the transcript to Word if you need to keep it with your working papers.
What goes in the minutes, and where it comes from
| Part of the minutes | Where it comes from | Your job |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance and apologies | Your own list: Voqia does not know who was present | Write it from the attendance list or the invitation |
| Summary of each item | The key points of the AI summary | Shorten, reorder by agenda item, remove side discussions |
| Decisions and votes | The transcript, around the moment of the decision | Write the exact decision and the result of any vote; replay it to be sure |
| Actions | The action items of the AI summary | Confirm the owner and add a deadline for each one |
| Exact wording, if needed | The timestamped transcript | Quote only what you have replayed |
| Approval | Not Voqia | The chair or the next meeting approves the minutes |
Three common situations
A charity trustee meeting in England or Wales
Record the meeting on a laptop or phone in the middle of the table, transcribe it, then write minutes that record the decisions and the reasons, as the Charity Commission recommends. The transcript helps you get a resolution or a conflict of interest declaration exactly right.
A club or residents' association AGM in Ireland
Village halls echo and people talk over each other. Ask each speaker to give their name before speaking, keep the phone close to the top table, and expect to check the speaker labels more carefully when several voices are similar.
A remote team meeting
Download the recording from your video call tool and upload it to File mode. For the next meeting, you can also use Voqia's Live mode, which transcribes the call from your computer's audio as people speak, without adding a bot to the meeting.
What Voqia does and does not do
- It transcribes English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and Arabic, and also Russian and Turkish through automatic language detection.
- It separates speakers in File mode, adds timestamps, lets you search the transcript and replay any sentence.
- It writes an AI summary with context, key points and action items, and exports the transcript to Word (.docx).
- It does not write formal minutes in your template, and it does not know who attended or how people voted unless it was said aloud.
- It does not join your meetings, read your calendar or send the minutes for you.
- It has no shared library of meetings: copy or export the text when you are done (your browser keeps a local copy for 24 hours, erased when you sign out).
Recording, consent and personal data
A recording and a transcript of a meeting contain personal data as soon as people can be identified, directly or indirectly, as the UK Information Commissioner's Office explains. Tell participants before you record, follow your organisation's policy, and keep the recording only as long as you need it, for example until the minutes are approved. This guide is practical advice, not legal advice.
Official sources: ICO: What is personal data?
How much does it cost?
Transcription is counted on the length of the audio: a one-hour meeting uses about 60 minutes. Your first 10 minutes are free, without a credit card, which is enough to test the quality on part of your own recording. After that, you pay once, with no subscription: €4.99 for 1 hour, €9.99 for 3 hours or €24.99 for 10 hours. Minutes never expire. Prices are in euros; if your card uses another currency, the payment page may show the amount in your currency, otherwise your bank converts it automatically.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI write meeting minutes for me?
It can do most of the groundwork: a full transcript and a summary of the key points and actions. The minutes themselves, with attendance, the exact decisions and approval, should be written and checked by a person who was responsible for the meeting.
Does Voqia tell the speakers apart?
Yes. In File mode, Speaker detection attributes each passage to a speaker, and you can rename the speakers with their names or roles. Check the labels where people talk over each other.
Can I transcribe the meeting while it happens?
Yes. Live mode transcribes your microphone or your computer's audio during a Zoom, Teams or Google Meet call, in the browser, without a bot joining the meeting. You can ask for the AI summary at the end.
What if the meeting was in French or Spanish?
The transcript stays in the language that was spoken. The AI summary is written in the language of the interface, so you get it in English if you use Voqia in English.
How long does it take?
The transcription of a one-hour recording usually takes a few minutes. Writing and checking the minutes from it is the part that still needs you.
Sources
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