Zoom DIY Transcription vs. ClerkMinutes: Which Is Right for Your Municipality?

Zoom has dominated virtual meetings since March 2020 when everyone was pushed online. It's become the default for city councils conducting hybrid sessions, planning commissions with members joining remotely, and board meetings streamed live to residents. 

Your municipality probably already has a Zoom subscription, and you've probably noticed the transcription features sitting right there in your account.

The appeal is obvious. Why pay for another tool when Zoom already does transcription?

But there's a difference between capturing what was said and producing what you're required to publish. That difference will cost you hours every week if you don't understand it upfront.

Quick Comparison: Zoom DIY vs. ClerkMinutes

What Is Zoom Transcription?

Zoom offers two layers of transcription capability. The base layer available on Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans which automatically transcribes cloud recordings into text files with timestamps and speaker labels. The second layer, AI Companion, adds meeting summaries, detected action items, and chapter markers to help navigate longer recordings.

For distributed teams doing project check-ins, Zoom's transcription hits the mark. 

• Someone misses the standup, they can skim the summary, scan for their name, and catch up in five minutes. 

• A sales manager wants to review how a rep handled a prospect objection, they can jump to that chapter in the recording. 

• Need to remember who volunteered to own the deliverable, AI Companion flagged it as an action item.

Zoom built the feature for fast-moving business teams who need to capture decisions and move on. The transcript becomes a reference artifact. Nobody's auditing it. Nobody's filing public records requests for it. It just needs to be useful enough.

What's included:

• Automatic transcription of cloud recordings

• Speaker identification tied to Zoom participants

• Timestamped, searchable transcript

• AI Companion summaries highlighting discussion topics

• Action item detection

• Smart chapters for navigating recordings

• Export as .vtt subtitle file

• 30+ supported languages

What it costs:

Zoom transcription comes bundled with paid plans:

• Zoom Pro ($16.99/user/month): Cloud recording with transcription, AI Companion included

• Zoom Business ($21.99/user/month): Same transcription features, higher participant limits

• Zoom Enterprise (custom pricing): Same features with enterprise administration

If you're already paying for Zoom, transcription is technically free. But free tools aren't free when they create downstream labor costs, which is exactly what happens when you try to turn Zoom's output into government minutes.

The Core Problem: Zoom Wasn't Built for Municipal Clerks

Here's a scene that plays out in Clerk offices across the country.

Last night's planning commission ran three and a half hours that included two continued items, a site plan that got contentious, and a special use permit that required three separate motions before the commission landed on conditions everyone could accept.

You pull up Zoom's cloud recording. The transcript is there. You download the .vtt file and open it.

What you see is thousands of lines of timestamped text. Speaker labels attached to Zoom display names except Commissioner Davis joined from the conference room iPad labeled Planning Dept, so all his comments show that label. The three citizens who spoke during public comment are labeled Guest A, Guest B, and iPhone.  

You search for motion and get 47 results. Most are commissioners saying there's been a lot of motion on this or I'd like to see some motion here or can we table the motion on item 3B while we discuss 3C? The actual motion to approve the site plan with conditions is worded as I'd recommend we go ahead and approve this with the modifications staff outlined. Zoom didn't flag it and why would it because that sentence doesn't contain the word motion.

The AI Companion summary just says the commission discussed multiple development applications and took several votes. Action items include following up on landscaping requirements and scheduling a site visit.

Nothing about which applications were approved, vote counts, or who dissented or why. That means nothing you can publish. So, you have to open up your minutes template and start the reconstruction. 

Why Zoom’s AI Companion misses what matters for Clerks

Simply put, Zoom's AI Companion was trained on business meetings. It looks for patterns that matter in corporate contexts like action items (John will send the proposal), decisions (We agreed to proceed with vendor A), topics (We discussed the Q3 marketing budget).

Government meetings don't follow those patterns. A motion to approve a conditional use permit isn't an action item. A roll call vote with three dissents isn't a decision in the way AI Companion understands decisions. The procedural structure of parliamentary meetings, motions, seconds, amendments, calls for the question, and roll call votes doesn't map to the corporate meeting template the AI was trained on.

So you get summaries that mention topics without capturing outcomes. The commission discussing the Smith rezoning application tells you nothing about whether it was approved, denied, tabled, or continued. The information that matters, what motion was made, who made it, who seconded, and how each member voted requires manual extraction from the raw transcript.

Not to mention, Zoom exports transcripts as .vtt files, which is a subtitle format designed for video playback, not document production, so you end up with a transcript that looks like this: 

00:47:23.450 --> 00:47:31.200

Commissioner Williams: I think we should go ahead and approve this with the conditions staff recommended.

00:47:31.890 --> 00:47:33.100

Chair Martinez: Is there a second?

Converting this into minutes requires all of the following: 

• Stripping timestamp formatting

• Reorganizing content by agenda item since Zoom orders chronologically. 

• Identifying which statements are motions vs. discussion

• Matching seconds to motions often separated by several lines

• Reconstructing vote tallies from scattered aye/nay statements

• Reformatting into your municipality's approved style

• Adding required headers, attendance, and procedural elements

• Converting to accessible format for public posting

That's full on rewriting, and it takes longer than just taking notes in the first place.

What Is ClerkMinutes?

ClerkMinutes exists because municipal Clerks needed a tool that produces minutes, not transcripts or AI summaries that require hours of processing.

How ClerkMinutes works 

• Start with your agenda. ClerkMinutes treats the agenda as structural scaffolding. Everything that follows gets organized by agenda item automatically.
  
  

• Add your recording. Upload from any source, Zoom, a dedicated recording system, a smartphone capturing an in-person meeting. The platform handles most audio and video formats.
  
  

• Confirm speakers. The AI processes audio and suggests speaker identifications. You verify who's who, and the system remembers your regulars for future meetings.
  
  

• Get formatted minutes: ClerkMinutes generates a draft with motions attributed, seconds captured, and votes documented by individual members. Review in the built-in editor, then export to Word or PDF for immediate publication.

Key capabilities 

Here are the most popular ways Clerks use ClerkMinutes.

• Agenda-based structure: Discussion, motions, and votes attach to the correct agenda items without manual reorganization. Your agenda becomes the blueprint. ClerkMinutes fills in what happened.
  
  

• Motion and second tracking: Recognizes motion language even when speakers don't say I move. Captures seconds and attributes to the correct speakers.
  
  

• Vote documentation: Roll call votes show each member's position,yes, no, abstain. No reconstructing tallies from scattered statements.
  
  

• Attendance tracking: Present, late, left early, absent,formatted the way your minutes require.
  
  

• Template consistency: Set your municipality's style once. Headers, structure, formatting,consistent across every meeting without manual adjustment.
  
  

• Compliance-ready export: ADA-compliant, properly formatted Word or PDF. Ready to upload to your website.
  
  

• Collaboration tools: Add team members, build agendas together, notify subscribers when minutes post. The agenda you build flows into the minutes automatically.

Detailed Feature Comparison

When to Use Each Tool

Zoom DIY transcription fits if:

• Meetings are small and informal.

• Most participants join individually on their own devices.

• You don't need attributed motions and votes.

• Minutes aren't subject to open records requirements.

• You have staff time for post-meeting reconstruction.

• The output is internal reference, not public record.

ClerkMinutes makes sense if:

• Meetings are official proceedings with legal documentation requirements.

• Multiple speakers share room audio or speak from a single microphone setup.

• State law requires minutes documenting motions, seconds, and votes.

• Citizens file public records requests for meeting documentation.

• Published minutes must meet ADA accessibility standards.

• Your Clerk's time is better spent on substantive work than transcript reconstruction.

• You manage multiple boards, commissions, or committees.

Final Verdict

Zoom built transcription features for the same reason it built virtual backgrounds and breakout rooms. That’s to make remote meetings more useful for the business teams that drive its revenue. Those features work well for their intended purpose: helping distributed teams capture and recall what happened in their internal meetings.

Municipal minutes aren't internal meetings though. They're the public record of how elected officials conduct the people's business. They're subject to open meeting laws, public records requests, accessibility requirements, and potential legal scrutiny. The standard isn't useful enough,it's legally compliant and publicly defensible.

Zoom's transcription produces raw material that might become minutes after hours of reconstruction. ClerkMinutes produces minutes that need review and refinement, not rebuilding from scratch.

Start your 14-day free trial of ClerkMinutes here. Upload a recording from your last council meeting. Compare what ClerkMinutes produces to what you've been manually reconstructing from Zoom.