The 12 to 16-hour time difference between the US and the Philippines makes synchronous meetings genuinely difficult.
Your Filipino VA shouldn’t have to wake up at 2 AM to attend your 10 AM meeting, and you shouldn’t have to take calls at midnight just to accommodate their schedule.
Async meeting recaps solve this problem by recording, transcribing, and summarizing your meetings automatically so your remote team can catch up when it makes sense for them.
This guide walks you through exactly how to set up and use async recap tools to improve productivity with your Filipino remote team.
Step 1: Choose the Right Meeting Recording Tool
Three tools dominate the async recap space: Fathom, Otter.ai, and Sembly. Pick based on your meeting platform and budget, but honestly, you can’t go too wrong with any of them.
Fathom
Fathom works with Zoom and Google Meet. The speaker identification functionality actually works reliably, you can actually tell who said what and who committed to which deliverable without guessing.
Otter.ai
Otter.ai supports Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, and its real-time collaboration features let multiple people highlight and comment during meetings, which helps if you have a distributed US team plus Filipino VAs all needing to reference the same moments.
Sembly
Sembly works with all three major platforms and adds AI analysis beyond basic transcription. It automatically identifies risks, requirements, and decisions, then categorizes them for easier review so you’re not hunting through paragraphs of transcript looking for the important stuff.
More expensive than Fathom or Otter.ai. Worth it if you need the analytical depth, overkill if you just need basic meeting documentation.
Step 2: Connect Your Tool to Your Calendar and Meeting Platform
Setup takes about five minutes. Go to your chosen tool’s website and sign up. Authorize it to access your calendar Google Calendar, Outlook, whatever you use.
Authorize it to join your meeting platform: Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet.
Most tools let you set preferences for which meetings to record automatically. Start with automatic recording for all team meetings and client calls where your VA needs context.
You can always dial it back if you’re recording too much.
Step 3: Set Up Your First Recorded Meeting
Schedule a team meeting through your normal calendar. Your async recap tool sees the calendar event and prepares to join.
When the meeting starts, the tool joins automatically as a participant—you’ll see it in your participant list, usually labeled with the tool’s name like “Fathom Notetaker” or “Otter.ai.”
Say this at the beginning: “This meeting is being recorded and transcribed for our team records.”
Legally required in many places, but it’s also just respectful to let people know they’re being recorded. Nobody likes surprise recordings.
Have your meeting normally. Don’t change how you talk or what you discuss the tool records everything in the background without you needing to think about it.
When the meeting ends, the tool stops recording and starts processing. You’ll get a notification when the recap is ready, usually within five to ten minutes depending on meeting length.
Step 4: Review and Share the Recap With Your Filipino VA
Open the recap link from your email notification. Skim through the AI summary to make sure it captured the key points accurately. Check that action items are assigned to the right people and nothing critical gets missed.
Most tools let you edit the recap. Fix any transcription errors in important sections. Add notes or context if something wasn’t clear from the recording alone. Highlight urgent items that need immediate attention so your VA doesn’t have to figure out priority on their own.
Share the recap link with your Filipino VA through your normal communication channel. Slack, email, or your project management tool all work fine.
Step 5: Train Your VA to Use Recaps Effectively
Schedule a short training session to walk your VA through the recap tool. Show them how to open recap links, how to search transcripts for specific topics, how to jump to timestamps, and how to mark tasks as complete if your tool integrates with task management.
This takes maybe 15 minutes. Some VAs will watch entire meetings start to finish. Others will read transcripts and only watch videos for complex sections.
Both approaches work fine. Let them figure out what’s most effective for their learning style rather than mandating one approach.
Step 6: Establish a Meeting Recap Workflow
Create a simple process everyone follows consistently. Here’s what works for most teams:
- The meeting organizer starts the recording and announces it verbally at the beginning.
- The meeting happens normally with the tool recording in the background.
- Within 2 hours after the meeting, organizer reviews the recap for accuracy and adds any needed context.
- Within 4 hours, organizer shares the recap link with relevant team members.
- Within 24 hours, VAs watch their assigned recaps and confirm understanding of their tasks.
Post this workflow somewhere visible
Step 7: Use Recaps to Build a Knowledge Base
Meeting recaps accumulate into a searchable knowledge base over time, which is more valuable than most people realize.
When you hire a new VA, they can watch old project kickoff meetings to understand client preferences and history.
When someone forgets a process you explained months ago, they can search for and rewatch that explanation instead of bothering you for the fifteenth time.
Organize recaps by project, client, or topic. Most tools let you add tags or move recordings into folders,and spend ten minutes every week organizing that week’s recaps.
Future you will thank present you when you’re trying to find that one meeting where you discussed a specific decision.
Know When to Use Real-Time Meetings Instead
Async recaps work great for information sharing, status updates, project briefings, and decision documentation.
Real-time interaction works better for complex problem-solving, brainstorming sessions where ideas build on each other rapidly, sensitive performance discussions that need two-way dialogue, and urgent issues that need immediate resolution.
Creative strategy session where you need rapid back-and-forth? Find overlap time for a live meeting.
Match your communication method to the situation. Async recaps are powerful but they’re not the only tool you need, knowing when not to use them matters as much as knowing when they work perfectly.
Getting Started This Week
Pick one tool based on your meeting platform and budget.Connect it to your calendar today. Record your next team meeting.
Review the recap and share it with your VA. Ask them what they think and what would make it more useful.
Start small with one or two meeting types. Get comfortable with the workflow before you try to record everything. Expand to more meetings as everyone gets used to the system and sees the value.