Judy

I know a couple of community colleges in my region and one major university with a medical school.  They are using Autonomy because they liked the physical records management piece and planned to move into the enterprise content management arena over time.  They wanted a "federated" approach turn-key system.  I used that software myself at RadioShack  and it met my requirements as they were at that time and I had good results merging onto the enterprise content management system over time. 

I am using Versatile Enterprise at my present organization and it does physical records management very well, although I have yet to be able to integrate with my content management system and it has no RFID capability.  However, that may not be one of your requirements, so it might not even matter.  The enterprise version is my favorite and has a lot of user defined fields.

I recently priced new software myself and found that Versatile, Tab, and Autonomy were willing to consider special pricing offers for midrange or smaller companies (my own organization is about 400 employees and my box count is roughly equivalent to yours).  I've got some contacts if you need them, but you can get a sales rep by simply googling the web pages.

I am sure that there are plenty of other vendors that I don't know about or have not looked at in a while that are well suited to mid-sized to smaller organizations (ARMA usually has an updated list).  I would document my MUST HAVE requirements first and then ask them for demonstrations to see how they do what they do, plus whether or not they have pricing for a small number of user licenses for a new install.  A vendor who wants to get a foot in the door for future growth just might be willing to work with your local budget.  

Also document where you want to be in five years and ask yourself..."is this software scalable for that purpose or will need to change software again?"  Again, changing software is not necessarily a bad thing...but if you think that your needs are going to change and your budget dollars are not going to permit replacement in the next ten years, you may want to select a system with some growing room (list additional requirements that you  might want to use five years from now, but not during initial implementation) if you suspect that you are going to go forward with enterprise content management type of projects.

I started a new program at one of my organizations with just seven flowcharts for how I wanted my physical records management system to work.
1.  Create a Transmittal to Transfer to Records Center
2.  Receive Transmittal & Assign Storage Space
3.  Check Out a Record
4.  Check In a Record
5.  Create/Release a Records Hold
6.  Records Inventory
7.  Records Destruction

I've got some "Process Desired" maps worked out....they might be of some use to you.

Warmest regards
Angie Fares

---Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Startari, Judy
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 11:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Records Storage Tracking Software

Dear Colleagues,
I manage the records function for a local community college.  Can anyone recommend a software for tracking in-house records storage boxes?  I am currently using Excel to track the in/out/destruction and management would like to see the process more automated.  I have just under 3,000 bankers boxes and do not anticipate a great deal of growth.  The soloutions I have found thus far are for large commercial storage facilities and are very expensive.  I was asked to use an Access database, however my IT department does not support Access, not to mention I do not posess the knowledge to do this myself.  Any info on an out of the box solution would be much appreciated.  Thank you.
Judy

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