I am looking for opinions on various indexing software packages that Michigan clerks use for indexing minutes, ordinances, correspondence, etc...

I am looking to index our Township Board, Planning Commission, ZBA, and ordinances in a simple-to-use format that all of our officials could use. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Stephen M. French, CMC
sfemt@aol.com

OCR SOFTWARE:

In our township, all of our minutes have to be scanned first, before we can place them in an indexing software. I found that Microsoft's Document Imaging software (that comes with the Microsoft Office Suite) worked just fine for taking our .TIFF images and converting them to Microsoft Word. The first few sets of minutes required some specific corrections to letters and words, but the software then recognized these changes and I've had to do very few corrections since.

If you have any questions regarding scanning your minutes into a word processing program using OCR software, please feel free to call or e-mail me.

I am still receiving some information on indexing software packages and will update this bulletin board as that information becomes available.

Stephen M. French, CMC
sfemt@aol.com
(269) 998-8075

Laserfiche:

Most clerks that responded from larger cities & townships indicated that their offices used Laserfiche. Those who responded also included very positive reviews for the product.

Mr. Ed Davis from the DSS Corporation in Southfield provided me with a very professional folder that included a DVD and printed material on Laserfiche. I understand that many other vendors in Michigan sell the Laserfiche product, including General Code Corporation.

Although the Laserfiche seems to have the highest (non-scientific) rating of my responses, their price seems to be above our budgeted line-item. Mr. Davis provided me with a quote of approximately $5,600 for a small-networked Laserfiche solution.

Overall, the software system appears to a very, very nice solution.

Mr. Bruce Rector, President of MuniMetriX provided me with some great information on ImageFlow Lite, which is the new program that replaced Clerks Index.

I received a few responses from clerks who used this program who reported very positive feedback on the product. A demo of the product can be viewed at the company's website (www.munimetrix.com)

The product is priced at $1,995 for a single-user version or $2,995 for a multi-network version.

I have used Clerk's Index before and have had very positive responses from the company. The new Image Flow Lite program is also a very nice product.