Records of plant acquisitions (accessions) should not be static entries. Their usefulness for individual private collectors-- probably most of the folks on this forum-- will typically not exceed the lifespan of the grower. That said, any databasing will be largely superfluous. Collating information electronically is only useful where large amounts of information need to be manipulated often and quickly. That is not the situation with any collector I know, even very busy ones. For the record (pun intended), I use college rule notebooks to enter accessions and I give a unique number to each one. These numbers come in handy for quick reference and lazy tag writing where only the number is written. These books are updated (very irregularly) with subsequent information on propagation, distributions, etc. In addition to the books I keep a simple word document inventory to make notes and stay abreast of the collection. This system keeps information readily accessible and formatting is really a non-issue. Databasing for its own sake is of little use to anyone. It is costly in time and money and there are far more glitches in the process than most realize. There is a fashion now in botanical gardens to emphasize the input and fine-tuning of data but, as Tim says, the better effort lies in acquiring plants of value and propagating and distributing them. It is not uncommon for a garden to have superior electronic command of its collections while at the same time those collections exhibit no real vitality or plantsmanship. Far more difficult than keeping records is keeping recorded information firmly connected to the correct plants. In other words, labeling. This is something of a tangent so I will offer one tip that has helped me a great deal over the years: writing the accession number at the top of the label, for convenience, and again at the bottom end of the label. The buried portion of a tag can last for a long time (10-20 years easily). I find this easier than making a separate tag to put at the bottom of the pot. Dylan Hannon