AML case management software — recommendations for mid-size firms?

We've outgrown our SharePoint-based AML case management setup and are evaluating dedicated tools. We're a mid-size bank, around 400 SARs per year, team of 8 investigators.

Looking at several AML case management software options but the market is confusing. Some are standalone case management, some are full AML suites with transaction monitoring built in.

For others who've evaluated AML case management systems recently:

• Standalone vs suite — which approach worked better for you?
• What features turned out to be must-haves that you didn't expect?
• Any vendors you'd actively avoid?

Not asking for specific vendor names necessarily, just patterns and lessons learned.

We went through this evaluation about a year ago. A few lessons:

Standalone vs suite: We chose standalone AML case management software because we already had a transaction monitoring system we were happy with. Ripping that out to get bundled case management wasn't worth the disruption. The integration between the two systems was straightforward via API.

Unexpected must-haves:

• SAR auto-population (the system fills in the FinCEN SAR form from case data — saves hours per filing)
• Network visualization (seeing connections between subjects visually)
• Workflow customization without needing the vendor's professional services team

What to avoid: Any AML case management solution that requires you to change your workflow to match the tool rather than configuring the tool to match your workflow. We demo'd one platform that was incredibly rigid — every case had to follow their predefined stages regardless of whether they made sense for our process.

At your volume (400 SARs/year, 8 analysts), you're in a sweet spot where several mid-market tools would work well without enterprise pricing.

The one feature I'd push hard for: audit trail on everything. Every note, every status change, every reassignment should be timestamped and attributed. Our examiners specifically asked to see the full case history for a sample of SARs during our last exam. If your AML case management system doesn't capture this automatically, you'll be reconstructing timelines from email threads and that's miserable.