The simplest solution I've always found for attaching documents to a database is to create a share on a server for storing the documents, and then have a field in the database which has a data type of 'hyperlink'. I advise users to save their documents in the share and then write some code which allows them to easily create a link to the document against the relevant record, using a standard Windows file dialog. Subsequent users coming to that record need only to click on the link to open the 'attached' document.
It's not especially sophisticated but it does work well and it's simple. The database doesn't grow in size because of documents being embedded (if that's even possible) and it's easy for an administrator to keep an eye on the attachments because they're just files in a shared folder.
