Some of them can be preserved as maps, which is a quick way of capturing and holding on to ideas about the data as research notes which are not fully worked up, but contain enough detail to remind you what you were thinking about. Another kind of research account that mapping facilitates is keeping track of a subject that you are particularly interested in. When I get comments from interviewees that particularly interest me and either confirm or contradict other opinions I start to make a map of them. I put quotes into the map and I use the memo cards to keep track of where the quotes have come from. If I find resonance in two peoples' ideas I will use connotative links.
Qualitative data is messy and so is qualitative data capture.
People do not offer you a linear account or a logical argument. They often go off at tangents and remember things halfway through a story, which they should have told you at the beginning. Sometimes they contradict themselves. With a map you can fit it all in. You can see how things relate to one another.