Scan Station

Tellerscan 400: Check It Out

By Penny Lunt

Would you like to deposit your checks the day you get them? Would you like your bank to make your checks available sooner? Banks and other businesses of all types are looking into remote check scanning. In an accounting department, checks are scanned and sent to the bank the day they arrive. Accounting staff can record and balance the checks later, at their convenience, using the check images. So you get maximum use of your money while easing deadline pressure on the accounting staff.

At a bank, checks are captured remotely at the teller station (or in a central place in each branch). The check image is sent immediately to the check processing center for balancing. Check encoding takes place when the physical check arrives. In the meanwhile, processing work has taken place during the day rather than all at once at the end of the day. You even out workloads and provide a valuable service to customers, who can deposit checks later and make their money available sooner. You can advertise the service to attract customers or charge extra for it.

The two things you’re most likely to want in a check scanner for tellers are speed and accuracy. Speed because you don’t want to waste a teller’s or accounting staff person’s time and you don’t want to keep customers waiting in line. Accuracy because getting the MICR line and courtesy and legal amounts correct is rather important.

The TellerScan 400 from Digital Check (www.digitalcheck.com) performs well on both fronts. (The device is also resold by Bell & Howell as the Ivory System.) Its rated speed is 90 pages per minute. It exceeded that and reached 92-95 ppm in tests at 200x100 dpi resolution (you can’t view each check as you scan in this fast mode). At 200x200 dpi, the speed is about 63-64 pages per minute. You can stack more than 100 pages in the feeder at a time. The software rotates the images as you scan and writes them to the screen.

Spot checks of the MICR line capture feature on this scanner showed it to be accurate. The scanner automatically captures and reads US standard microfilm lines (E13B) and European standard microfilm (CMC7). On-board OCR provides a second read of the MICR line and lifts the accuracy rate about 2%. The MICR line read head is 9 mm high, which is larger than most, according to Digital Check. That allows for differences in the way checks are printed. “Probably 90% of all checks are not printed to spec,” says Philip Barboni, president of Image Capture Solutions, manufacturer of this scanner.

The image quality for the rest of the check seems normal for check scanners. When you scan in grayscale mode (about 55 ppm), you get beautiful, detailed images including stamps and notations. In bitonal mode, at 200 dpi, you can read the important check information (payee name, amount, signature, etc.) and some of the background and stamps.

The TellerScan 400 handles paper well, only jamming when I fed it paper that was thicker than the scanner was calibrated for. It processed crumpled paper fine. The bottom feeder provides mechanical deskew. An independent high-speed feeder roller strips checks off of stacks reliably and grabs the next check while the current check is being scanned.

The doublefeed detection feature on this scanner, which measures light passed through the document, worked well but did slow the scanner down on mixed documents. The inner workings of the scanner are made of steel which the outside is an anti-static plastic mold, a combination meant to ensure durability and minimal jams.

Digital Check provides an API that controls the functions of the scanner. A developer needs to integrate this API with whatever software you’re using. This scanner can also be used for exception scanning. It can be daisy chained to run two scanners off one computer, if PCs are hard to come by. Firmware upgrades take place quickly via flash EEPROM.

There are two options available with this scanner. One is a second pocket that lets you sort your paper into two batches (e.g. exception items and acceptable items). Another option is an ink-jet endorser the prints endorsement information, logos, dates and sequential numbers.