Patent ID: 6845366

Claim:
A check data extractor apparatus for a financial institution to populate a data warehouse which can be queried by the financial institution to provide business-related information for use by the financial institution, the check data extractor apparatus comprising: means for receiving check image data which is representative of an image of a check having a payee field; means for processing the check image data to determine location of the payee field of the check; a recognition engine for recognizing text contained in the payee field of the check to establish a payee name in the payee field of the check; means for storing a name reference list which contains a plurality of names for comparison with the payee name in the payee field of the check and which reference list names are defined by the financial institution based upon a potential interest of the financial institution in the particular reference list names; means for selectively changing each of the plurality of names contained in the reference list by the financial institution when the financial institution chooses without any input from payees; means for comparing the payee name in the payee field of the check with names in the reference list to determine if the payee name in the payee field of the check matches a name in the reference list; and means for storing the payee name associated with the check in the data warehouse to populate the data warehouse when the payee name in the payee field of the check matches a name in the reference list.