DEPOSITORY APPARATUS FOR ENVELOPES AND SINGLE SHEETS

A depository apparatus (10) includes a common entry slot (14) for receiving both envelopes and single sheet financial documents such as checks. A thickness sensor (58) adjacent to the entry slot (14) provides an output indicative of whether a deposit item has a thickness of at least one millimeter, which is normally indicative that the item is an envelope. A document transport (34) and divert gates (50, 52) route items having a thickness of at least one millimeter into an envelope feed path for further processing, and route items of less than this thickness into a financial document feed path for further processing. An imager (76) generates a digital image of items routed into the document feed path, this image being processed to determine if the item is a document of predetermined type. The imager (76) enables the apparatus to detect if a thin envelope has been incorrectly routed into the document feed path.