Automated mail extraction and remittance processing

An apparatus for processing documents contained in an envelope, comprising:

• a conveyor for conveying the envelope and documents along a transport path;
• an extractor operable to extract the documents from the envelope;
• a singulator operable to separate the documents from one another so that the documents are serially conveyed along a document path;
• a detector for detecting a characteristic of the extracted documents;
• and
• a sorter for sorting the extracted documents according to the detected characteristic.

A method for processing documents contained in envelopes, comprising the steps of:

• providing a plurality of envelopes containing documents in a feeder;
• serially feeding the envelopes from the feeder into a transport path;
• extracting the documents from an envelope as the envelope is conveyed along the transport path;
• detecting a characteristic of the extracted documents;
• and sorting the extracted documents in response to the detected characteristic.