OCR Handwritten Checks: Amounts, Payees and Memo Lines

OCR reads the printed parts of handwritten checks, such as the account holder's name, the bank and the check number. The parts filled in by pen, which are the date, payee, both amounts, the memo and the signature, vary with the writer's hand and the image. Plan for a person to type those from the picture.

Can OCR read a handwritten check?

OCR can read a handwritten check in part. Whatever the printer put on the check stock comes through like other print. Whatever the account holder added with a pen is handwriting squeezed onto short lines and into a small box, and no general statement tells you how your set will convert. Test before you plan.

A check written by pen is a hard handwriting sample for three reasons that have nothing to do with the software you choose.

• The fields are short. A payee is a name, and a name gives recognition no surrounding sentence to lean on. The guide to what OCR can do with handwritten notes explains why context matters to a handwriting reader.
• The writing is constrained. A writer fitting words to a printed line may shrink, slant and abbreviate them. "Seventeen hundred and no/100" squeezed before the word DOLLARS is a different sample from the same person's letter.
• The printed form sits under the ink. Rules, the dollar sign, the word "DOLLARS" and the label "MEMO" touch or cross the pen strokes.

A three-check trial

Pick three checks from the actual set: the neatest hand, an average one and the worst. Put them in one PDF and convert it. Schema Law's Free plan takes one document a day of up to three pages, and the site says recognition is strongest on clean print and weaker on handwriting, with nothing marking a passage as uncertain. Read the parsed text beside each image and count the pen fields that came out right. That count, on your checks, is the only accuracy figure worth using. The pricing page lists the page limits if the full set is larger.

If most pen fields come out wrong, stop treating the output as a draft. Use it to make the stack searchable by printed name and check number, and type the pen fields fresh.

The printed line at the bottom versus the handwritten fields above it

The line of numerals along the bottom edge of a check is machine print, and so are the name, address, bank and check number at the top. The lines in between are blanks that the writer filled by hand. The two zones behave differently in conversion and deserve different amounts of your time.

Before converting, sort each field on the check into one of two groups.

The left column gives you fixed points. Because the check number is printed, it is the safest key for tying an image to a row in a bank statement or a register. The bottom line of bank numerals has its own vocabulary and its own conversion quirks, which the section on what the MICR line is and whether OCR can read it covers in the post on scanned checks.

The right column is where the file's questions live. Who was paid, how much, when and for what are all pen entries on a personal check. That is the awkward fact about this document: the printed text converts and tells you little, and the handwriting tells you everything and has to be read.

One exception is worth looking for. A check prepared by accounting or payroll software may have a printed date, payee and amount, with only the signature by pen. Sort those out of the handwritten pile first. They need a spot check, not a full typing pass.

Numeric amount and written amount: which one do you record?

Record both the numeric amount and the written amount, each in its own column, exactly as the check shows them. Which one controls when they differ is a legal question for the lawyer on the matter. Your register's job is to show that they differ.

The Uniform Commercial Code's model text addresses the conflict. UCC section 3-114 on contradictory terms of an instrument says: "If an instrument contains contradictory terms, typewritten terms prevail over printed terms, handwritten terms prevail over both, and words prevail over numbers." That is the uniform wording. Each state enacts its own version, so the lawyer checks the statute that governs the check in the file.

On a handwritten check both amounts are pen entries, so compare them yourself. Software output will not do it for you, because either entry may have been misread.

Compare the payee name, the date, both amounts, and the signature, then read the endorsement on the back. You are transcribing a negotiable instrument, so keep both amounts when they differ. The Uniform Commercial Code is the reference for that clash. File the image with the row as documentary evidence. The check number helps authentication, and a scan note starts the chain of custody.

A worked example

A fictional check, number 0417, from Lucinda Okafor to "Brandt Roofing". The box reads 1,700.00. The words line reads "Seventeen and no/100", followed by a wavy line to the word DOLLARS. The memo says "deposit".

A register that stores one amount forces a choice between $1,700.00 and $17.00, and hides that a choice was made. A register with two amount columns stores 1,700.00 and Seventeen and no/100, and a third column, "Amounts agree?", stores No. The bank statement supplies a fourth figure, the sum that cleared. Now the reader sees the whole problem in one row.

Reading handwritten figures

Read the figure in the box digit by digit, then read the words line as a separate act, without looking back at the box. Reading them together invites you to see the number you expect. Handwritten 1 and 7, 4 and 9, and 3 and 8 are the pairs to slow down for, and the post on why OCR gets numbers wrong covers digit confusion in converted text. If you cannot settle a digit, type both candidates, as in 1,[1 / 7]00.00.

Payee, memo line and endorsement on the back of a check

The payee, the memo and the endorsement are each a few handwritten words with no sentence around them. Type them from the image, spelled as written, and record a blank or an unreadable entry as exactly that. Each one answers a different question about the payment.

Payee. Copy the name as the writer spelled it, abbreviations included. "Brandt Rfg" stays "Brandt Rfg". If your matter needs a standard name for sorting, add a second column for it and leave the as-written column alone. A payee of "Cash" is an entry, not a gap.

Memo. This line can hold whatever the writer chose to put there: an invoice number, a month of rent, a person's name, a single word. It is the only place on the check where the writer states a purpose, so a short memo can carry weight in a dispute over whether money was a gift, a wage or a repayment. Where the file also holds a signed note or IOU for the same debt, the guide to turning a handwritten contract into text covers that document.

Endorsement. The back shows who negotiated the check. A handwritten endorsement is a signature, sometimes with words such as a deposit restriction above it, and bank stamps may sit across it. Record whether a back image exists at all, what the handwritten words say, and whether you can read the name. Stamps and processing marks are covered under endorsements, bank stamps and the back of a check.

Three entries that look alike in a register should be kept apart:

• [blank] means the line is in the image and nothing is written on it.
• [illegible] means something is written and nobody on your team can read it.
• [not in image] means the scan cuts the line off or the back was never copied.

Each one sends the reader somewhere different: nowhere, back to the image with a second reader, or back to the bank for a better copy.

A check register table built from scanned handwritten checks

A check register for handwritten checks is a table with one row per check, a column for every pen field as written, and columns that say who read the image. It is built by a person. Converted text helps fill the printed columns and gives a first draft of the pen columns to correct.

A layout that separates what was printed from what was read:

Four habits keep the table honest.

1. Format the check number and the figures column as text. A spreadsheet that treats 0417 as a number drops the leading zero, and one that treats 1,[1 / 7]00.00 as a number rejects it.
2. Keep "as written" columns literal. Put any cleaned-up date or standardized payee in a separate column beside the original.
3. Send every [illegible] and every "No" under "Amounts agree?" to a second reader who has not seen the first reading.
4. Never total the figures column until every bracket in it is resolved or reported.

Where the checks have to be tied to cleared amounts, the bank's statement is the companion document, and the guide to bank statements in Excel for family law shows how to turn its transaction tables into rows. A handwritten check stub book or a paper check register kept by the account holder is a different source again: columns of handwritten figures with a running balance, which the post on taking a handwritten ledger to Excel covers.

If you draft the register from converted pages, Excel and CSV are among the export formats listed on the homepage. Every plan, including Free, includes every export format; the plans differ in how many pages you can convert. Whatever the starting point, the finished register should say in its header that pen fields were read by a person from the images, and name the images.