First off, we'll show you where the software settings are so you can configure them to meet your needs. To do this, select the ti ti-settings icon located on the bottom right of the check scanner window. You can always come back to this page to make any adjustments at any time.

Capture Amount on Scan

Before we dive too deep into the settings, we want to highlight one setting in particular. As noted below, you have the option to Capture Amount on Scan while scanning checks. When this is enabled the scanning process will pause after each check so you can type in the amount of the check. This saves you from having to go into Rock later and add the amount for each check as part of a separate step. Simply read the amount of the check from the scanned image, and add that amount to the appropriate account(s) listed on the screen in the Check Scanner app.

The list of accounts that you can add amounts to is configurable when you turn on Capture Amount on Scan in the configuration area pictured below. From this configuration screen, check the box next to any accounts that you want available during the scanning process. Selecting multiple accounts also allows you to split a single check into different accounts if needed.

Sensitivity and Plurality

For the most part you shouldn’t need to adjust these settings. However, if you’re running into problems reading checks, changing the Sensitivity and Plurality values might help.

Scores

To understand how sensitivity and plurality work, you need to know about scores. When the scanner reads a character, that character is assigned a score. The score is based on how confident the scanner is that it read the character correctly.

For instance, let’s say the number “3” is being read on the check. We know it’s the number “3” but the check scanner thinks it could also be an “8” because those numbers have similar shapes. The scanner will assign a score to both “3” and “8” based on how confident it is about which number is being read. In this example, we’ll say “3” is assigned a score of 240 and “8” is assigned a score of 130. These scores indicate the scanner is more confident about “3” than “8”.

Sensitivity

The Sensitivity setting is like a cutoff, or threshold, for the scores described above. By default, the sensitivity is set to 128. So, if the score for a character is below 128, that character is rejected as incorrect. You can raise or lower the sensitivity to accept or reject different confidence scores. Any value between 1 and 255 can be chosen.

In the example described above, the numbers “3” and “8” were assigned scores of 240 and 130, respectively. Because the default sensitivity value is 128, and because both scores are above 128, both are potentially correct. If we increased the sensitivity to 138, the score for “8” would be too low and the scanner will select “3” as the correct character being read.

Plurality

Let’s say the numbers “3” and “8” are assigned scores of 130 and 125, respectively. In this case, with a default Sensitivity setting of 128, the number “3” is favored because its score is higher than 128. But the scanner is almost equally confident about both numbers, so there’s a risk it could pick “3” when the true character is actually “8”.

To account for this scenario, the Plurality setting looks at the difference between scores. This lets you set how different the scores should be before deciding on the correct character. By default, the plurality value is set to 128. This means the difference between scores must be at least 128. In this example, the difference between scores of 130 and 125 is only 5, which falls below the plurality threshold. In that case, the scores aren’t different enough to know for sure which one is correct, and neither is chosen.

Working with Sensitivity and Plurality

Now let’s bring it all together. We’ll circle back to the original example, with the character “3” assigned a score of 240 and the character “8” assigned a score of 130. To start, we’ll assume default (blank) values of 128 for both Sensitivity and Plurality settings.

Keeping in mind what you now know about these settings, we can already tell that neither “3” nor “8” will be selected. Even though both scores meet the sensitivity threshold, the difference between them is only 110, which does not meet the plurality threshold of 128. The scores are too close together to be sure which one is correct. Lowering the Plurality setting to 100 would resolve this, and “3” would be returned as the correct character.

Both thresholds must be met for a character to be returned. If the Sensitivity setting is changed to 255, and the Plurality setting is changed to 100, then no character will be returned in this example. Even though the plurality threshold has been met, neither of the scores are high enough to meet the sensitivity threshold of 255.

Troubleshooting

When the scanner can’t determine a character, it will return the “@” symbol. If you’re seeing lots of “@” symbols in your scans, adjusting the Sensitivity and Plurality might help.

Finding the right settings can be a bit of a challenge because, unlike the examples we’ve discussed above, you won’t know what the scores are. The scores are assigned and evaluated behind the scenes. So, you might need to run a few tests with different settings to see what works best.

We recommend changing in increments of 10 as a general guideline. Given default values of 128, you might change the Sensitivity to 138 and the Plurality to 118. If that doesn’t work, you might try keeping the Sensitivity at 128 but lowering the Plurality to 118. When you make these changes, be sure to test with several different checks. The key is to find the right balance that gets you the most consistently accurate results.