text: where do banks store negotiated checks before sending them back to their customers at the end of the month? and how do they keep so many pieces of paper sorted? the banks have two ways of storing those items.   one: the have several sites in which they process the checks depending on were you account resides (which state). in these processing sites they have designated areas to house processed checks. they are store in boxes sorted in several ways. the sorter process is done by a huge sorter machine that reads the micr line informmation in the checks. they usually sort it by account number. this same machine arrange the checks in the same order as the statements are printed.  seconde method: some banks take the digital image of the checks to clear it or process it and store them in databases to be printed with the customer statements. some of the banks that operate with digital images makes them available via internet even before statements are printed.