1. An automated document processing machine comprising: an electro-mechanical transport configured to convey a document through the processing machine; a camera arranged adjacent the transport and configured to capture an image of a front side of the document; a fingerprinting software component configured to process the captured image of the document to create a digital fingerprint of the document based on indicia appearing in the captured image; and a software interface configured to store the digital fingerprint in a database comprising a plurality of fingerprints associated with a plurality of documents, wherein the digital fingerprint identifies the document as being unique among the plurality of documents, and wherein the database relates the digital fingerprint to a destination address code for sorting the document.