1. An apparatus for sorting a group of documents contained within envelopes into selected batches of documents comprising: A) a transport for conveying documents and envelopes containing documents along a selected path of movement; B) an envelope feeder for feeding envelopes containing documents onto the transport; C) an extractor positioned along the path of movement for extracting the documents from the envelopes; D) an orientation detector for determining the orientation of documents along the path of movement; E) a document orientor for selectively changing the orientation of documents along the path of movement into a desired orientation along the path of movement; F) an image acquisition device along the path of movement for acquiring images of the envelopes; and G) a system controller operable to receive the envelope images and correlate the image of a particular envelope with the documents extracted from the envelope.